I Don't Want to Write

by B_25

Rating: everyone
Tags: Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Spike
Length: 2904

Writing is hard, or at least, that's what most writers say. Can their words be trusted? And just what are words? Do they dictate our worth, the quality of our lives? Spike is very sleepy, but he's equipped with a quill in his claw.

Writing is hard, or at least, that's what most writers say. Can their words be trusted? And just what are words? Do they dictate our worth, the quality of our lives? Spike is very sleepy, but he's equipped with a quill in his claw.

Published 2018-06-20 05:50:08 UTC
Last updated 2018-06-20 05:50:08 UTC

What's a Story?

I Don't Want to Write
B_25

I don't want to write.

I could tell you a bunch of fancy words describing my feelings, each one evoking my pain, my present situation, no matter the distance or difference of time between us. Words are a thing to be remembered, you know, because they can evoke the things of the past to those in the present.

But that's work. Hard work. Work that requires a lot of thinking, a lot of pacing back and forth, a lot of a lot of things that are important to making important, evocative, memorable words. It's weird to think that these words, despite the span of a dragon's life, will outlive me. Makes you wonder how anyone, equipped with a quill and a scroll, can ever put down a line.

It's late, I know, so very late—even Twilight has her face between the pages of some brown, hard covered book. Her drool is blotching the ink of the supposedly immortal words, making the pages soggy with her saliva, but even so, she's able to dream instead thinking, and a few ruined pages are worth the price of putting one to sleep.

I don't normally talk like this. In fact, I never talk like this, and only very rarely write like this—when I do feel like writing, I tend to write better than I talk, because I understand the words better, and somehow, they don't make me sound like a complete idiot in front of all the girls.

At least, I like to believe that, but you can be the judge of my words.

Oh yeah! Words. We were talking about those, how I don't want to write them. Think about it—if words are able to outlive us all, to be the only resemblance of who we were, of what we were, of what we thought and acted upon, then, in that sense, our very worth and identity hinges on those words.

When all is said and done, our mouths will no longer do the talking, our bodies no longer doing the acting: only the words themselves, the ones we said and the ones about us, they will be what we become in the future.

If our very worth, our very identity relies on words, simple and precise words, then how can we expect to ever write even one? It's easy to write, to take notes for Twilight, to record letters to the princess, to document actions worthy of attention—those words come on their own.

But what about my words? I trust nothing that I say outside of these pages is worth any consideration, that my foolish talk will go unheeded, my attempts to impress leaving all rather unimpressed—my personality and life is all a sham in the eyes of others.

But my words? They're all I got left.

The girls can never see these words. The love of my life, the mare of inspiration, Rarity, has inspired countless words from me—asymmetrical poems, shallow heroines, a song with only a verse. She is so great, and my words are so not, so much so, she can never see the shame and sham of these superficial words about her.

In the depths of my heart, where only darkness pumps, a fantasy beats within me. One day, just by chance, Rarity, without quite meaning to, will stumble upon my words, of my failed creations, and, for some curious reason, instead of seeing them as the failures they so clearly are, she will be brought to tears, her heart beating in tune to the syllables of these rhythms upon these lines, and, when I least suspect it, the mare will throw herself at me, claiming to have never known of my depths, and falling deeply in love with them, with me.

I doubt such a day will come, and even if it should, it would be unfortunate. I know it for a fact, for a lady of her wit: she would see through the superficiality of my words to the shallow dragon that wrote them, who wrote the words not because they were the right words, but because they were the words best able to fool those who read them into believing they were true.

Which is why only I read my words.

Even if my fantasy or fear should come true, it is only a mirage to be endured, or a heartbreak to extend my woe. These are but temporary things that fail to spoil the illusion of the effect of my words. The one I fear, who I will never dare share these words with, is the mare sleeping just feet from behind my back, her snores louder than the owl perched on the branch outside study's window.

There's no way for me to describe how I view myself in relation to Twilight, but if I had to venture a pathetic try, a tiny word, it would be real. Twilight is real, oh so very real, and while I pretend to be the same, I live in constant fear of exiting her shadow, of the world realizing just who really operates behind the dragon wearing a fool's mask.

But Twilight would see through me. Her eyes, trained to sternness by a lifetime of reading and studying words, are always up and looking forward, at the problems and dangers ahead instead of around. I'm not an issue to her, my pride not even worth the glance, but should her gaze set upon me, nothing of my will would remain.

I can see it now, visual to the point of it becoming a horror, of Twilight, towering over me, taking a step forward while I took a step backward. Her head, held high by her neck, would slowly descend the closer she got to me, the better she saw me—like a mystery being unrevealed in the span of seconds.

I could feel it, the sensation of my back pressing against wood, of my body trapped in a corner, of everything I was, or could ever be, exposed in the face of ultimate authority. Twilight would see it, my acts and my words, my will and my being, and all of them would be rendered meaningless, purely wrong in her righteous gaze.

To her, the words don't make sense—they're all wrong. They all go in the wrong order, each one worse than the last, the structure of the paragraphs abhorrent, the meaning of my cries and my ego rendered worthless and pathetic by the supreme truth tucked inside Twilight Sparkle.

It's such a scary thought that I had to stop writing for a second, to catch my stolen breath, taken away by my fear, by my panic. Everything I was, everything I am, everything I amounted to be, destroyed, because, for whatever reason, my existence, my words, were doomed forever to be fake and wrong, and this unicorn, my best friend, was destined to be real and right.

Was this fair?

Trick question, because who is supposed to answer for it?

My words, they never have an end! A story has been nagging at my brain, playing over and over as I go about my days, talking and walking, none nearby aware of my stories, of my secret world of words. If they knew my stories, if all the girls who took me for a fool read my words, would I suddenly become more than a baby dragon, or would my words render me more pathetic?

Bah! Another false end, fake though, pseudo-philosophy. But let us build on what we had before, because maybe, if we find some sort of answer, no matter how shallow or wrong, it can fill me with some sort of warmth, of confirmation—or, at the very least, let me get some sleep.

I do not want to write because words are hard to write. My worth as a dragon, from now until forever, depends on the quality of the words—if they are wrong, in either syntax or structure, then perhaps my life (the thing those words are built from) is wrong as well.

It's hard to write when your very worth depends on the words. Every time I sit down with a quill in claw, I am in engaging in a battle not with the paper, but with myself—the next words I write determine my fate, how I will perceive myself, and if my life was a sham after all.

If you have to prove your worth every time you sit down to write, then chances are, you'll write less often. More and more, the words you've already written, the ones that are right, or, at the very least, feel right in memory will be your worth—perhaps your very reason for superiority over others.

I just blinked my eyes right now. Doesn't that last thought seem a bit silly? Sure, words dictate our worlds, from our pasts to our futures, but if we start writing less, relying on the worth of previous words, then, by that logic, won't we cease to be writers?

Why did I just switch from me to ours? Can I not say, without needing the presence or validation of a group that I, Spike the Dragon, am a writer? Why do the words feel so hollow? My short tales have published in a fairly irrelevant magazine, but doesn't that count for something, if anything?

I don't want to write, first and foremost, because my worth is dependant on my words, but the worth of what? The perception of my life, on a superficial glance, can be seen to be wrong by the view of my words, but do the words I write here really dictate what happens from beyond the pages?

The answer, for whatever reason, is no. I'm scared to be selfish, because that's where the road to greed begins. So to say my words dictate my life into being wrong is unfair to those who are in my life, those wonderful girls who are real, who talk to me and share their experiences with me.

I value the memory of those girls, of the things between only them and I, and to say that mere words determine the quality of the things we created together, even if it was mostly them, is a complete sham. The worth of the things in my life are not determined by the words I don't want to write, and because of that, my words don't determine my world.

But I would be a fool to think that words didn't play their part, that my previous fear, though diminished, is still very real. The words may not determine the worth of who I am, but without a doubt, my words determine the worth as me as a writer.

That's a scary thought. All of this, deeply rooted insecurities and all that, are pretty scary in my head. The fact that I'm tackling them on paper is mind-blowing. Is this what others do? Those perfect creatures other than me, do they find their perfection by writing and subjecting their imperfection to criticisms?

I don't know, and never will.

But if we are to continue with that argument, then that means, in the worth of words, I must confess that I am a writer. It isn't a play of the ego, the author above a story, the proclamation from another mouth—no one else can confirm to me that I am a writer, for only I can do that.

Even if my feelings on it are hazy, I must accept the fact I am now a writer, in my own eyes and words, to improve the quality of my life. So I am a writer, and by writing words, those words determine my worth as a writer.

Now we're getting somewhere. But if it's my goal to become a good writer, then shouldn't I worry about crafting good words? Easy in talk; impossible in practice. Everything I write will be bad and wrong, so thus, I am a bad and wrong writer.

An aspect takes the same so the whole may survive.

But this still seems unfair. Do good words come only from good writers, who were destined for their place, to be real and what have you? What about everyone else? Those with the proper words keep writing them, but even more strange, those without the proper words keep on writing.

Those bad writers, the ones fighting against their worth, claiming their horribleness with every word—do they not question their worth and agonize over it? Bad writers who stop writing remain forever bad, and with their shallow worth proven real, tend to remain that way.

Is that to be my way?

I still keep writing, even though I don't want to. It's hard and keeps getting harder, but that's because my worth keeps getting in the way, this superficial superiority that means nothing on paper or in reality. What would happen if I were to admit my fear, to prove to myself, once and for all, that I am a bad writer?

Nothing. Nothing has happened. I write the words over and over: I am a bad writer, I am a bad writer, I am a bad writer—yet no lighting strikes the tree and my ego has yet to collapse upon itself. This is my greatest fear, of finally being exposed, of the thing I always knew about, but pretended not too in order to maintain my smugness, have been now ingrained in my psyche.

And there is yet to be a breakdown.

I am a bad writer. I am a bad writer. I am a bad writer.

Still nothing! Confusion, more than grief, greets me. I shouldn't say confusion, rather some great mystery. With myself still intact after my great reveal of shame, I still write the words on these pages, continuing even when I should have stopped, the lack of my worth no longer preventing my flow.

In fact, the words are coming more easily now, no longer undergoing useless examination, exploring and evoking whatever they please. There is no filter, no need to amuse, only my words and myself, pondering myself.

If I am a bad writer, what is to come next?

To become a good writer, of course.

A writer who no longer writes is no longer a writer. An author, maybe, but no writer. Even if I staked my superiority on my past works and words, then while I would no longer have to prove my worth to myself, I would no longer be a writer—the whole reason I got into the world of words in the first place.

So I must be a writer, even if that means a bad one.

But since my words are no longer a reflection of my worth, more of them are pouring out on the pages, and much to my surprise, I can actually read them without coming to weep at them. My presence looms between the lines, but now, I can see the words for what they are—words.

I'm back at the table again, a imagine now next to this scroll, a page with my story written now open. My eyes scan through the eyes, smiling at the ones that are right, frowning at the ones that are wrong, wondering why they feel that way, and inventing a solution that could, perhaps, render them right the next time around.

I'm starting to see the story for something other than an extension of myself—a story by itself. I notice the things I like, the things I dislike, and jot down notes on the margin of how I could improve on the former and fix the latter. Ideas begin to spring, ones locked away and never consider, all granted the power to prove me wrong, to suppress my ego, to render me better than before.

I lay another scroll on the table, its length reaching both of its ends, and without hesitation, I begin to write my story. With the notion that I am a bad writer, which is backed by confidence, I allow the words to pour, for every idea to merge, and the flow state takes over me.

Time passes, owls hoots, crickets make whatever sound a cricket makes. Before I knew it, the story I didn't want to write has been written, without any fighting or whining, done without force upon myself. I noticed that, the more that I wrote, the better that the words felt.

And maybe that's how it's supposed to be. If you subtract worth from art, from the fear it presents, then not only can you create, but you can finish as well. These words in this story, be they true or fake, are my words, and mine alone. They may dictate my quality, but I no longer worry about that, about what others may perceive me as through them.

I'm not sure if this stream of consciousness will be of any worth to anyone. After all, this writing was composed by a fool that is a dragon, one who is, self-admittedly, a bad writer. Take the words for whatever you want them to be: they possess my character, my honest character, but how you interpret that is of your own choosing and perception.

For now, before the crack of dawn, I go to wake and show the sleeping Twilight my writing.

The story I didn't want to write.