A New Story

The first Saturday after graduation, Kate woke after a blissful 10 hours of sleep, put on the coffee, and stared at an empty page.

She had forgotten how to start a story.

She hadn't written a new one since November, due to thesis revisions. That one, inspired by a conversation with a friend, came out of almost nowhere. This time, there's no one to talk to but the coffee.

It wasn't as though interesting things hadn't happened in the last couple of months. It was just that those interesting things hadn't sparked any narrative for Kate, who was generally a "write-when-inspiration-strikes" girl and not a "write-every-morning" girl. She got ideas sometimes, and put them on post-its, or in little notebooks, or as a memo in her fancy phone.

There was a post-it right now, in fact, that pale institutional yellow, tacked to the bulletin board over the desk. On it was an idea for a story about Wonderland, that end-of-the-blue-line disappointment that must sound like heaven to a naive child. But the note was partially obscured by another, this one cheerfully purple, that read, "Your mountain adventure awaits!" -- her graduation present from Joel.

She ignored both notes and pulled a few small notebooks out of her bag. This would normally be the time she would give up, journal, and write a blog post about how being a writer is hard. But now that she's graduated, she no longer has the excuse of "in-progress." She no longer has the luxury of deadline inspiration. This was work, now, albeit a work she generally enjoyed. And she didn't just leave the office every time she became frustrated with filing or updating the database, did she? So she must now not leave her desk. It was Saturday morning, and she was still in her pajamas, but it was still work.

So she opened her little notebooks, found a scrap of something she'd written a while ago, and try it out. If not this, something else. Then something else. Something, sometime, had to stick.