It’s just not working. It’s been a good year, we had a good run, when I fit into you, and you fit into me, and we did beautiful things together. Once I could just sit with you for hours, reading, dreaming, and, yes, writing. You used to support me, comfort me, but gone are those honeymoon days. Lately you’re all hard angles to my curves, and I just can’t seem to relax with you. I feel confined, constrained, dare I say, inhibited.
I’m sorry, chair, but it’s over. Yes, it felt good for a while, so good, oh, good times – that first blog post, being a finalist for the Montana prize for fiction, repeat bingeing Sanditon on Prime and the tears I shed when they decided not to renew the series – you were there for so much. But you know, and I know, that we’ve hit a dry spell, a rut, a block. The wellsprings of inspiration have run dry, the idea train has jumped its track, the blank page and the pen just kind of stare at each other these days. I sit and nothing happens. So, it’s time to move on. I just can’t see this thing going anywhere long term.
I know my track record looks pretty sketchy. If there were a dating app for office furniture, I’d probably be black-listed for serial infidelity. First there was that gorgeous, but cold, pleather Recliner, then the stodgy Wingback, the lumpy Chesterfield, the period let’s not talk about that involved the bed and the wedge pillow, the IKEA cantilever jobby with the broken arm, and then you, dear old Glider.
It isn’t personal; you’re just not The One.
The One will be not too hard, not too soft, not too deep, or shallow, rocky, or still, narrow, or wide, threadbare, or pristine. I’ll know it’s The One because the creative floodgates will burst open and gush forth zingers like, “Once upon a time and a very good time it was…” and “It was a truth universally acknowledged…” Yeah, that’s what I’m waiting for. All those pent-up novels and poems and witty social media posts will come spouting out of my deep underground well like a raging fount of black gold.
We’ll be unstoppable, man, me and my chair. Maybe a nice Club or Chaise Longue… Then we’ll definitely be able to write… of course, assuming we also have the Right pen… and the light is just so… when it’s not too early in the day… or late… when I’m not too tired… and the dogs aren’t barking… and I think there are some dishes with my name on them…
Then. Then there will be no end to the book contracts and the movie options and the screaming fans… Oh wait. That’s rockstars. Scratch that. All I need is the Right Fender. Not too heavy, not too light…
Life in the Multiverse 