What does a writer do when he doesn't want to write about it? What does a thinker do when thinking comes so hard. What does a doer do when yearning to do a thing has long since left him? You do stuff, you think stuff, and then you write it down.
Is it a lack of courage to face those words as they appear across the computer screen? Or can I blame it on depression and take another nap. Those nagging words that strain against my fingertips, they taunt me. They will not rest until my fingers touch those black and lettered keys while thoughts escape the prison of my dark subconscious mind.
I have a story that warrants telling; but none, save me, can tell it. It happened while others were distracted by the pains and pleasures of the lives they chose to live. It is a little story about an unimportant man who made a bad decision but somehow lived to see another day. And so I write in fits and starts, in bits and pieces, tiny slices. I read and read and read again those words that have escaped the cell door I flung open. I must be sure those words reflect what really happened, what I really did, and not some delusion from the lies I told myself before these honest fingers found the courage to touch those black and lettered keys.
And so I ponder fanciful things worthy of procrastination until my to-be-written words lose their patience and force these fingers toward those keys. The pressure to spill my wretched beans is in constant battle with my need to seem normal, to keep my secrets, to protect my illness as though it were a precious secret lover who might cause me shame if she were known by all. This is a fate I'd wish upon no one, but it is mine. And I shall deal with it.
For I am a writer. I will overcome my fears and my embarrassment. I will find the energy I need to think it through. I will sit down at this desk, place these fingers near those black and lettered keys and do that thing I live my life to do.