Meaningful

Chapter One

"I was writing,

Thinking with my long hand.

Put pen to paper,

Everything was sinking.

Then you start to wonder,

how you gonna handle me?

When I'm under,

swimming in the dark sea."

ONEREPUBLIC- MADE FOR YOU 

Every writer hopes to write something that others will enjoy. Something that could change the way they think, or maybe even possibly change their lives.

That's what I want.  I want to write something so powerful and meaningful, that it will bring that longed for change into the world.  I want to write something sad and tragic, yet happy and inspiring.

So why is that so hard to do?  If you want something as badly as I want my writing to mean something, then you should be able to achieve it without any problems.  My theory isn't working so well right now.

I throw another wad of paper into the open trash can next to the kitchen refrigerator.  Sitting hunched over the marble bar, I vigorously start to write again.  I know what I want to get out on the paper, but it just won't come out.  Not in the right way at least.  I scratch out a line I just wrote.  My brows are furrowed and I am beginning to get frustrated.  

It's always been this way.  My mom was a writer, my dad is a writer, and I seemed to inherit the uncanny passion to write from them.  The only difference is while their words flow out of their minds and down onto the paper effortlessly, mine like to stay lodged in my subconscious.  

All I'm trying to write is a short story about this little girl who was abducted, and after ten years, she finally finds her real family.  Why is that so hard to write about?  I wad this paper and try to throw into the trash can too, but I miss and it lands on the tile floor along with about ten other wads.  About this time mom would have been making me hot chocolate and telling me that it's okay to have some kind of writer's block.  She used to say some of the best works of literature were the product of a blocked writer.  I can't bring myself to imagine William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, or any other famous authors/poets becoming blocked.

It's all so frustrating!  Everything was easier to write about when she was here.  Mom was an inspiration to me.  She was always there to give me new ideas or points of view.  Ever since she died a year ago, I haven't been able to formulate any kind of story, not even homework assignments.  I used to be one of the best writers in my class, in my school for that matter.  Now I can barely come up with an opening line for a research paper, and those are the easiest things to write.  All you have to do is look up information about a specific topic, and write about it!

I look down at my paper with only three eligible lines on it.  It's been have way filled with scribbles and crossed out words.  I make an unintellectual sound, and throw my pin at the window in front of the sink.  I dodn't even care when I hear the plop of it falling into the soapy water left from soaking last nights dishes of burnt macaroni and chicken.  I move my crumbling notebook aside on the counter-top of the bar, and lay my face down on it's cool surface.  My bowl of cereal, which I've barely touched, sits sad and lonely on the counter next to the microwave where I left it.  I had been trying to eat and write at the same time, but then I became engrossed in my new plot idea.  I had sat the bowl down, and forgot about it as I landed on the bar stool to pen down some thoughts.  Thoughts that eventually disappeared, leaving me with nothing.

I glance at the built in clock on the stove.  I still had ten minutes until I had to leave, and meet both Erica and Johnny at Wilk's.  I close my eyes and try to block out every little thing.  I try to block out the words that swirl around in my head but refuse to come out.  I try to block out the growling of my unfed stomach.  I even try to block out the sound of my dad's bedroom door opening, and the creaking of the wooden steps as he walks down the stairway and into the kitchen.