"I love this time of night", was my first thought as I noticed that I was once again alone with the silently breaking dawn and my latest writing project. Having lost track of time, I discovered that somehow it was well past 4am and the Eastern edges of sky, just visible from my kitchen window, were beginning to take on a tint more commonly associated with midday, though the zenith above me was still as dark as the heart of a crater on the other side of the moon. The many hues of dawn are well known to me, the shocking pinks and fluorescent oranges are as familiar as the colours of my bedroom walls.
It's not unusual for me to be up in the wee hours but recently it's become a rarity for me to have a better reason than simple insomnia and an internet full of TV. Yet tonight the ceaseless parade of the adventures of improbably interesting people was ignored in favour of the blinking cursor which Pacmans its way around the screen, eating up white space and leaving trails of creation in its wake. Not particularly creative creation, it has to be said. It's been years since my last fictional piece begun, stalled and was abandoned. No, tonight I was beating back the hordes of word-doc dwelling snow ghosts with a letter begging for donations to a charitable concern and registration forms for a fundraising event in aid of same.
Such peaks of mundanity could not have been aspired to anywhere else by a young man in the wee small hours yet there was fun there. As well as the easily recognisable joy of watching another sunrise, there was another, less obvious, source of enjoyment. I soon realised it was a presence I hadn't felt since... such a long time ago. It was the buzz of writing, of taking something from inside your head and giving it form in the world, even if it was only as substantial as the fluctuation in an electrical current. Not for me the brush and canvas, nor even the inkjet and paper. No, my medium is this; the keys and screen. I won't ever create a masterpiece, or anything that is ever seen by more than a handful and is discarded and forgotten as easily as a chewing-gum wrapper. But who cares about skill or recognition when I can feel the sense of contentment that comes from creating at all?
I've got my mojo back.
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