Iris was two Monster Energy cans and a cup of coffee into her all-nighter, forcing herself to stay awake so she could finish writing. The bags under her eyes were darker than the night sky, and her body was slouched in her office chair. Both the sounds of the keyboard keys clicking under her fingertips and the thought of finishing the book was going to make her go insane.

She didn’t know why, but she loathed what she was currently working on; it was the sequel to a thriller novel she wrote many months ago, one that did remotely well in the past. Iris remembers how much passion and enthusiasm she put into her previous works, how much money she saved to publish those books, but once she noticed she wasn’t getting as far as she hoped, the profession felt mentally draining. The author believed that her dream job might be a waste of time, hard-earned cash, and creativity.

Not only that, but Iris thought what she was currently working on had an uninteresting plot, bland dialogue, and an overall boring feel; it felt like this addition to an already-decent story was an insult to the original. Iris might be thinking like this because her relationship with writing novels was breaking, but even though she knew she could’ve done better than what she wrote, there was nothing she could do. The deadline is tomorrow.

And so, the author’s hands were groggily typing away on her keyboard, a yawn escaping from her mouth despite trying to focus. She would occasionally grumble an _“I hate this...” _under her breath whilst she worked, a tired, frustrated frown slowly growing onto her face.

But, a whole three and a half hours later, the book was completed, and she was able to rest and forget about her struggles for a while. Unhurriedly, Iris shut her laptop before plopping onto her bed, barely able to even stand upright. After a few minutes, she began to snore, her stressed body relaxing as she began to sleep.

Four months later, a month after the sequel was published, Iris was seated in a comforting cafe, frantically typing away on her keyboard. “Damn it..” she mumbled with irritation in her tone, “Can I even pay this?”

Suddenly, Iris feels two pecks on her shoulder, and as she turns around, she sees a woman in her mid twenties, politely smiling at her. But what the stranger was holding in her crossed arms made the author’s eyes widen…

“Excuse me, hi…” The woman began, shifting the book Iris wrote in her arms, “My name is Samantha. You’re Iris Meadows, right?” Samantha questioned and opened the novel to the ‘about the author’ section, pointing to Iris’s picture.

Trying to hide her surprise and remain professional, Iris nodded while she adverted her eyes from the novel. “Uh, yes. How can I help you?”

“Well, I just wanted to tell you that I love this book so far; I started reading it a week ago after I finished the first one.” Samantha complimented, her tone genuine.

Iris could only raise her eyebrows, desperately wanting to ask how she liked such a piece of shit novel, but she couldn’t. “Oh, thank you so much.”

“Of course!” Samantha chuckled with no hint of forcement in her voice. “Could I have an autograph, please?”

With a faint smile, Iris agreed and signed the pastedown of Samantha’s book with a random pen found in her overstuffed bag.

“Thank you! Keep writing!” Samantha said as her farewell before she walked off, leaving the writing by herself. For one, Iris thought it was weird that someone would even want to read her abomination of a sequel, much less enjoy it. Yet, it made her a little more hopeful at the thought of someone enjoying her writing and even asking for an autograph. Maybe she’s actually doing something right.

(This is very slightly based on a true story of my experience with my Etsy shop, in terms of how it could feel like such a waste of time for me when my shop is barely getting any sales, but the little bits of compliments I get could make me feel more hopeful. Also I came up w something more heartfelt because it’s Christmas at the time of writing this! :D)

The words I type are as black as the darkness that has shadowed my life. Black, like the void that swallows hope. Black, like the color of death and suffering, the very hues that have stained my existence. The story of my life, written in the darkest shade imaginable. It’s fitting, too fitting, really.

I hesitate, fingers hovering over the keys. The weight of the words is crushing, like 6 feet of dirt on an open grave. If only it were that easy to bury the memories. How do you write about the moments that broke you? How do you capture the essence of a life that has been more shadow than light?

But I have to continue. I have to write it all, every tear, every heartbreak, every loss. I can’t keep it inside anymore. Because deep down, I’m praying that once it’s all out — maybe, just maybe, the darkness will finally fade.

(TW : Suicidal Ideation)

I lack inspiration, But I don’t want to write about the things I’m trying not to think about, As that defeats the purpose of avoding them entirely.

But without suffering, What is there to write about? Not when my life isn’t unique or profound. Not when I have no transcending love that will live on in fairytales, No valor, No bravery, No calling I woud die for, Other than the calling of death herself.

I told myself I wouldn’t go here tonight, But I can never ignore the inevitability, How little of life is actually in my control. I’d rather go on my own terms, You know?

You know?

“What are you writing?” the bartender at Atomic asks me. I’ve been camped out here for the last several hours, damn my 70 year old house and its faulty wiring. As soon as my raise comes through — if my raise comes through this year — I will absolutely have the whole place gutted.

Honestly, I’m getting real sick of losing power every time a squirrel farts outside.

Hrmmm, that might be a line I can use, I think to myself before realizing that Alan is still waiting for an answer.

“Total drivel,” I say. “It’s my Nanowrimo novel, and I just didn’t get a handle on it this year.”

“But you’re finishing?” he asks.

“Hoping to.” I sigh and shake the mostly-empty beer can in front of me, trying to decide whether I want to order another or get out of Alan’s hair. I’m not driving, and there’s still plenty of sunlight left to get he home if I decided to have one, maybe two more. “Give us another love, won’t you?”

“Why do I think your main character is English this year?” Alan gets another beer out of the fridge and cracks it open in front of me. “You know,Katie, you don’t have to finish. Nanowrimo is between you and your brain.”

“Thank you,” but I have to finish this year. I just…I haven’t finished a Nano since Doc died, and I feel like I owe it to him. So yes, as much as I hate this damn disjointed piece of crap, I am going to see it to fifty-thousand come hell or high water.” I take a swig out of the fresh beer, not even bothering to pour it into the glass I now see Alan has placed in front of me. “Also, Welsh.”

“Welsh?” Alan asks.

“My character. Well, one of them. Honestly, I’ve started and stopped so many mini-stories this year, I don’t know who’s doing what half the time. I think they’re all related though and…”

I stop talking, suddenly struck by brilliance. Of course, it didn’t have to be a cohesive narrative. I just had to tie enough threads together. Just like Richard Curtis did in Love Actually.

“Katie, hey. You okay?” I feel a warm, wet hand fold over my own but I don’t dare look at Alan. Instead, my gaze is focused on the early holiday shoppers in the bookstore portion of Atomic Books and Bar…millions of stories literally and figuratively pass through these two rooms every year, and the one thing, the one person they all have in common is the man who is quietly repeating my name in what I can only assume is an attempt to get me to “Snap out of” whatever funk I’d fallen into thinking about my first love.

It works. Shaking my head I turn my attention back to Alan and smile.

“Welcome back. Go anywhere good this time?” he asks with a smile of his own.

“Heathrow,” I murmur, looking up and locking eyes with his.

And that’s when it happens; I see Alan for the first time. Really truly see him. His long beard, his plaid shirt, and the blue backwards baseball cap that covers his bald head. He’s basically a hipster Luke Danes, and suddenly, I am here for it.

Alan slides his hand off of mine, and for the briefest of seconds I am tempted to grab it back. To tell him that this is okay. That it’s been five years since Doc died and that I didn’t lose power earlier…something he would have realized had he been paying attention to the notifications BGE wasn’t sending. I wasn’t here because I’d lost power; I was here because it was the sixth anniversary of the last night I had come close to winning Nano. The next day, Doc was dead in a motorcycle crash, and I’d never written a decent word again.

I’d walked in this afternoon determined to get out of the house and write. Distract myself and cross the finish line no matter how bad the words are. I’d been coming here a lot over the last six years, and it always seems to have been the one place I could write even a paragraph. Every time I came in, Alan always came over to refill my drinks…first coffee, then eventually he built the bar. It was his COVID project, and I watched it come alive over Facebook updates.

I take another glance at the bookstore then back at the surface of the bar. At Alan’s neat black-painted fingernails. He’s a great guy, and if I’m wrong, I could seriously ruin everything.

“Alan, what time do you close tonight?” I ask. If I’m going to pull this off, I need to do it before midnight. Just in case the curse comes through again, and I lose all my mojo.

“I can keep the bar open until 2 AM. But that’s only if you have a safe way of getting home.”

“Do you count as a safe ride?” I ask. I’d gone for neutral, but judging by his reaction, I’d accidentally flipped the switch over to full-blown sex kitten. With a cough, I add, “I mean, I always feel safe…God, I’m a dork and…”

“Yes, you are; and yes if you need me, I’ll take you home.” The door chime dinged in the front and Alan peeked around the door. “I need to go up front,” he told me. “Honor system what you’d like from the bar and we’ll settle up later.”

Okay, I say, eyeing a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. With a chuckle, Alan reaches over and grabs both it and a corkscrew.

“You’ve got that glint. You’ve figured out how to fix the book, didn’t you?” He asks.

I shrug. “Maybe not the whole thing, but I’ve got enough to pull it together. It’s actually been something that’s been festering for a while I guess. It just revelations itself tonight and considering the date…Anyway. Thanks for the wine and the use of the room.”

And he leaves,and I write…and write…and write. The words flow out of me as I pull together the story of a broken girl who stumbles into a bookshop on a rainy day two weeks after her fiance died. She’s met with tremendous kindness from the shop owner who just pulls up a chair and listens as she pours her heart out. And then, he gets up and brings her a book. And the girl begins to notice that he does that a lot; always seeming to get it right.

And that’s how she slowly falls in love with him. And two years on, she thinks she might tell him that she’s got these feelings, but before she can, the world shuts down. And that’s when they really fall in love. Because they’re writing emails and texts to each other. And they’re vaxed and back, and … nothing. No first moves on either side.

Great, I think. “Write what you know is terrible advice to a romance writer.”

I check the word count and see that I only have to write a thousand more words to make it to fifty-Kay. Suddenly, I realize that’s the choice isn’t mine to make. Maybe, if I’m creative enough, it might not even be Alan’s. It could be a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book where tens of readers year after year pick whether or not Kitty and Adam (I’ll change the names later) will end up together or if the magical powers that made Adam such an empath are directly related to the curse that permantly keeps them apart and are only revealed in the epilogue.

Hrmmmm….better not mix beer and wine next year.

But maybe I don’t need tens of readers to decide their fate. Maybe I just need one vote from the right person.

So I create one last chapter and title it: The One Where Alan Writes the Sequel…..

The blank page taunts me.

Ideas swirl relentlessly in my mind

I hate this. I hate this. I hate this.

But I made a promise.

A promise to finish what he had started.

I hate this. I hate this. I hate this.

Even though he’s gone,

the show must go on.

It’s ancient It’s irrelevant It’s slow It’s clunky It’s long It’s childish It’s predictable

But I have to follow through This is my life’s work we’re talking about after all…

There is no room for indecisiveness I am now committed

Where I wish there would be inspiration there is not

Where I search for passion I don’t find it

But it’s what the people want

It’s the same as any other book Nothing worth reading

But I have no other choice

Because a book of poems wouldn’t sell

I am sure of that

"I hate it. That's all there is to it. I genuinely hate the fact that Urban Bloodshed gained the popularity that it did. A popularity that it gained overnight…over the fact that it’s a bad book."

Robert's eyes narrowed and his lips contorted as though Brandon had grown a pair of horns. He cautiously took a sip of his coffee before setting it on the table in between them.

"Isn't this what you wanted though? To get...I guess famous off your writing? It's been a dream of yours since High School."

Brandon snapped his fingers and shook his head, "See, that's the problem though. We wrote that book in 2003. Robert, we were kids back then. Kids who were enamored by games like Grand Theft Auto, so we made a stupid book about it. I didn’t think it was good back then, and it certainly hasn't aged well."

Robert gave a cautious shrug, unsure if the gesture would set Brandon off. "Alright. It wasn't very good, but you got to give us some credit considering we were in High School. Yes, you forgot about it for several years and it simply gained traction over some TikTok kid randomly buying it-"

"Robert. I'm a laughing stock," Brandon snapped, his face growing red.

Robert shook his head, "I wouldn't go that far."

Brandon scoffed and threw himself into the sofa, right hand going to his chin, pointer finger under his upper lip. A gesture he often did when he was frustrated. "For the past five years, I've been dead set on establishing myself as a horror writer. And I think I've been doing a good job for the most part. I won a few competitions, got some recognition on a few websites, and made it onto a newspaper. Then, this asshole comes by to slander something I did when I was what? Sixteen or seventeen? And now people by the masses are clamoring for a sequel?"

"Then write a sequel!" Robert interjected. "You had the ideas for a sequel before we graduated High School. I know you have to have those files somewhere."

Brandon did have the files for Urban Bloodshed: Tides of War. They were on a CD-ROM in a case in the closet of his old bedroom at his parent's house. Looking back, he did like the ideas he had for the sequel. The idea of writing the sequel crossed his mind when Urban Bloodshed: Rise of the Empires blew up across the internet. But then the comments got to him. The slanderous venom that you could only get from the internet. It was demeaning to say the least and it had taken its toll on him over the past six months. He felt he was just catching his stride with the horror genre...he felt he was just getting started.

He could feel Robert's eyes on him, those same encouraging green eyes that pushed him through Urban Bloodshed all those years ago. His mouth fell open for a response, he wasn't sure he backed, and then he felt the tap on his shoulder. Brandon turned around.

A lanky high school kid stood behind his seat; eyes wide with excitement behind his thick glasses lenses. His hands were wrapped tightly around the straps of his backpack. He managed a smile.

"Are you Brandon Wo-"

Brandon responded with a nod, his mind preparing him for the kid's request.

"I'm sorry," the kid started. "But I...LOVED Urban Bloodshed: Rise of the Empires. Can I get your autograph?"

I’m not sure if I have anything to say.

At least that people would want to hear. How do I know what people find interesting? What would intrigue them? Can I do that?

It’s these unknowns that make me struggle. I wrestle with the self doubt and anxiety every time I write. My finger hovers above the “Post Writing” as I contemplate if anyone will care.

I like creating a world that no one has seen, not even I know the full extent, the potential of the places in my brain. It distracts me for a moment when I get an idea or become inspired. Inspired by the things that I love.

Are my silly little worlds worth it? Will anyone read it?

There are plot holes and repetitive sentence structures. I write the word “said” too many times. I can’t come up with the descriptions that I can picture. My dialogue doesn’t come off as natural. I never know what to title my stories. How do you capture all of what you write in a singular word or phrase?

I wish I was better instantly, but that would be skipping the hard part. Learning is part of the journey. If I want to improve my writing skills, that will come with effort and time. At least I hope.

Maybe I’ll finish this for myself. That if I’m proud, it doesn’t matter what others think.

So I’ll continue to write about the fantastical stories like princess and witches and people with supernatural abilities.

For me.

And maybe one day, that will be enough.

I slammed my pen hard on my desk and rubbed my fingers against my head to see any ideas would come out. I groaned after a hot second and hung my head off the back of my chair. “I am actually the worst author ever!” I yelled with a sigh. “Why can’t I think of anything at all!” I towed my head off the back of my chair and positioned my elbows to lay on the desktop. I finally placed my head on my hands and started to cry. “Oh my gosh,” I started to say with a bit of a waver in my voice. “I am crying! Over my terrible book!” I wiped my tears away from my cheeks to try and stop the flow of them. “You know what!” I exclaimed picking up my pen. “I am going to finish this book! Even though I absolutely hate it!” I immediately started to write the ending. My pen never had moved faster and trust me it really hadn’t ever moved any faster. Before I knew it my book was complete. I truly had hated my book but at least now that I was done with it I could write a book I actually like. “Thank the good Lord I am done with this garbage!” I exclaimed with a laugh, ready to conquer new ideas. I knew for a fact that I was never, ever going to write another book anything like the one I had just written!

Day after day Arther grew more irritated as he couldn’t muster the guts to finish his novel. After basing the book vaguely on his childhood and early adulthood he couldn’t bring himself to finish the story. He tried to keep the core elements of his experiences in the book while changing minor details to keep the reader interested but now that the story had reached the climax he began to regret intertwining the tale he told so closely with his life. He needed to come up with a climax and resolution in the final chapters but the thought of ending the book the way his life turned out revolted him. Who would want to read a book about a man who failed to live up to the goals he had made, was cheated on and left by his one and only love, had no relationship with either of his children, was disowned by his family for his addiction problem, (more accurately it was ‘a failure to properly cope with his life crumbling apart’ problem), and now couldn’t even imagine a life interesting enough to finish his book with. Overcome with remorse he concluded he was being too hard on himself, that he should try to relax, have a drink, turn in early and finish the novel another day. Besides, he had his whole life to finish the story.