Taking a deep breath, I pull my hair into a high ponytail. I am undoubtedly grateful for it to be off my sweat-slicked neck and out of my face, and so I rub my hands on the skin that had been previously covered by pesky strands of hair. Relishing in the feeling of air filling my pores, I undoubtedly spread acne-causing bacteria with my hands.

Guess that means it’s time for face cleanser!

Getting up from the seat at my desk, I skip to the bathroom, grateful for an excuse to be moving again. I run my hands under the faucet and splash some water onto my face. Repeating the process, I do the same for my neck, hoping that the mix of sweat and cold water will provide some relief from the heat. I then grab the all-too-familiar blue and teal bottle after rummaging through the cabinets. As I squirt some of the white cleanser into my hand, the bottle makes an unladylike farting noise, notifying me of its impending emptiness. Mentally adding “buy more cleanser” to my ever-growing list of things to do, I lather it in my hands and spread it over my face, relishing in the cool tingling that lets me know it’s working.

Waiting for a few minutes to pass before removing it, I stare at my reflection in the mirror.

“No, Becca! Crap! C’mon! You know better!” I say, scolding myself.

Grabbing a towel, I hurriedly wash my face and scurry back to my desk.

“Ok, Becca. You can do this.”

Staring at the blinking line on my blank Word document I know for sure that I cannot do this. I’ve been at it for days and I still can’t think of a story. Blink. Blink. Blink. It’s like it’s mocking me. Thanks a lot Bill Gates.

“Maybe using a pen and paper will work better,” I think to myself.



2
Grabbing a pad and a chewed up Bank of America pen from my bottom desk drawer, it only takes a split second for me to start laughing at myself and toss them back. Who am I kidding? I can’t write a story with a pen and paper. This isn’t 1901.

I face my computer once again and stare into the endless white abyss.

“Ooh! Maybe some music will help!”

I open up a tab for Pandora Radio and quickly run out of skips, as Pandora seems to be picking all the wrong songs today. I try using my iTunes library, but I like to reserve it for car rides only, and so the change in atmosphere is giving me unnecessary anxiety. Thankfully, I remember that my 10th grade English teacher told us that listening to Mozart increased your IQ and helps you do better on tests, so thinking it will help me write a story, I go to YouTube and click on “TWO HOURS of Mozart for Babies – Bedtime Sleeping Music – Lullaby.” Instantly feeling posh and cultured (and mildly infantile) I switch my ponytail to a bun, straighten my posture, and set my fingers at the ready.

But I soon give up, scrap the Mozart, and revert to my natural slouch.

By this time all the musical variety has given me a headache so I run downstairs for some pain relievers and spend roughly seven minutes deciding between Tylenol and ibuprofen, the latter of which wins due to its superior-sounding name. I decide to test out my Grandmother’s recent theory that I had grown another three inches and stretch on my tippy toes, trying to grab a glass from the top shelf. She was optimistic but wrong, though, so I settle for a glass on a lower shelf. Walking to the fridge, I press “cube” and somehow find a way to get more ice on the floor than in the cup. Checking to see if the coast is clear, I kick the ice under my fridge with my socked foot and quickly fill my glass with water. I only need about half


3
a sip to help me swallow the pills, but I am not about to waste the rest of a perfectly good glass of water. And so I drink it as I look out my kitchen window and admire the siding of my neighbor’s house, for what else do I possibly have to do?

Returning to my room fully hydrated, I check my watch, and at this point it’s time for a round of quick social media checks; after all, something drastic could have taken place in the last 20 minutes. I open up Facebook and Twitter, and before I know it, a quick check has become 45 minutes, and all I have to show for it is that I now know my best friend’s lab partner’s cousin’s boyfriend spent February break in Tahiti.

COME ON BECCA! PULL IT TOGETHER!

Shutting down my WiFi to prevent further distractions, I once again come face to face with my blank Word document. I lightly tap my fingers over the keys, hoping that the movement will prompt some profound epiphany.

Suddenly I have an idea to end all ideas! Quickly reconnecting my WiFi (and checking Twitter, because no idea is so great that it trumps Twitter), I Google “short story ideas.” Pressing “I’m Feeling Lucky,” though I should be feeling anything but that at this point, I am directed to “The Story Starter.” Boasting an impressive resume of over 169,069,556,880 story starters generated, I decide to give it a whirl.

Before I can think of something urgent that needs to be done, like cleaning out the bin in my basement that’s filled with all my school work since the first grade, I click on the Story Starter button.

I had been expecting something life-altering, but now I’m just confused.



4

“The exhausted accountant smiled at the guard in the scorching desert in March to dispel the rumor.”

Was that even a sentence? Thinking it must be a glitch, I press the button again.

“The gentle cobbler wrote a play in the foggy block in October to corner the monster.”

When the next one is “The friendly social media expert carved a turkey in the heliport during the heatwave to visit a nephew,” I’m sure that someone is pranking me.

I soon give up on this Ponzi Scheme. And then decide it is my civic duty to know what a Ponzi Scheme is, and so I return to my friend Google. Needless to say, it turns out The Story Starter was not a Ponzi Scheme, and now I need more ibuprofen.

How can I have no ideas? Is there really nothing but air and dead ends in between my ears? Feeling utterly lost as I stare at my blank screen for the umpteenth time, I look around my room. My eyes land on a familiar sight: my book collection. A smile tugs at the corner of my lips as I take a deep breath, hoping to absorb some of the genius hidden amongst those pages. I crave their tired, their poor, their huddled masses yearning to breathe free, hoping that something will rub off on me and spark a thought fire.

I look at My Sister’s Keeper and pull my tattered copy from the shelf. I flip through its pages as that old book smell releases into the air, doing more good than any ibuprofen did. How did Jodi Picoult find 448 perfect pages of a test-tube baby born as a life line for her dying sister, meanwhile I can only come up with about two [incomplete] sentences for my story about a teacher that refused to speak in complete sentences?

5
Visiting WikiHow, I search ways to overcome writer’s block. Tip number 2 is “Write about anything. Anything in the world - even write about pineapples. It gets your brain to think more and be creative.”

“Ok, I think. Here goes nothing.”
Ode to Pineapples
Perfectly yellow, your fibers
Immediately sting my tongue, but
Not for long.
Eventually the acidity subsides and your sweetness conquers.
A symbol of welcome, your prickly exterior suggests you are anything but.
Past memories of my 6th grade history teacher are
Pulled to the forefront of my mind, for she was a “cool new teacher,” and
Liked pineapples – never a cliché Granny Smith.

Enigma-like in every way, you have a story of your own.

Well that was terrible. Oh well. Ok! Here we go! Where’s the creativity? Million Dollar Idea, come out come out, wherever you are!
Grabbing a flashlight, I search the dark corners of my mind, hoping to find a glint of something that’s retreated into a crevice. All I find is cobwebs and emptiness, and the random idea that appears gets quickly tossed aside, for I can find no other pieces to attach to it.
Scolding myself, I decide to quit the search in my mind and look in my heart, but I meet no help there.

Why can’t I write one simple story? Where did all my creative juice go?

6
Repeating those questions over and over, the evasive façade that my heart was putting up soon melts away and clues my mind in to what’s been holding me back.

Fear.

It’s fear. Paralyzing, crippling fear. The fear that my writing won’t be “good enough.” That it won’t be deep enough or reach enough people. That English teachers everywhere will shudder at my lack of sentence structure variety. It is fear that has put my mind in shackles and kept me from writing. And so as I walk away once more from a blank computer screen, I know that I have once again let the fear of imperfection keep me from taking that first step.