N A S C E N C E

Muse

This is a contest entry for ChickLit 's weekly contest prompts: #ChickLitMuse -

• Winning entry! ❤️

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It was pouring outside, as people gathered on the busy city's streets.

Men, women, children, all huddled close together, crossing the same street but each walking an all different path to each of their individual lives. Ironic, isn't it?

Meanwhile, I was situated in my personal comfort zone, in the corner of my favourite makeshift bed, rocking equally thrifty clothes with a secondhand laptop resting on my lap. Along with a grimy pizza box and some donuts here and there. Ah! The sweet joys of womanhood. Just the way I'd expected it to be, absolutely brilliant. At least the food was.

And if you ask the reason as to how I ended up in this lavish state, let's just say it was an unkempt, aimless craze of something, neither I nor anybody else who knows me, would've expected.
This fervour came to me in the form of expression. Expression of thought; feeling; passion, all through my most appraised and approved methodology: writing.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that I'm one of those prodigies that were born singing stanzas versed by foreign artistes by the time they were potty-trained, oh no. In fact, it'd be a miracle if I ever got myself infested in literatures of any sort. Especially the good ones.

Therefore, being especially gifted at school, writing seemed to be the only valid commodity that I was capable of. Which brings me to my current rosy circumstances that come with being said gifted writer that I just had to get a taste of, except it had to be right at the start of my writing career.

That unnerving, fearsome nightmare that every writer either dreads with all their might or thrives in if they're into that sport; the spine-chilling, hair-raising, writer's block.

Back in the days when my ignorance was at its peak, I believed that the writer's block occurred to those who had psychological issues where you run out of socially and morally acceptable ideas to write a word about anything.

Either that, or the fact that your mind's creativity reserves are obstructed by gargantuan walls and multiple hurdles to make sure your nuttiness shines through beautifully.

The thought of thinking of that alone made me cringe. How can anyone think of something so serious in such a trivial manner?

Mum told me to stand optimistic at all costs. Even when you're the one criticising your miserable self ?

Thinking back on my words, I studied the blank, greasy screen of the laptop steadily fixated on my lap.

I wrote the words 'Chapter 1' for the fifth time on the porcelain sheet before me, awaiting my words to do their magic on the grease infested screen of my laptop.

The moment I started writing, I'd think up an excuse to replace each word with something more presumably 'fitting', only to be replaced again. And this was only the bloody title of the very first chapter of a new novel that I'd been working on for a while now, because of my dreaded case of writer's block. The prequel did better than I expected, for a shabbily written chick-lit short which proved to be relatable for worn out, single women with alcoholic tendencies living in their mum's rented basement, struggling to make a living by doing what they loved.