Finding My Way Back

I have a paper due for class in three weeks. Considering the amount of trouble it's given me, you'd think I'd completely forgotten how to construct a research paper. I don't know if I'm just overthinking (probable) or my cognitive function isn't great during this flare (also probable) but I've only been able to work on it in fits and starts.

I rather thought I had it sorted the other day, so I'd been trudging through it when I unexpectedly got overwhelmed again and almost closed the laptop in frustration. 

But then I decided to pop over to my novel document (I always keep it open on my laptop so I can work on it whenever I feel the urge) and write down a new opening sentence that came to me the other night. (Why I get ideas right before I fall asleep is another subject for another day.) To my utter astonishment, I kept typing, the words spilling out of my fingers, energized as if from tiny lightning bolts. It wasn't a chore, wasn't a slog. The words came fast and easy. 

When I finished that writing session, I had nearly 500 new, good words. 

I've been searching and searching for a way out of this mental morass in which I find myself, this inability to sit down and let the words flow, this unhinged perfectionism constantly goading me. And suddenly, it just vanished. 

Was it because I'd already been writing on something else, and writing fiction was just, well, easier? 

Maybe.

Or was it because I already had a sentence in mind, and I wasn't even thinking of doing more than writing that particular sentence, and thus, I felt no pressure to write more?

Or, and this is what I believe to be true, I'd already written a blog post that day, worked on my paper, and thus, creativity beget (begot?) more creativity?

I'm going with that.

Writing those 500 words was sheer bliss. I enjoyed every second of it. This is what I've been craving for months.

I'm slowly finding my way back to me, the girl who used to sit in her basement during summer vacations and hammer out stories on her mom's manual typewriter, the teenager who eschewed going out partying in high school for staying at home to work on her new novel, the woman who devoured writing craft books and kept honing her craft, the woman who lost the love of writing through adversity, trauma, and despair, and is slowly finding it again.

Those 500 words lit the spark. I hope I can now fan the flame.