The agony of creation. It's an odd phrase. For the veteran RS student like myself it gives an impression of being about God and the essentially sinful nature of the universe. For the seasoned reader in me it speaks of someone wrestling with an extremely difficult bit of writing, a poet trying to rhyme "orange", for instance, or a Twitterer trying for once to say something meaningful in 140 characters.
It's the latter that applies right now. I'm finding the genesis of my new blog pretty easy, in fairness, but the reason why I'm here is because I can't bear to look at the thing that lies on the desk, boxed in by my arms and torso and the laptop before me. It's a Christmas card. To look at it you wouldn't guess it could hold much significance. It's one of a ten pack, the other nine of which have presented absolutely no problems. Each has a simplistic image of a cartoon Rudolph on the front and seven printed words on the otherwise blank canvas inside it. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year: the bare minimum I could wish for the intended recipient of card number ten. As of a couple of hours ago, this card has two more words in it, these are handwritten, they are the obvious opening remark, identifying the addressee, just in case me physically handing them the envelope with their name on it didn't make it clear who the card was for.
It was at this point that I got lost in the agony of creation. What to put next, how to accurately convey exactly what I'm thinking right now? I'm sorry to say that this is going to be one of those blogs - at least for this first entry - one of those whiny angst-filled ramblings that we all find so annoying unless they're our own.
Back to the card. I'd imagine you've guessed by now it's for someone special who isn't exactly aware just how special they are (yep, very much one of those blogs) and so the words inside it have to be extremely well thought out. I'm not tragic enough to be using this card as a medium for the big reveal of my feelings but still, the thought that it's going to be read, that it's going to be, if only for a moment, the centre of the attention of that person whose attention I've been seeking for well over two years now is frightening. What if I say too much, or worse, too little? Should I put "from", or "love from"? Is an uncharacteristic kiss icon (x) going to be too weird?
I've knocked together a couple of thousand words for this blog tonight (including a few hundred that would have ended up on the fabled cutting room floor if it wasn't already teeming with failed previous writing to the point where the cutting room floor is damn near touching the cutting room ceiling) but the composition of maybe ten or fifteen words is causing me more stress than anything I've ever written before. This is where we encounter the agony of creation. When we most need it, our language can fail us more completely than anyone could have feared.
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