Brain drain.

I am lacking in inspiration in all aspects of life right now. I can’t get it up, so to speak. I can’t come up with anything to write about, and what little I do write is, well, shitty. Words escape me. I sit with my fingers ready to dance over my keyboard, only to have them freeze. Stage fright, perhaps? I can’t blame it on my metacarpals, though. It’s not their fault. It’s the fault of my brain, sitting empty, turning more to mush with every word that eludes me. This isn’t writer’s block. It’s something completely different, a complete lack of inspiration.

I could blame the weather, which has forced me to stay indoors and given me plenty of time to exercise my creative muscles but left me with no creativity within them. Winter is a cold, blustery bitch. It gets dark early, the sun comes up late, it’s cold, and while watching episode after episode of 16 and Pregnant does make me glad I didn’t get knocked up in high school, it doesn’t do much to stimulate the mind. My body remains sedentary, and so does my brain. I must have used up all my saved creativity for winter last year, which was a highly productive season for me writing-wise. Now? I’ve got bupkis.

Therefore I’ve decided that I have to have an intervention with myself to kick start my creativity. I’m not really sure to go about such a thing having never done it before, but I’ll be sure to take notes. It’s going to start with a lot of reading – I’ve packed a variety of reading material for my Christmas vacation, the kind of books that make me think like a writer: The Adventures of Augie March, an anthology of short stories edited by David Sedaris, something by Chuck Klosterman. I’ve been spending a lot of time on Free Rice, boning up on my vocabulary. Sure, I’ll occasionally switch subjects, but I always go back to the vocab. I’m expanding my lexicon and helping to save the world. I’m playing the piano more, which has nothing to do with writing but at least gets my brain cells moving around a little bit. I’m pretty sure I still have a few – they’re just lazy. I’ll get them working again, one way or another.

And if all else fails, there’s always booze.