Johny's Way

That’s it!!

The last time he had to solve the same issue was about six months ago, as he had to overcome his game addiction—a serious obstacle that severely ruined his writing. Now he was struggling again.

Irritated, he had to act fast and defeat the block in a timely manner. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to stick to the initial deadline of finishing fifteen short stories in five months. That was his publisher’s assignment.

The first possible solution he had in his head was to make some exercises as a boost that could help him overcome the block.

He instantly pulled out his favorite program, Paint, that had helped him thousands of times better than Photoshop.

In the blank space at the center he drew a circle and put his name inside. Around his name, he wrote the names of all his five senses.

Next he compiled a list of five words related with each of his five senses and put them around the circle.

For sight, he chose the mountain, as it was the biggest object he was able to see through the window in front of him.

For taste, he chose the fish soup in the kitchen that he had just warmed up for the upcoming lunch.

For sound, he chose the sound coming from the tires of a car. The poor driver inside was trying to overcome the bumps and the tires were strictly executing the moves he performed on the steering wheel.

For smell, he chose the smell of the fish soup coming from his left side.

And for touch, he chose his laptop, and he tried describing the clumsy relationship between his fingers and the keyboard.

He felt a bit better as he now somehow felt the temporarily forgotten feeling to see beyond objects and give them a few extra dimensions—something assumed as the backbone of his style.

He stared outside. It was a shiny day at the beginning of February. Snow had almost disappeared, and because of the higher temperatures, people in town were enjoying the last few days.

He decided to describe the shadows now and in late afternoon. He wanted to check, as the time he had been spending on these exercises passed, if his ability to describe the same object had drastically improved.

Although it was shiny, the temperature below the table was not more than a few degrees and he felt the need to describe how cold his feet were.

“Good job, Johny! Maybe by tomorrow you’ll be back in shape.”

Later he went out for a walk to buy a few bananas from the local market. He was staring at people’s faces and tried to remember a few of them —particularly their expressions—so that he could later try guessing their feelings and describing them as well. He wanted to expand this with additional descriptions of what they did for a living, for example.

She was very impatient with the lady selling vegetables. Her attitude wasn’t intentional, since she was still struggling to calm down after her boss assigned her a few additional tasks earlier this day.

“It’s okay, but something is missing here. I need to keep doing that.”

He kept on exercising and exercising until he finally jumped up from the table in a moment of joy! His style was back.

Now he was able to describe and make connections between the environment and emotions, compare various objects and make astonishing conclusions about people’s states based on the way they looked, moved, and talked.

It was time for the beginning of the match and all the fans at the stadium couldn’t keep silent anymore. The sound of their screams was so loud that for a moment she felt like an ant in a beehive.

“This is it, Johny! It’s time for serious work.”

He was inspired that he was able to prove to himself one more time that getting back on track was possible for those who stuck to the good old writing exercises. It was all he needed to get back with his writing habits and routines.

Submitted for @svashta's Constrained Writing Contest #16

Yours,
@steemfluencer

Image Source: Pixabay.com