The Creative Slump.

I've talked about this before, I think.

There is a period between projects that I go through where I feel creatively drained to the point of emptiness. Though there is a project I am working on, I am mired in a soup of doubt about it and I'm finding it difficult to pull myself out of the quick sand. Thus, the project is moving along at a snail's pace and that fact only feeds into my frustration.

I look around me and see other authors producing works at what I consider to be an astonishing rate. Two, maybe three books in a matter of months. And they are fine works. They are juggling the same life pressures as I am. Jobs, family, school runs, weekend sports. Yet, I can barely crawl while they streak ahead, earning their most deserved plaudits and basking in the satisfaction of having added to their catalogue.

Here I sit. 5 in the morning. A cold cup of tea and a clock on the wall above a gurney in a treatment room where I lay. The clock tick tocks, reminding me that my break is nearly over. I have to get back to my patient in the ICU. My notebook lays on the gurney beside me - open to a page that is fairly filled with scribbles of notes. Random thoughts that I've yet to organize into some semblance of order, for a story that is highly developed in some corner of mind. I just haven't yet found the key to unlock the door.

Fuck.

FUCK.

The light fades on my last great work - a work that has largely been ignored. A shitty ranking on Amazon and barely a sale or two in the past couple months does not a best seller make. I wonder whether this endeavor is even worth it anymore.

I am (figuratively) menstruating.

But I fear I am creatively spent.

And, for a restless mind such as mine, that is a dangerous thing.

DFA.