It helps not to look at the white. The blank screen, the open page, is intimidating. So I look instead to the keyboard when I type. Follow the keys, one by one, making words. I want to be the inspirer. I want to make them feel me long past my death. I am not choosing my words with care now, because care takes time, and time is what I don’t have. None of us can afford to waste even a second not creating. Especially me. I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that this is what I want to be doing.

I will let the editor in me do the cleanup work, later. Now I must write until my wrist cramps up. I will weave sentences and turn phrases on their heads, but mostly I will write from the heart. The frontal lobe pumps ink. I won’t write about anything or anyone; not myself, not my world, nor a made-up world. Nothing. I will simply continue pouring words onto the page at this harried pace because I know all too well that if I were to stop I would never regain this momentum.

Writing is pain and joy mixed together. I cannot stop until I’ve filled the space, and the space is infinite. The time is not. I am bound by my word to myself. I cannot keep disappointing myself with broken promises. I must fulfill my desires or else perish from regret and a mountain of boredom. I have no right to be bored with this head spurting ideas. A creative volcano. My brain churns out the magic before my hands have a chance to capture it, and often I am a pendulum swinging between endeavors. I want to stand firm now. I need to quit vacillating, or else my hinges will rust and I will fall into despair. I am acting on impulse, writing on emotion. Stream-of-consciousness. Stream-of- consciousness. So many typos, so much energy. Cramps, cramps, cramps!

I’ve already crossed the halfway point with no reason or motivation to stop, even though my hand is out of breath. I owe it to myself to keep going. I know I am being redundant, but that I cannot help. My thoughts sometimes repeat themselves, and all I can do is move on. If I stop to think even once, that’s it for me. Done with. Caput! It’s not writer’s block, it’s writer’s pit stop. And no one is around to change my tires. I will burn out completely and lose the race against time.

I am not concerning myself with readers or publishers right now, and I probably never will. This is between me and the paper, that old devil. I will vanquish you, emptiness! I will fill you and empty my head. Never going to happen, but it’s a pleasant thought: an empty head. No more worries, no more nonsense, no more nuisance. But only death can do that, and I am not looking forward to death until I have exhausted all of my words, and I know that that will never be the case. I must therefore write forever and never stop, because I can’t stop. The words will build up inside of me like a flooded dam and will someday burst into spoken form and I will sound like a raving lunatic.

Paper is my friend. It keeps my secrets and hides my follies. I am content to whisper everything to it, my friend and ally. I can speak the truth to nobody. Hello, Nobody! No one else is entitled to hear my thoughts. No one else is worthy. They are too consumed with their lives to appreciate the pure wonder that occasionally sprouts from these fields.

I am planting seeds for the future now. One day my words will blossom and resonate in someone’s hands, and I will flash up and live again for a moment. That is how I will gain my immortality. I stop now only to catch my breath, because, believe it or not, such frantic emptying is tiring on the frame. Actually, it is more the forgetting to do such normal human things as breathe while I write. I don’t want to think of myself as a human now but a machine. A word machine. I am not the most effective design. Bangs of hair drip in my eyes and blur my vision. My hands are faulty and overeager. They say hello to extra letters. So, so many typos. My fingertips are like raindrops alighting on the happy citizens below. Hello, A, B, C, H, L, M, N, Q! Well, maybe not Q. Sorry, Q.

I type with my right while my left hovers diligently over the shift key for when I have something BIG to say. That is how I taught myself. I could never follow the normal method, but what is normal? We all are skilled at different things. Differently abled, so to speak. My method works for me. If it doesn’t work for you, then get your own and stop seeking external guidance! You are the sole ruler of your life and no one can tell you otherwise. There is no god lording over you (pun intended), and no other human can tell you what’s right and what’s wrong.

But enough about you, and more about ME! Or, rather, my writing. That thing I’m doing right now, to the best (or worst) of my ability. I wonder how many other writers have tried this? Just wrote, wrote, wrote – no pauses, no bathroom breaks. Given up their humanity and melded to the keyboard, or typewriter, or notebook – whatever suits their fancy. Simply written until their hand stopped working or until they fell asleep at their desks, just to see what would come out? Just to make a fool of themselves for foolishness’ sake.

I think there is no greater feeling. I think I have found myself, or that I am at least on the right path to doing so. I have distanced myself from my body. Forgotten all about the old bag. I know I have a sore throat right now, but I am not thinking about it. All of the little aches and pains, they have all evaporated under the heat of my fingers, typing away. Writing is the best medicine. Distraction, sweet distraction! But distraction from what? Maybe everything else in my life – school, family, friends – is a distraction from my writing.

I am wearing headphones now, too; big ones from the eighties. Just to block out the pesky noises. The world is full of noise. All I can hear now is the faint buzzing of the monitor, the soft clacking of my fingertips on the keys, and the deafening roar of my thoughts. I wonder indeed what my thoughts would sound like if they could sing. Sometimes a symphony, but more often a cacophony, I’m sure.

I clear my throat, as if I had been speaking. Strange. This is much like speaking except that I have no one to talk to but the void, and it is much more organized despite the utter lack of organization. It is series-of-events. That is why talking comes very difficultly to me. I like to talk like this, without interruption, but if I’m talking to another person, he or she will try to break in and interrupt my flow with his or her own thoughts, and then I’ll never regain my momentum.

Momentum; there’s that word again. Such a big, important-sounding word. I think the true meaning of life is a break in the momentum of the universe. Individuals do what they want. If everyone were the same, we would all run smoothly along with the cosmic tide. But life is rude, loud, and chaotic. It asserts itself over the plain, unthinking elements with its spastic brains. Look at me! Hear me! Smell me! I AM ALIVE! Only when we die do we return to the natural, boring order of things.

If you want to know me, reading this is the best way to go about it. I will never tell you anything at once so trivial and so revealing. Ground-shattering. My thoughts shatter ground. We could all be earthquakes if we spoke our minds aloud, though it’s probably for the best that we keep it inside. That way, reading can remain a unique experience, like unwrapping a candy you found swept into the corner. (I don’t actually recommend this!) It’s like breaking into someone’s private diary. Breaking into their mind. There’s a pleasing sense of forbiddenness, of buried treasure. You feel afterward like you know something no one else does. You feel like you really know the way the author thinks, like you’ve known him for a long time. Like you’re best friends. And when a book’s over, you feel like that friend has moved away.

But fortunately, their work remains. You can reread and rekindle the feelings whenever you want (even though it will never be as magically devastating as that first time). I want my writing to be my legacy. I want to touch lives in secret ways. Though not many admit it, books can have more influence on their psyche than even the most tragic events in human history. I cried more after 1984 than 9/11, and that’s the honest truth. It’s because we accept REAL tragedies as a part of life, but we know that fictional tragedies could’ve been prevented if only the author had some sense. That’s why it’s fun to write. It’s fun to bring others pain. Writers are the worst kind of sadist.

Sometimes you wish a story could continue forever because of the joy and comfort it brings, while others you wish could end somewhere in the middle, because they are so filled with pain and shattered dreams and horrors you can clearly see unfurling but must see them through until the end because it is like passing a grisly accident on the highway, you can’t look away, and yet it is the latter which haunt us forever, dwelling like a parasite in the depths of our subconscious to be triggered at some random later date when we least expect it. Those are the good books, the kind you only have to read once and yet will remember in vivid detail for years to come. See how our twisted human minds work? If the writer is a sadist, than his readers are all masochists.

What I am writing now sounds like it has been written a hundred times over in a hundred different ways by a thousand different people. Anyone who writes, and who understands the principles of writing, will nod their heads along to all of this. I know I am not unique or special in any way except in the way that I am special to myself. I care the most about me, and I really do love myself. Or, more accurately, I love existing – being able to love and hate myself and others whenever the mood strikes. Being able to write and capture my thoughts which would otherwise be so fleeting. I am thankful to language, especially the English language, because I think in English, and I am thankful for my fully-functioning right hand. I caress my writer’s callous with tenderness and pride, better and longer in-the-making than any scar story, and while others flex their biceps, I triumphantly point out the distinction in musculature between my writing and non-writing hand. The difference will astound you.

I am Iced Tea Junkie.

I am a writer.