I haven't written anything original or personal for roughly six months. Sure, I pretend to be a wolf online, part of a decade-long post-by-post roleplaying game, and I enjoy regaling my friends and family with tales of the antics that go on at my house. But I haven't truly written, bared my soul to the scrawlings on a piece of scratch paper, or the inviting glow of my computer screen.

I think I'll write, I often tell myself, settling in with a cup of coffee and good intentions, only to stare blankly at my computer for thirty-five minutes before giving up. I'll try again later, I tell myself, cleaning up the cold, spilled coffee my toddler knocked over as he scrambled to bite me in the face kiss my cheek, or the mess of an apple I didn't eat-- the puppy seized it instead.

If you are like me, you have questioned your standing as an artist many times. It is an insidious little thought that curls around your mind and judges you with beady eyes whenever you describe yourself as an artist, of any sort. "Oh, yes, I'm a writer," I tell new companions, reeling inwardly at the bite of guilt my soul feels.

Am I lying to this person? I wonder; am I lying when I say I am a writer, when my novel lies under a drift of other Word documents and hasn't been touched since May? No. Surely I haven't made myself a liar by my own actions. But the suspicion remains, and, ashamed, I dredge up my unfinished book or the anthology of my poetry and stare at it quietly late in the evening.

Am I still a writer when I can't focus on my own ideas long enough to put them to paper? long enough to type them out? long enough to voice them? Am I still a writer when I delete entire paragraphs of a weak poem because I can't feel it the way I could sense my better work.

I find I am much more museful when I am miserable, and this seems to be a common theme among artists. Misery breeds great work; psychosis bleeds masterpieces onto a canvas. Depression bring elegance and strength swirling out from the point of a pen.

I cannot say I am miserable these days, and thus my melancholy muse has fled me. In the midnight hours, when I am alone, I reach for her, but she evades my desire, and thus the ability to write drains from me. When I am in the shower, pathetically wiping soap out of my eyes for the umpteenth time, my brain creates vivid landscape of language and color, imbues my mute characters with dialogue, provides me a path to finish my novel.

But it is a lie, for as soon as I vacate the shower, I forget the images my mind created, and I wonder again: am I even a writer?

The answer is yes. I am. I am a writer even if I do not write. I am an artist when I cannot create. The urge to form words around my thoughts never leaves me; it prowls alongside me every waking hour, places its silent hands upon mine when I type, encourages me to open my Word documents yet again and look at them.

Look, my writing-desire says. Look. And write.