Sunday, January 17, 2016

Struggling to Write

Once again I find that I am struggling to put words onto a page. For a writer, this is painful, even a little devastating. For a while, I haven't even been able to come up with ideas for projects to begin, nor have I been able to finish some of the projects that have been in limbo for a time. I know that I have talked about this writer's block on here before, and I thought that it was just writing overload from school. Maybe I just wrote so many stories for class that my mind needed to take a break. But here I am, long since graduated, and I haven't really written anything since. 
I started reading again, although not near as much as I used to. This helped a little. It was a part of my life that I put aside when I was in school, and a part of me that I didn't realize I missed until I started again. While reading helped made me WANT to write again, and gave me a little boost, I still couldn't seem to get completely inspired. I found myself wondering, "What happened to me, that I can't do the one thing I loved so much? The one thing that drove me to be thousands in debt, just so I could learn a few more techniques and get a little more experience?" I sit sometimes just staring at the computer, thinking, "I really should write something, but I just don't know what." Inspiration had apparently died forever.
That brings me to the current time. For Christmas I got a PS4 from my mother. A little background information about me--I used to be an avid gamer. I loved role playing games like Final Fantasy, shooters like Gears of War, and hack and slash like Devil May Cry. The one thing these games (the ones I loved the most) had in common were their diverse and expanded story lines. Even Gears of War has an extensive world and story that drew me in. I stopped playing games, almost hated them really, because of my terrible, emotionally abusive ex. He was so into video games that to even suggest a different activity resulted in insults and ridicule. I stopped playing because he made me hate something I once loved. I decided that I was going to rediscover this love, because it used to make me so happy.
Thus, I started playing the game Dragon Age: Inquisition. I'd played the original game, loved it, and missed the second. I was determined to sit down and just enjoy the activity I had long avoided. And enjoy I did. I was (and still am) quite obsessed. I play for hours, losing myself in the story line, side quests, and characters. It's design is so beautiful and world so interesting that I find myself hooked. And there has been an unintended side effect. I have found myself inspired again! While I haven't completely started writing long pages of story, I have started jotting down ideas, such as whole paragraphs or dialogue that I need in the story. I am developing a few story ideas piece by piece, like a puzzle. This is the most excited I've been about writing and ideas in a few years. I didn't realize that maybe my inspiration was tied to more than just a love of reading. Maybe I need to rediscover all the little bits of myself that died a while back, breathe new air into them, and feed them so that they will grow. Maybe I have started to find my way back to being a writer again.