I have never had the finesse to put my imagination into words. For as long as I have tried, and failed, to illustrate my emotion into the printed word, I have been held back by the overbearing, smothering, thieving beast that is writer’s block. Words dance on my finger tips and play on my mind like tiny warriors ready to beat and bless the world with their wisdom. I feel the waves of inspiration crashing through the dam of my shyness ready to come into to the world and then, the hideous face of writer’s block rears its ugly maw. Its emotionless eyes gleam, and in a flash of evil it swallows my beautiful ideas and I am left right where it found me, in a chair in my language arts class.



The blackboard stares at me and although it does not change, I do. Beyond the sullen black wall behind which I know there is nothing but the empty hall, I see so much: proud ponies prance practically parading pompous princes; graceful girls gladly glance glamorously their way. I smile knowing none of it is real. Then through thick jungles I watch as soldiers march like pawns in a much larger chess game unaware while cheetahs stalk them through the grass just an instant from striking. Meadows bloom with flowers whose nectar attracts butterflies and hummingbirds that sing with a melody only I can hear. My peers have no clue that I am watching movies play out on a chalkboard. To them it is as normal as everything else is in this prison of a classroom that incarcerates us all.


Words spill from the mouth of a teacher who has used them too many times. A shadowy figure advances steadily from the world of my dreams. Through billowing grass, frigid snow, towering trees, and parched desert alike, the long legs carry the terrible giant that steals away every tendril of creativity that seeps from the interior of my mind. Although my body does not move, my mind runs away basking in the ecstasy of the illusions that take me from the real place and the true time that threatens to swallow me in despair because I waste so much of my life in a classroom. With great effort of will, I bring myself back and look down at the blank sheet in front of me that holds nothing other than potential.

“Are you going to write anything today?” asks my teacher with an expression that shows he does not care if I do or not.

Looking down at the paper and feeling the grip of my pencil in my hand urging my fingers forward toward the destiny that I knew I must have, I glance up and say, “Yes sir. I will start right away. How does ‘The cat meowed loudly’ sound?”

Writer’s block is the difference between those who write great works of literature and those who think it. Fear, an unforgiving emotion, crushes those who let it. So, putting pencil to paper and dreams to reality I begin the story that I would never like, in the class I would never need, and smile because although writer’s block stopped me that day I know there is so much more to me than that.