An anonymous WordPress writer posted that she felt as though her creative side were leaving her. Reading her lament, I was pierced with pain. I have been in that horrible place where someone or something suppresses or supersedes the drive to create, to use the gift placed inside you; that suppression spot is a dark place, where the song within is damped, snuffed, squashed.
In response to any who find their flame squelched, their voice silenced, their muse derided, I say the following:
One day in the long ago, I awoke to find myself lost. My lips were sealed by hands unknown. I could no longer sing, or write, or dream. On that day, I knew I must leave the land of the lost. I must leave quickly or I would die from the inside out.
Creating is as vital to life as breathing. When either stops, life suspends. If you are ensnared by something or someone who is binding your lips, your mind, your muse, run from the darkness toward the light. Run as though your life depends upon it. Very likely, it does.
Fay Moore: I Want To Be a Writer 
I like the way you described this “flame squelched” (great this one!) issue. Hopefully this won’t ever happen to me…
In my case the trick is I am not writing under any pressure. I could stay one year without saying a word, just because I have nothing to say, and then in one week I could write for hours and hours, and that’s fine to me.
I think writing should have a fun component (as any other drugs…) that when missed won’t bring satisfaction to you and in consequence to you readers… and besides, many wonderful things are there to do everyday -besides writing.
All above probably because I am not a writer 🙂
A wonderful post as all of you Vivid & Bright Flame!
For me, writing is an expression of . . .when I started to fill in the blank, I realized what an enormous role writing fills for me. Until now, I have been an accidental writer. Now I am working on my first novel. In my head I have 3 or 4 more ready to go. I want to get one published.
For each of us, I believe there is something we love deeply, something that is integrated into our being so as to be part of who we are. It is the passion that gets us up in the morning. It’s more important to us than sex or coffee.
For some it is creating something like music, a painting, a poem, a story. For others, something else. It is what enlivens us, even when no one else is around. Take it away, and we may as well be dead. We won’t actually physically die, but it will be the death of a thousand cuts — slow and agonizing and graceless.
I write my first novel (400 or so pages, but unfinished…) several years ago… because my work, I’m moving constantly, so it got lost… I do not regret it … surely it was a very bad one…
The best novel, no doubt, is life itself… and this one has much more pages and it’s also unfinished…
I so agree with you about life as the greatest novel. I often refer to my past life as “in a former chapter. . .” In fact, it is living life that keeps getting in the way of finishing my first novel, which I also think won’t be much. Most first attempts are low on the learning curve.
I’ll confess. I am crass. I have no intentions of writing great and lasting literature. I am not that talented. No. My goal is to write something someone else will buy and read, plain and simple. Afterall, I have to finance my life!!! Smile.
You have a reader here… waiting 🙂