The Great Wall of China

For about two months now, I have had insufficient inspiration to write anything more than what has been asked of me in English class. My ability to write something creative has been hindered greatly by the all but impossible to navigate obstacle that is writer’s block. Some of this may be due to my refusal to write cliché trash like the stuff bookstores are now filled with.

Upon learning in class that writers don’t write their amazing metaphors and complex imagery by accident, and that it is all planned carefully, my enthusiasm to write fizzled to nothingness. Being only sixteen years of age, my descriptions are somewhat limited to simple similes and even more simple metaphors; the kind you usually find in the trash I spoke of earlier. I cannot just, for instance, compare an author’s ability to write fluently to a river, and then say that beavers have blocked my own creative river. I just can’t do it, it seems too forced and unnatural.

Imagine if you will, that I am standing in front of the Great Wall of China. My inspiration, and my full potential to write, is at the other side of the gargantuan wall that blocks my path to a piece of writing that I can truly call my best work. I cannot walk through it, as it is a solid construction. I cannot walk around it, as it stretches farther than I, a teenager, can be bothered to venture. I cannot go over it, as I am unable to climb to the top; again because of my age. Going under it is also out of the question.

And so I just stand, staring at the wall in the hopes of finding a crack that I can look through and perhaps catch a glimpse of inspiration.

That crack was found, in the form of Shakespeare. I had before encountered his work, but dismissed it as unrealistic trash. This inevitably meant I could not learn from the techniques he used. Now that I have matured slightly (although I do admit that after a year I am still convinced he really does not deserve all the praise he receives), I have learned that I too, if I wish to become a good writer, must take the time to look over every sentence, every piece of dialogue, and every action a character makes. And so with that knowledge, I have started to walk along the Great Wall, in the hopes that I will learn something on the way and that by the end I will have matured as a writer.

Those Chinese made a pretty darn long wall though…