Mind-Spelunking:

I’m sitting here trying to write and it’s hard. Wait a minute, I just wrote that! And that! Whoa… I’m doing it, I’m writing. Haha! I’m writing! I am a writer! I - am - a waiter! Stop! Rewind. Error detected. I’m certainly not a waiter, not anymore. From now on, I will be the one getting waited upon as I sip expensive coffee and write! Yes writing, what’s more fancy, more impressive than being a writer? You have your table and your things and you sit and, after a while, words just come out of the ends of your fingers like magic - or sometimes out of other places. As I am now a writer, I know these things you see. Oh, wait a minute, what’s this? I’m getting this feeling, it’s bubbling inside of me. I don’t like it. It feels like, like - existential terror. This sudden fear envelops me that I long to shrug off like wet clothes on a cold day. What will I write about? What stain will I smear across the literary world that no amount of censorship could ever remove? Do I use these powers bestowed upon me at birth/after 18 years of standard English education, to shine a light on the darkness of our world? I immediately imagine all of the journalists, like those at Charlie Hebdo in Paris in 2015, who have been eternally silenced for writing about dangerous topics. Hmm, I’m not sure I want a madman bursting into my overpriced cafe scene and murdering the waiter and myself because of some words i’ve written. A blood-stain on the literary world is not exactly what I had in mind. So what then? Perhaps I should write fiction and create new worlds for people to escape to - immigrants of the imagination seeking a better distraction. I have tried this, I am trying this. After all, it’s not only readers who need to escape. Who do you think dug the tunnel? It was the writer! They imagined it, they thought it possible and they built it (wrote it). Knock, Knock. Oh wait, what’s that at the door? A concerned friend or relative wondering where I am? I haven’t been seen in days, or so they say. One cannot live in two realities at once you see. It is inevitable then, that some of the present moment is traded in when crossing the interdimensional veil of the imagination. To write fiction, really good fiction, it’s not simply about manifesting alternate realities - you have to climb inside of them. Knock-knock again at the door, like pulling at a diver’s tether - another attempt to bring me back to the surface to a reality more familiar, but not entirely less strange. I open the door and begin the usual robotic roleplay, whilst closing my laptop and covering up my notes - my stories, like ugly children, hidden away to be spared from ridicule. The inevitable line of questioning then begins, so how’s the writing going? Like an exploratory probe wrenched out of a literary anus, I stare back covered in sweat and confusion. It’s going well, I eventually reply. If I were to projectile vomit a beat by beat synopsis detailing the current state of my current story, a dark soup of thoughts swirling around like a nebula inside my head, two things would most likely happen - simultaneously. Their eyes glaze over as they become lost almost instantly, in either confusion or boredom - most likely boredom. Whilst I stand there jabbering like a madman about mushroom men and carnivorous blackberry bushes, wondering why they even bothered asking in the first place. So let’s close that book. Fiction is fun but I’m a writer now, I need to be taken more seriously. Aha! I’ve got it! I’ll write books filled with serious words about facts and instructions - commentary on the already conceived. I’ll give instructions on reality, on real things like fishing and baking, history and science. Bicycles, barnacles, building materials, the list goes on. So much knowledge to impart, so much information to regurgitate! Oh no, it’s that feeling again, like the impending doom of a stampeding, screaming horde charging up inside of me from the dark depths of my soul - existential terror! With the visitor now vanquished/departed of their own accord, I move towards the mirror on the wall and stare at the reflection. It’s not long before the dishevelled man gazing back at me, possessed of all my doubts and fears asks - What do you know about anything anyway? Fuuuuck!! He’s right! I’m a fraud! Sshh! Someone (my ego) might hear you/me! I scurry away from the mirror back to my chair to allow this revelation to either sink in or dissipate like a foul smelling fart. As usual, it lingers. Isn’t that why you wanted to become a writer in the first place? I ask myself. Because you suck at everything else? This internal provocation echoes within the cavity between my ears, poking at me - with the shit-covered stick of truth. I want to write because I already know how to - because it doesn’t require the acquisition of new skills. Is that really the story I'm writing for myself? One in which the main character is a figure fraught with fear - the fear of facing new challenges. Or is writing the ultimate challenge? Like cold water-therapy - only you’re submerged in the sticky amniotic fluid of the imagination, or mind-spelunking, writing is for the brave and reckless. Like a man who knows’ what he’s doing, I stand up on my chair and tighten my dressing-gown cord like I’m about to spelunk the hell out of my mind!

I return to the mirror, smirk slightly, and nod. Fraud or not, fiction or fact, terror or triumph—it all gets typed. Because writing isn’t about knowing. It’s about doing. And sometimes, that’s enough. Now shut up, me. We’ve got stories to finish and mushroom men to resurrect, let’s get writing!