The First Word is Always the Hardest
Adagio Dazzle stared at the blank document that was currently open on her computer screen. She felt the burning urge to create, even though she had lost her powers. Scratch that, especially sinceshe had lost her powers. The drive to influence others’ perception of oneself didn’t disappear just because one had lost the easiest means to do so. In her desperation, she had turned to the next best thing to mind-controlling the entire world: publishing Daring Do fanfiction online.
The night that she and her two friends had lost their powers, they ran away in shame, eventually taking shelter in a bookstore where Adagio laid her eyes upon a worn-out copy of Daring Do and the Quest for the Sapphire Statue. Having heard positive reviews of the series, she bought the book on a lark, reading it when the three of them had returned home.
She finished it that night. The next day she ordered the entire series online—next day shipping. It had indeed arrived the day after, much to her delight.
Experiencing the series was ecstasy to her, another form of creation. A creation in her mind of what A.K. Yearling transcribed onto the page. A world all her own to distract her from the fact that the Dazzlings weren’t the most popular students at Canterlot High. She devoured the series whenever she could—before school, between periods, sometimes even ditching classes to read a chapter in the bathroom. She served a series of detentions in order to feed her new obsession, which just gave her more time to read.
Finally, after a few weeks, she had finished the entire series to date. She still wanted more. Needed more. Her soul screamed for more Daring Do. In her stewing desire, she had turned to the internet in an attempt to sate her yearnings.
She wasn’t expecting the absolute glut of Daring Do content that existed online.
There were literary theses, videos dissecting the themes in the books, even entire libraries of music and art dedicated to certain scenes and characters from the novels. Adagio Dazzle proceeded to get drunk on the heady fumes of Daring Do fan content as she perused each section of the fandom until she finally landed on the motherlode: fanfiction.
Fanfiction was the release that she craved. Here, there were entire sections of canon that were explained, plot holes that were plugged, alternate paths chosen that she could drink in to her heart's content. They even had a website specifically created to post Daring Do fanfiction, where people were recognized for their works. Where they were adored. She immediately signed up for an account and got to work on writing her contribution to the Daring Do fanverse.
And that’s where she was right now. Staring at a blank text document, unable to scrounge up any ideas. Her mind and body ached to form words, but her fingers couldn’t come up with anything. Wouldn’t come up with anything. It was as if there was some disconnect between wanting to create and the act of creating that she hadn’t somehow noticed. Before, she would just open up her mouth and beauteous melodies would emerge. Adagio groaned in frustration that she couldn’t even lift a finger to transcribe her ideas onto the page.
It then hit her that she had no ideas.
It seemed that in her drive to want to create something, she had forgotten that she needed something to actually create. She closed her eyes to try to come up with an idea, but all that filled her mind was the hot fuzz of vexation. She snarled, furious with herself that she couldn’t salvage anything with which to construct a narrative to share with the world. She opened her eyes, typed something, then deleted it. She typed something else, then deleted it again. She slammed her fist on the desk, shaking the monitor and keyboard.
She needed this! She craved this more than anything in the world, and she wasn’t going to let something dumb like writer’s block stand in her way!
Then, from the recesses of her mind, inspiration hit her like a freight train. She chuckled, the chuckle turning into a chortle which morphed into a raucous laughter at the insane impossibility of the premise she had just come up with. The spark shot from her eyes straight into her fingers, the clacking of keys veritable music to her ears. The symphony of creation was pulsing vibrantly in her mind as she transcribed her thoughts into information and light.
Adagio’s eyelids laid heavy as she pressed the final keys on what was to be her first submission to the website. She then noticed a sliver of sunlight dancing on the desk next to the keyboard and looked outside, surprised to see that the sun was rising. It certainly didn’t feel like she had been typing for that long. Nevertheless, she somewhat accepted that everything worth something took time—she had understood that when she arranged the events that allowed her and her friends to absorb the boundless Equestrian magic that existed within those five humans, and she guessed that that determination applied equally to writing fanfiction.
Now to publish.
She opened up the Daring Do fanfiction website, logged into her username Fortissimo Flare, and created a new story page in which to post her freshly hewn masterpiece. Her mind drew a blank when she had to think of a title. She had just titled it Awesome Idea in the document.
She racked her brain on what to title her new work of fiction. Should she go for the mystery aspect, letting readers find out what they’re getting into only when they open the story? Maybe she should subtly hint at the events inside cleverly.
No. Adagio decided that the best way to handle this was to tell the reader exactly what they were getting into—the surprise wasn’t in what happens, but in how the characters involved dealt with it, after all. On that note, she decided to title the fic Dr. Dariballerozhotl and submit it.
Adagio smiled as her head hit the desk, finally able to say she created something as she fell asleep.
