A Simple Exercise
by Burraku_Pansa
The first words are always hard. Hard enough, oftentimes, that one might tell oneself that it’s the hardest part. An easy enough thing to say, when faced with nothing but a blank page, but then again, most things are easy to say. It’s a simple matter to think a thought, and almost as simple to express it verbally, but to write it down? To set in ink? To attach your reputation to it as it becomes tangible and nigh permanent? That can be difficult.
“Mom should’ve named me Writer’s Block...”
A lavender unicorn sits at a writing desk. Shoulders slumped, she stares past the quill hovering before her, observing, quite dejectedly, a blank piece of parchment. An inkwell, filled nearly to the brim, rests beside it on the desk, surrounded by minuscule splotches of the dark liquid, some of which are beginning to stain the wood beneath. The unicorn dips her quill once again into the small ceramic container, as though going through the motions would finally spur her on to touch the utensil to the page.
Moments pass. The quill, already having been thoroughly coated before this most recent dunking, drips yet another splash of ink onto the desk. The parchment remains pristine and bare.
“Darn it...” the mare grumbles. “Why the hay is this so tough?” She thinks back to her days at the Canterlot School for Gifted Unicorns, but fails to recall ever having this much trouble beginning a piece of writing. No, she could develop and start working from a thesis faster than most of the other students could even choose a topic. Why, then, was she having so much trouble now?
‘Maybe that’s the problem,’ she thinks. ‘I’ve always written papers or letters, but outside of that one creative writing seminar, I haven’t tried my hoof at fiction before...’
The seminar in question had been a requirement, she remembers, and beyond putting forth what was necessary to be done with it and move on to her physical and arcane sciences courses, she hadn’t given much effort. Now, though, she struggled desperately to recollect the sorts of things a pony with writer’s block was supposed to do to rid herself of it. Writing exercises had been almost a daily occurrence to get the proverbial juices flowing, yet it seems she can barely conjure into her memory any of the specific topics...
“Aha!” she exclaims suddenly, having summoned one such topic to mind. “A three-hundred word description of the room I’m in...”
The unicorn raises her head and surveys her residence. A roughly circular room, the area smells strongly of the wood that it is composed of, or perhaps more aptly, is carved into. A multitude of shelves holds a veritable army of books, bindings nearly every color imaginable. And if tomes aren’t organized neatly along these shelves, then they are strewn haphazardly along lecterns or tabletops fashioned from the stumps of trees far smaller than that which forms this library.
Candles primarily light the room, though they are giving way to the slowly-brightening shafts of light that pour more and more noticeably in through the building’s windows. One beam of light currently falls upon a large, rather intricate wooden bust that rests on the room’s central table. This carving has an interestingly-styled mane; it is more a mohawk than anything else. This leads one to wonder whether it is a pony at all, and not a zebra, whose culture might more readily adopt such an appearance.
In the stillness of the library, a scant few sounds pervade the peace. Soft breathing can be heard from two sources. One is the purple unicorn, still looking intently around herself. The other is an owl perched nearby, staring equally intently in no particular direction. If not for the gentle puffing-up and deflation as it breathes, the owl’s earthy tan, brown, and orange color scheme would allow it to blend right into the woodwork. Beyond the breathing, a light snoring can be heard coming down a set of winding stairs that leads upwards to other areas of the building. The gentle whooshing of the candle flames as they dance in a small draft is just barely audible as well. Presently, another sound is added to the list as the unicorn turns back towards the desk and begins to scratch away slowly with her quill.
‘A library,’ the parchment begins to read. ‘There are’ … ‘books.’ … ‘The whole room’ … ‘smells like’ … The unicorn blots the previous word out with a liberal smattering of ink before continuing... ‘nice.’
The scratch of quill on parchment halts, and a few moments pass in relative silence. “Arrgh!” the mare groans, plainly frustrated. “Okay, that’s no good... What else can I try?” She balls the parchment up and tosses it over her shoulder. As she opens a drawer and lifts another page out from the desk, a thought strikes her. “Oh yeah! An interview with a historic or fictional character! That one was actually pretty fun to do...”
She takes a moment to mull her options over. “Starswirl the Bearded? No, he’s who I did this with back in class... Daring Do?... No, too mainstream; too easy. Maybe I could use Princess Celestia?”
The owl promptly turns its head to the unicorn before letting out an inquisitive “Who?”
The mare, likewise, turns to the owl. “Pfft, like you don’t know,” she says. “One of Equestria’s ruling sisters? The mare who I’m the personal student of? The one who sent me to Ponyville to make friends?”
“Who?”
“My friends? Oh, you’ve met them. Pinkie, AJ, Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Rarity. Rarity’s the one who made you and Spike those bows you like so much, remember?”
“Who?”
“Oh now I know you’re pulling my leg, Owlowiscious. Spike’s like a brother to you!”
“Who?”
The unicorn giggles. “A bit one-sided, little guy. We’ll have to work on that...” She turns once more to the desk, the smile that she’d developed from ‘conversing’ with the owl slowly fading. “You know,” she says aloud, “writing exercises might not be what I need right now... Maybe some actual exercise could do the trick.”
With that, she stands up, legs wobbling slightly. After shaking the tiredness out of each, she starts towards the front door, opens it with her magic, and steps out into the bright new day.
A/N: Well, this author is off to his Filipino Kali class. Maybe I’ll write something soon. Until then, so long, folks!