There’s a familiar trope in Hollywood sports movies. The protagonist goes through a tough time and as a result, loses his form. He decides to take some time away from the big stage and go back to where it all started, his high school field where he watches the children play for the fun of the game, free of any unnecessary pressure, or weighty expectations. After some time spent in “deep reflection”, he returns to the big stage, where he regains his form and shows the world why he’s the best at what he does. Pamela feels like that athlete in the movies, except that she’s no athlete, and she’s not the best at what she does, yet.
Pamela stared at her laptop screen for few minutes and for the first time in a long time, there was no story in her head. This is an anomaly because it’s not an overstatement to say that Pamela’s head is the source of all the imagination in the world! It felt like the “Greek gods” deposed the “Goddess of Imagination” and sent her powers to an African child! That’s how powerful Pamela’s imagination could be, the stories she could produce from that mind but recently, that mind that had been blessed by the “gods” was incapable of producing a story. Pamela decided to go on a quest for answers, and she wouldn’t stop till she found one.
She has been inside for almost a week, most of her time spent on her thoughts. She remembers how she started writing. She used to be a lonely child who found it hard to socialize so she found comfort in her imaginations. It was during those moments, sitting alone during recess that she began to form these stories in her head. She would look at the most popular kid in class and try to imagine how he became so confident, try to create experiences that shaped his character in her head. She would look at the boy who was always angry and wonder what his parents probably said to him that made him the angry person that he is. She can remember that this was her earliest attempt at writing stories. She remembers when she was always forced to read the holy book. It was a “chore” initially, something she couldn’t wait to get over with. Eventually, to the surprise of everyone around her, she began to read that book like it was her hobby. She saw beyond what was written and started making up stories for the opinions of the characters that were not accounted for in the book. She never thought of sharing the idea with any other person though. When you grow up in a religious household like Pamela’s, there’s a thin line between blasphemy and creative imagination. She remembers her first kiss, which led to the loss of her virginity on the same night. She saw the “art” in the whole experience. The saliva exchange, the spontaneous but fully intentional placement of the hands, their subtle traveling across various regions of the body, the rhythmic thrusting and the soft moans that sounded like pleasurable music; sex was an art that she learnt to appreciate.
She’s now a 26-year-old award-winning fiction writer. Amidst the pressure of deadlines and readers’ expectations, she had lost touch with her real inspiration for writing. She started writing because she wanted to tell stories that people all over the world could relate to. She used her imagination to answer questions that confused her. That’s what she’s going to do, write for herself, and not for the crowd with mixed expectations for her next project. After a week of ‘deep reflection”, she finally has clarity.
