allure

My fiction teacher (for an hour of my life) said the best way to get better at writing is to just write. On paper, (pun intended), that sounds like a great idea. But I feel like I go through these dry spells when nothing inspires me, and it's usually periods of happiness. I just realized this means pretty much only angst inspires me. And that is just so cliched...it possibly makes me more angsty.

And then my professor goes: who was that writer who said, to write well, you must first go out and live? Is it within my purvey to assign you guys to go out this quarter...and live?

That sounds like a line out of dead poet society or possibly some retired book from an author trying to make a comeback sequel. But at the moment I felt totally inspired. The trouble with this kind of assignment is I have no idea how to start it. I feel like all my stories come from mistakes, which are fun and inspire a great deal of creativity, but also judgment, disillusionment, and mostly rejection of some sort. (All of which make more interesting topics than contentment and warm spring days)

I suppose anticipation is something of a possibility. But who can write about the unknown? Also, who wants to live their life in anticipation? Its charms only work for the first hour or so, then it becomes dreadfully boring. I suppose that's the problem with goodness in our worlds, they're so positively boring. Nothing God has to offer draws us in like Dante's Hell or Edgar Allan Poe's Annabel Lee...

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