Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
The clock that hung upon Unique's wall was the only sound that filled the candlelit room, as well as the occasional tapping of Unique's quill upon the surface of his oak-wood desk, the ink-coated tip making small sploshes of black stains on the otherwise blank white sheets of paper. The pegasus himself looked down intensely at his empty papers, his bright sky-blue eyes staring holes through the sheets and the desk if it were possible for such a thing to happen. His head slouched upon one arm leaned upon the desk, and his expression was one of both boredom and frustration.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock
Unique, deciding he needed a temporary distraction from his self-appointed task, glanced over at the clock, noticing the current time was just ten minutes to midnight. The white pegasus let out an annoyed groan. Was it really that late already? He'd been sat at this desk for over two hours, and had achieved nothing within that time! Not so much as a single paragraph, sentence, or even a line of writing! Unique slammed his head down onto his desk, both mentally and literally.
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.
Unique glared at the clock with narrowing eyes. After listening to that wretched noise for so long, coupled with his current frustration, it was just starting to annoy him a tiny bit too much...
Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. To - SMASH!
The clock fell from the nail that supported it, hitting the floor with a thud, the large dictionary that had been thrown at it landing beside it, wide open and revealing its numerous pages and scribbling. Unique scowled at the clock, huffing as he turned his attention back to the bane of his wasted evening, the blank emptiness of the papers seeming to mock and taunt him, ridiculing the pegasus for his lacking any ideas for a story.
Unique's mind was whirring and powering away like a literal thinking machine, trying to think of something, anything, that might be worth writing about, that would make even so much a decent story that other ponies could read and enjoy, even if it would only be a few who'd generously donate a few minutes of their precious time to see his writings. Ever since the release of the latest chapter in the Daring Do series, a bunch of ponies had gotten the idea to attempt writing their own adventures and escapades. After almost a month, their first story was written, and while its grammar and spellings weren't exactly perfect, it did receive some attention from a fair number of ponies.
The idea to write one's own story or stories quickly began to spread shortly after that, like a disease infecting numerous other ponies with an idea in their heads until nearly all of the town had begun queuing up at the literature store to purchase papers and quills so they could begin writing out fantasies and mysteries, thrillers and comedies. He remembered passing a mint-green unicorn who was chatting away to her friend about writing stories with 'human' characters, whoever or whatever that was.
The problem exactly wasn't that Unique couldn't think of what to write about. The problem lay in the fact that he didn't know which idea to pick, and how to go about writing it. Everypony else had written stories about castles and crystals and changelings and dragons and frozen wastelands. Heck! There were even stories about a human finding a little cyan pegasus filly, and about a pink mare who went about cutting up ponies to turn in cupcakes or something like that. Everypony had written a story already, but Unique? Even that one gray mare from out of town had succeeded in writing something, and all she wrote about was rocks and boulders! Rocks and boulders, for Celestia and Luna's sake!
He hadn't so much as put one single word to his blank piece of paper. And that fact alone was beginning to drive him mad.
Unique got up from his desk and began pacing back and forth across the room, his mind wild with thoughts as he tried to think of an idea, something, anything at all, to write about, and how to write about it. There was so many good stories he could write, but Unique was never one to pick a common idea. He wanted something different. That's what readers liked was it not? They wanted something that was unusual, something new, different...'unique', even, dare he say.
So what was there that hadn't been written yet? What kind of story had nopony else written about yet, that he could do? Almost every possible type of story had been done already, so what was there left that nopony had written about that he could, then?
Unique suddenly raced back at his desk, slamming both his hooves down upon the wooden surface, glaring at the paper, now his mortal inanimate enemy. Still, the emptiness of the sheet mocked him, taunting the angry pegasus.
"AAAAARGH!". Unique flopped down in his chair, and slammed his head face-first down onto his desk, bringing his hooves over his head as he groaned in defeat, having been bested by a simple blank piece of writing paper. His quill fell from the desk, falling slowly and gently down to the ground, the tip dried with unused ink. Unique continued to whack his head on the desk repeatedly for the next minute and a half.
"Celestia and Luna darn it all!", the pegasus cried. "Darn my trouble! Darn this futile attempt to write a story! Darn my inability to think up a great idea to write about! And a thousand Darns upon my writer's block! Darn it, darn it, darn...Huh?"
Something clicked all of a sudden inside of the pegasus' mind. He stared into nothingness for a moment, before a wide smile began to form on his face, the spark of an idea coming to life within his thoughts. He leaned down from his chair to pick up his quill, and after dipping it in his inkwell, and after tidying his papers, which no longer mocked him, he grinned even wider as he finally began to write words on his sheet.
His first sentence was complete within a few seconds.
"Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock..."