For the first time, possibly in all the years I’ve been alive, I couldn’t create a new fiction story. It sounds like such a minor thing to be worried about, and it is, but my imagination has been one of the few things to keep me going. Especially during this year.
“But Jade, you’ve been posting about apartment hunting.” Which is nonfiction, not fiction. “Jade, you just need a break,” is probably what you’re also saying. Funny thing about that. I’ve been incorporating month-long to a month and half breaks for a while now to avoid burnout. I took a break near the beginning of June and thought I’d be back in writing form by July 1st.
Then a week went by the deadline.
Then another.
And another.
Next thing I know, it’s August.
I go to bed and stories of magic and adventure, old and new, don’t appear in my mind to lull me to sleep. Just static. Nothingness. And that alarms me.
I’m the same person who was inspired by the Back to the Future ride at Universal Studios and created a playground game in the first grade from it (in which an agency of time travelers fought evil and protected the timeline), co-wrote a high school play, and self-published my first novel. Now? Not sure. My imagination just…poofed! Dried up like a puddle in an Alabama summer.
Is it because of my nearly non-existent sleep schedule, which has been terrible for the last two years and made worse by the fear of COVID?
Is it because systemic racism and every other -ism has been heavier on my mind in the last five months than it has been in the last ten years?
Is it because I’m stressed out?
…Or is it because I’m growing up?
If I ever get out of this slump, I’ll let you know.