Does a princess ever feel as lovely as this? These past few days, I have felt gentle and lovely and desirable, and because these moods do not come often, I have learned to appreciate them when they are here. I have been soaking in skincare routines and lacy bralettes and cool, dimly lit rooms and Debussy. I lay outside in the hot summer sunshine, only for a few minutes while the heat is still bearable, and smell the mint in the air, faint whispers of swimming pools and barbecue-ing and the sun as it hits the boiling pavement. If I’m feeling generous, I’ll stir a mint leaf or two into my glass of iced water. My creativity has been itching to burst forward more and more with each passing moment; I spend these June afternoons reading Sylvia Plath or writing useless stuff such as this or simply thinking.
I need to tell a story, but without any sort of idea of what story I want to tell, I am forced to resort to absorbing other peoples’ stories. Lately, with an obsession with Sylvia Plath, I try to take inspiration from the ways she translated her life to her stories. Reading through a compilation of her journal entries, I realize that her fiction is not that different from the way that she writes about her own life. In fact, in many cases, scenes within her fictional works are directly translated from experiences she had herself. In this way, I am reassured that I am free to make my fiction as similar to my own life and inner thoughts as I’d like, without feeling a pressure to make it overly fantastical or magical or opposing to my own life. Too often, I begin to create something too impatiently, without enough forethought or planning, and the project ends as quickly as it began. To be moving so slow in the process of creating something is a bit painful, but I know that it is necessary.
I have nothing so much as an idea. However, I will admit, an idea is better than nothing. ∇
hello, it's abby. 