Author's Note: I'll start off with an apology and a quick notice . . . If you haven't been following "Fallen" and the subsequent "Dragonfly", you can skip this paragraph and go on to the next one, where, I promise, the article starts. I'd just like to let you know that, for a while - maybe forever - I'm going to stop writing "Dragonfly". The inspiration, that spark I felt at first just isn't there anymore and it's pointless to make you read something that I don't like writing. I'm sorry for any broken hearts out there!
I'm sitting here in my room, the window open, the fan on, trying to write an article. I've been in a bit of a slump lately - my novel remains unedited, the unfinished stories are beginning to pile up on my desktop, and the notebook which I once wrote in religiously before I fell asleep no longer bears the smudges and marks of a tired teenage mind. I tried to write, I really did but it just didn't flow anymore. Not until Wednesday, when the floodgates opened and it began to rain.
I've always loved the atmosphere before a big storm. The washed out sky, the hyper-green leaves, the angrily twittering (140 characters or less!) birds, the absolute calm laced with just the slightest menacing edge. It had been raining for the last couple of days, but nothing like this. A huge storm was blowing in. It was a slow storm; not many places would be hit by it, but those that were would be hit hard.
It's raining, and my floor's all wet, as is my pillow case. But that's not important.
What is important is that I can do it again. I can write.
Earlier today I was ready to give up. I wanted to give it one last effort. I clicked into the Internet, carefully selected an iTunes playlist and cranked up the volume to Kate Voegele's "Hallelujah."
I sat back, banged my head once against the pretty purple walls of my bedroom and waited.
Nothing. Absolute, utter nothingness. The words that usually jostled for dominance in my mind were gone.
I waited as Kate powered through the first chorus.
And then I started crying.
Yeah, I know, pathetic. I was upset. Writing was always easy for me; I didn't have to search for the words, they ordered themselves and begged to be written. And it was what I had for when I was upset, when I needed someone to talk to. Was I never going to be able to do it again? Was this world, this thing I'd kept carefully inside me, gone?
I started to cry harder. I suppose this had been building up for a while. Lots of stuff was going on, and most of it was stuff I couldn't handle. My friend was sick, my other friend had made some very bad choices that she was now paying for, two people that were so important to me were gone for extended periods of time, my dad was probably going to lose his job and was angry all the time . . . The list just kept going on and on and on, marching from my eyes like little liquid soldiers.
I cried for about ten minutes. It felt like longer . . . It often does. A minor blip on the radar. A fluke.
I realized that about two minutes into my jag, it had started raining. The drops kissed my window and thrummed on the roof like a living heartbeat, like a friend. I opened the window and popped out the screen. The rain was falling more softly than it had been just a moment ago and it swerved inside, soaking my carped and my clothes, washing away what was left of the tears in my eyes.
In that moment, I'm sure I felt some kind of connection. I'm not going to drop the G-word, but I felt like somewhere, something was watching over me. Comforting me.
I replaced the screen and closed the window, feeling very peaceful. I know that sounds odd or cliche, but that's the only word I can think of that would embody that feeling. Like, I knew I had problems, but, for the moment, they weren't so huge.
As I sopped up the wet floor with some towels, I felt it. The spark, inside my mind, tingling down my arms into my fingers. Abandoning the wet floor (there really wasn't much more I could do anyways; the towels were in place with the heavy books on top of them as well as a portable fan to attempt to get it dry before anyone noticed), I flipped open my computer and started to type. I welcomed the familiar jostle of ideas as they clambered for a position on the page. The pain in my fingers has never felt so good as it did then. The characters that had remained silent began to exercise their voices again, and all I could do was smile. A few more tears escaped my eyes, but these were cleansing and brushed away with confident fingers.
I'm back, baby, I'm finally back.
I love it when it rains, I really do.
This is sims2girl, off to edit like a monkey on caffeine.
*Ooh ooh ahhh ahhh!*
