As I lay across this musty, skin-colored bed, a color which causes its sleeper to ponder whether this tint was the maker's design or if it accumulated over numerous guests in this rusty summer hotel, I find myself only able to write about what I'm unable to write…which is anything.

My choice of creative expression has been writing since I was a young child. It's not as much a choice as it is a natural inclination towards storytelling, which has manifested in numerous mediums including screenwriting and literary fiction as well as an affinity for non-fiction works such as essays and reviews. My artistic expression has never fared well in the form of most visual arts such as drawing, painting, sculpting, et cetera, and, as a small child, "art class" revolved around the most obvious mediums of artistry such as these aforementioned art forms, sue me for not recognizing writing as a legitimate art form. I absolutely loved telling stories, and, as a young child, my stories were of a fantastical nature and dwelled within the horror or science fiction genres considering my fanaticism of R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series of child-friendly horror novels. When you're young, however, whether or not the characterization is original and compelling, the plot progression is solid, or the usage of visual is excessively dense, so, one just tells stories in the rawest manner imaginable. When the teacher allocated an hour of class to complete the "assignment" of writing a new story, this was my cue to assume the role of a camp counselor telling stories around the fire, and, with a wooden #2 pencil, I would go hard. The use of language, the appeal of the themes, and, the solidarity of the story's universe meant very little. I was telling a story. Even in my series of horror stories I wrote as a young child, "Do You Want Your Eggs Fried or Deadly?," what one might compose as, "I instinctively reached for the broken plank of wood and smacked the gargantuan mosquito across his slimy, nightmarish face," my nine-year-old self would write as, "I picked up some wood and hit the big bug with it." that was the way it went, and, an amount of content and story progression that could be reasonably stretched into a decent novella is orchestrated in a matter of two pages of wide-ruled notebook paper.

In the present day, however, writing continues to be both an addictive pleasure as well as a perpetual struggle. You've heard it before, and, I'll reiterate it. One can't teach art. One can progressively learn throughout their education how to compose sentences correctly, how to grammatically check one's work, and, cultivate daily towards a larger, more expansive vocabulary. Using those skills with the entire English language as your endless resource to tell a story? To convey a point? To review a movie? To express emotion? It's not so much that it's impossible as it is improbable. The pen is nothing more than the manifestation of the speaker when the microphone gets handed to the creative voice inside your head in a room full of your various personas. The worker. The runner. The lover. The writer. To write is an endeavor that is best suffered alone.

And, with that, the insufferable plague of writer's block can occur for various reasons, yet, for me, my intensive prognosis of writer's block over the course of the past few months originates from a place of the creative Noah inside of me feeling hopelessness and desperation. I graduate from college in less than a year, and, I have a plethora of decisions to make with regards to where I'm going from there. More education? Military? Law enforcement? And, numerous occurrences in my personal life have precluded me from being able to activate that whirlwind of emotions, ideas, and expressions that are crucial to engaging a writing project, and, it's just too exhausting for me to go on auto-pilot.

As I activate and engage my mind, suddenly, all of this indecisiveness, concern, and unsettlement comes viciously roaring to the front of my brain, and, I don't mean to put so much weight or emotional heft on struggling with writer's block, but, it sometimes feels like I'm running out of time. Throughout high school and college, I began numerous projects that I had every intention to finish upon initiation of the project, but, eventually set it aside after I received the inspiration for a different project. Screenplays, short stories (and long stories), and, even some non-fiction work was set aside in the blissful comfort of only being a sophomore in college at the time of becoming a writer for Odyssey. At this point, it feels as though I'm running out of time because I know that where I go from college is going to be something intense, time-consuming, and, stressful, and, these sometimes feel like the last days of student-hood. Of boyhood. Before I went on to do bigger and better things, I promised myself numerous times that I would finish some epic passion project and ensure that it finds some form of success. As time proceeds, however, even these short articles are mental and emotional privations.

In all of my stories, because I usually have foresight into how my tale will end, the conclusion always features the character's narrative ending in a blaze. There's never a soft resolution or safe return to the state of things before the characters' situation. It's safe to say that my articles are written from the perspective of someone with the endgame at the forefront of his brain. In my stories, the endgame are characters having to continue on with radically-changed circumstances. The characters having to make a final decision that will influence reality on an epic scale. In reality, the endgame refers to these days that have felt endless in the past, yet, are coming to a close as I prepare to graduate college and am faced with huge decisions. As a writer, however, one mustn't construct an environment in his or her head that is the exclusively ideal zone in which to own one's craft. One must be willing to think over. In the past few weeks, my ability to write has marginally improved, and, I have every intention of continuing to write for Odyssey until I at least graduate college. This week, however, I'm only able to write about what I can't write about, albeit, messily.