Just write, they say.
Once you get into the habit it’ll just flow, they say.
It doesn’t matter what you write, just that you write, they say.
They are starting to grate. They are starting to annoy and irk and leave me breathless and angry and incapable and pathetically unable to think about anything else except that I need to write but can’t start to write until my head is clear of them and no matter what I do they are in there, yakking away, spewing forth their tips, sharing the habits they’ve spent years cultivating and which they expect me to just adopt without the realisation that if I could do that I would’ve already so saying it over and over, just write, just write, just write, just write, just write, is pointless. A waste of energy.
Even now, as the keyboard clacks and the words slowly start to form, letters falling into line as they should, they are still paused over, deliberated, deleted and retyped. Over and over and over and over and over. The same cycle. The start and the pause and the edit. The start and the pause and the edit. The start and the pause and the edit.
It’s not the words that he has fault with, nor the order they appear, but the direction they take.
The lack of purpose.
Loss of meaning.
Just write, they say, but what? Words are only words, no matter the order they appear they spend their life meandering. In his mind he watches them pass, grabbing those he relies on and placing them on the pages before him but all too soon they are gone, resigned and regretted.
Just write, they say.
So he does.
Even though he isn’t sure why.