“Oh come on!” Twilight shouted as she crumpled another paper and threw it at her already way overloaded trash can. The ball bounced off the wall, joining its teammates on the floor. “Why is this so hard?”
“Writing again?” Spike asked. He came into the room, wearing a chef’s hat and apron. In his claws he continued to whisk a bowl of red cake batter.
Twilight grunted. “‘Again’ would be nice, Spike. Thirty-one days, and I still haven’t brought a single useful word to paper!”
The quill next to her glowed and she lifted a new paper onto her writing desk. For a while all that could be heard was the soft noise of a feather scribbling. “AAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!”
Emphasis on ‘for a while’.
“Easy there, Twi,” Spike said, dodging the paper ball Twilight shot at him. “If you can’t write then don’t force it.” He picked up his whisk again and continued batting.
Twilight whipped around to face him, gritting her teeth. Spike winced as he saw her sweaty face and uncombed mane, bloodshot eyes piercing through his scales as though they were made of the paper Twilight threw at him. Her corners of her mouth crept upwards. “I am fine. Yes, yes. Juuust peachy.” She turned back to her desk and continued.
Spike let go of the whisk and faceclawed. “This can only end well,” he mumbled. “What are you writing anyway?”
“High quality fiction about two fillies who explore the great depths of Equestria’s darkest valleys, caves, and… something I can’t remember right now,” Twilight said. “I know it sounds like a lot of hard work, but—” She lifted her hoof into the air, her gaze not shifting away from the still-empty sheet before her. “—I can manage! All I need is to get the opening done!”
Spike sighed, rolling his eyes in an exaggerated motion, even though Twilight couldn’t see it. “Well, if you need anything that has nothing to do with ‘going insane over some paper’, I’m in the kitchen,” he announced as he walked out of the room.
“Yeah, yeah, play with your little dolls, Spike. Adults are doing science here. Fictional science. That’s science too!”
Spike tried hard to resist the urge to faceclaw again. “I’m just not gonna bother asking what an adventure novel has to do with science.”
The door clicked shut and Twilight was all alone again. Just her, her writing desk, the quill, and the paper. The empty paper. The paper that refused to accept the ink of the pony sitting in front of it. The paper that mocked her. The paper that kept laughing at her.
She moved an inch closer. “What is it you want from me?” she said through narrowed eyes and slightly wrinkled nose. “I don’t know what your problem is, but I will get to the hoof of this, and I will make you black.” Twilight flinched away a bit. “Oh, I mean… no offense, of course. I don’t mean to be racist against a white piece of paper.” She chuckled a little. “Come to think of it, can you even be racist against inanimate objects? I mean, racism is a set of beliefs about the superiority of certain racial or ethnic groups, but I don’t really know if paper can qualify. Hmm… maybe I should–” She interrupted herself, groaning and closing her eyes.
“Okay, what in Celestia’s name am I doing?” She started rubbing her temples. “Yeah no, this is not going to work. I should probably take a walk or something to distract me. Maybe I can shove out some ideas when I move my hooves.”
Twilight stood up, putting her quill back down, right next to the paper. She walked out of the room, not looking back at her desk even once.
“Are you done?” Spike asked from the kitchen as Twilight passed it by. “I thought you’re having a writer’s block.”
“I’m still having that block, Spike. I just feel like I need a few minutes of fresh air to get my brain cells moving again.”
“If you say so. See you later then. Means I can bake my prized Inferno Gem Pie in complete peace now!”
It was a beautiful day outside. Of course, it always was a beautiful day when you had important stuff to do inside, but Twilight never thought much of homework as a chore. Then again, can homework even be compared to voluntary work? I mean… Oh nope, Twilight, you’re doing it again. Stop.
She trotted down towards Rarity’s boutique, choosing it in the hopes she might get writing advice from. Rarity was the only pony Twilight knew who read books with a passion that at least came somewhat close to hers, so she might’ve had some writing experience too.
“Hey, Twilight!” she suddenly heard a cheerful voice calling to her. Turning around she saw Pinkie walking towards her with a huge grin on her face. “What’s up?”
“Oh hi, Pinkie. It’s nothing, I just… I’m in a serious writer’s block right now and I thought getting some fresh air could help. I also thought Rarity might be able to help me.”
Pinkie tilted her head to the side, looking at Twilight a confused stare. “Writer’s block? What’s that?”
“You don’t know what a writer’s block is?” Twilight asked. “How can you not understand what that is? The name already tells you that!”
Pinkie’s grinned again and she started bouncing. “Oh! Oh! So it’s a layer of bricks between you and your writing desk and also another layer of bricks separating you and the writing desk and the quill which you need to write but you also don’t have paper because the paper is hidden behind a fourth layer of bricks and then you’re completely blocked off from your writing and need to take a walk and ask for help to make it disappear?”
Silence.
Twilight blinked twice before answering. “Nnno.” She rubbed her temples again. Pinkie can be quite a headache-inducing pony with her wild theories. “This is simply a situation in which a writer can’t bring words to their paper even though they try their best to do so. So they are ‘blocked’ off from their writing. Metaphorically, Pinkie, not literally.”
“Oh. Well then, if you don’t know what to write whatever you’re trying to write, why not write about your writer’s block? Or even better, write about a pony who’s having a writer’s block, dealing with that writer’s block! Then you can break your own writer’s block with a hypothetical writer’s block of a fictional pony!”
Twilight blinked again. “That’s…” she started. “That’s… actually… pretty good! Yes, I could just use it as an excuse to deal with this block and still be productive!” Twilight beamed at her friend. “Since when do you know how to properly break meta layers, Pinkie?”
Pinkie returned the gleeful smile. “I literally have no way to answer that question without lampshading a thing that nopony wants me to lampshade, so let’s keep ourselves in character and ignore that last thing you said, okay?”
Twilight blinked again. “… What?”
“Never mind,” Pinkie said. “Well, I need to go now. Bye, Twilight!” She bounced away towards Sugarcube Corner.
That weird pony…
“Spike, I’m back!” Twilight said as she swung the door of the library open.
Her assistant leaned backwards from the kitchen’s door frame, being covered with flour all over his body. “And? Did walking help you get your ideas back on track?”
“I was going to Rarity, thinking she might be able to help me, but unfortunately she wasn’t at home.”
“That’s a shame,” Spike said.
“Yeah. However, Pinkie told me a really good idea and I think I’m going to try that now. I already have a good feeling about this!” Twilight walked past the kitchen, towards her office.
“Pinkie? Since when does she know how to deal with writer’s blocks?”
Twilight chuckled. “Oh trust me, she doesn’t. But her randomness actually managed to spit out a really good idea.” She opened her door and stepped inside. “Be careful with those Inferno Gems though, do you hear me, Spike? They are called that for a reason.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Spike muttered as he attended to his in-progress cake again.
The door closed behind Twilight and she walked towards her desk again. Something felt different this time. It wasn’t like there were invisible shackles trying to drag her to her seat, shackles which at the same time tried to keep her as far away from it as possible like a medieval torture device. No, instead it felt natural to go to her desk, sit down, put down a piece of paper, pick up her quill, sink said quill into a small jar of ink, and letting her words become one with the objects before her.
“A.K. Yearling has a Writer’s Block,” she announced as she read the headline. Twilight smiled wide. “This is going to be great!” She pressed on, the only sound in the room the scribbling of the quill.
“Oh no, just what should I do?” said A.K. as she trotted around and round in her living room, her head lowered to the ground. “Thirty-onedays without a single word written down. Just what would my fans expect of me? What would Rainbow Dash think?!” She stopped and looked out of her window. “Rainbow Dash… I need you… (Ugh, no, I will not ship my friend with her favorite author. Just, no.) Rainbow Dash, my number-one fan, please help me…”
And of course Rainbow Dash just so happens to be around, trying to hit on(Concentrate, Twilight!) have a nice conversation with A.K. about how there hasn’t been a single new Daring Do book in over six months. Rainbow Dash was happy (Show, don’t tell.) smiling when she arrived at the door. She gently knocked on it.
A.K. jumped up and rushed to the door. With wide-open mouth she stared at Dash for a while, then eagerly motioned her inside. “Hello, Rainbow Dash! Please, please, come inside. Make yourself at home.”
Rainbow nodded with a grin. “Please to meet you, Miss Yearling.”
A.K. waved her hoof. “Ah, pff, no need for formalities. Just call me A.K.”
“Terrorists?”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
“Right… So anyway, I’m glad you saw my message about how I needed you here. (Wait, didn’t I say she was randomly visiting her? Note to self: Edit start of story later.) You see, I have a terrible writer’s block and I need some help to get out of it. I know what to write, but I can’t seem to get the start right. Every time I try I just end up being frustrated and doing nothing but staring at my clock ticking away for minutes on end.”
“Well, you’re in luck! Your number-one fan happens to be Rainbow Fan-Fiction-Expert Dash! My five hundred-pages long fan fiction, which I will send to you to pre-read in a few days, has always been easy for me to handle.(Okay, this is getting ridiculous, Twilight. Oh well, let’s just move on. At least I’m writing.) All you need is to write something, anything, and you can get your writer’s block resolved.”
“And what do you suggest?” A.K. asked.
“The best way is to write a random one-shot about an author having a writer’s block, making that character deal with it. It’s much easier to get something about this done because you don’t have to worry about stupid writing styles, characters staying in-character, or breaking meta layers. Anything goes, and you can use the characters there as medium to vent out the frustration of your writer’s block.”
“You are a genius, Pink Rainbow Dash! Why, writing about writer’s block might be the best idea to overcome a writer’s block I’ve ever heard!”
A soft thud could be heard coming from somewhere in the kitchen. Twilight didn’t seem to notice it at all.
“Ah yes, of course I am! They call me Rainbow Genius Dash, after all! And I can totally change my middle name every other minute from now on. That’s my thing. Because I’m so awesome.”
“Of course. Now, let’s get started, shall we? Would you like to pre-read some raw drafts I managed to finished of the next Daring Do book before I entered this writer’s block?,” A.K. asked with a smile.
“You bet your hot buttround flankbeautiful eyeswonderful maneheart-breaking voiceawesome hatnice-I-guess jacket(Note to self: Learn good You-bet-your descriptions that don’t imply hitting on someone. Ugh.) I’m going to read this!” Rainbow Dash saluted and took off to the pile of manuscripts A.K. pointed to.
The professional author herself got to her typewriter and began typing just like that. (Well, what do I do now to show this is a story in a story? I got it: underlining. Underlining is fine. Everypony loves underlining. Long live the lines!)
“Daring Do and the Writer’s Block, by A.K. Yearling,” she read out loud. With a smile she continued. “It was a sunny day, Ahuizotl once again failed at beating the mighty Daring Do at one of her amazing adventures to steal ancient artifacts from innocent native peoples. One has to wonder why she still hasn’t been caught by the police for her crimes, but–
A loud explosion resounded from the kitchen. Seconds later, her office’s door burst open. An onslaught of snake-like flames wove its way around the room. Books, quills, paper, and all the other inflammable objects in the study were eaten up by the fire in an instant.
Twilight paid it no heed.
“AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!” Spike screamed as he ran around the burning house. His hat was missing, only an ashy substance remaining on his head, and his apron was on fire.
Twilight grunted. “Spike, please be quiet! I’m trying to break my writer’s block here!”
“TWILIGHT, THE LIBRARY IS ON FIRE!”
“If you have nothing better to do than distract me from getting back to writing you can forget about me getting you Inferno Gems ever again!” She continued writing.
“EVERYTHING WE OWN IS GETTING DESTROYED!” A wooden beam collapsed to the ground, emitting a wave of embers. “WHY DO WE EVEN LIVE IN A TREE?! WHO THE HECK EVER THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?!”
“Yeah, life can be ironic sometimes,” Twilight said. “Anyway, where was I? Oh yes. And then Daring Do–”
A streak of fire attacked the parchment. Within seconds nothing but ashes remained. The quill stood stock-still in mid-air, the pink aura around it not letting it move even a single hair-length away.
Twilight looked completely dumbfounded at the the spot just a moment ago she was going to fill with a fancy fan fiction of A.K. Yearling overcoming a writer’s block with the help of Rainbow Dash by writing about Daring Do overcoming a writer’s block by writing about Ahuizotl overcoming a writer’s block. Instead, all her hard work vaporized in an instant.
She shook her head and allowed a small smile to appear on her face. She chuckled while shaking her head. “It was a silly idea anyway. I think I’m ready to work on my real projects again now.” Blowing the ashes away from her desk, she took a new paper from the undamaged pile of empty ones, dipped her quill into the ink jar again, and wrote. “The Great Adventures of Star Charmer and Sugar Blossom.”
“TWILIGHT YOUR BED JUST EXPLODED!”
Author's Note
Written as an attempt to break out of my own writer's block. The only rule: Don't think and just write down anything that comes to your mind! I sure hope I succeeded with that.
