Story A Day #6 Inspiration

Carly had been working hard all day.  Bruce had called at 9 a.m. saying he was outside her house dropping off the mask materials she needed to make the masks for the homeless.   She was very excited about this project.  For 8 weeks she had been obeying the ‘just stay home” order for the COVID-19 pandemic and she had started feeling she should do more.  And then she found out by chance about a group that was making masks.  Perfect.  She jumped on the bandwagon right away. 

 It had been years since she had sewn anything and she was grateful for the loan of a sewing machine.  Carrying the materials inside, she looked forward to starting her project after breakfast.

It was also her partner’s birthday and she had promised her a cake.   Because no stores were open she couldn’t buy a mix so the cake would have to be from scratch.  Carly had never made a cake from scratch before but she was up to the challenge.  Baking was something she found very relaxing and a great creative outlet. 

Making the masks had turned out to be a bit overwhelming.  Carly had always struggled with straight lines.  The saying “I can’t draw a straight line with a ruler”, was very true for her.   Trying to make an 8x8 inch square took most of the morning and left her feeling frustrated.  Eventually, Brenda took pity on her and made her a template.   Bruce had said his girlfriend could make fifty masks in an hour.  Catherine, who loaned her a sewing machine had said she could make 10.   Carly had two by the end of the day.  And they were less than perfect.   She knew she would get better with practice, but it was still a disappointing outcome.

The cake turned out perfectly moist and chocolatey, although a little dilapidated and lumpy once it was frosted.   Brenda was thrilled with the cake and very appreciative of Carly’s efforts.  Carly was happy to have made her happy and scored some valuable girlfriend points.

Now it was late in the evening and it was time to write a story for the Story A Day May marathon.  She was exhausted and because of the disruption in her routine, she had not done a brainstorming session that morning.   The daily prompt left her flat, and so far a better one had not revealed itself to her as yet.   Carly debated not writing at all.  No one would care if she missed a day.  She was not accountable to anyone but herself for this project.   However, missing a day was a slippery slope.  She knew herself well enough to know that one missed day would lead to another and so on and so on and before she knew the challenge would be over and she would have failed.  

Opening up a new document on her laptop, she sat staring at the screen.  No inspiration.   She looked up a prompt on the internet, found one she liked, and then just felt too tired to pursue it.  Maybe she could post a story she had previously written, just this once.   No, that didn’t feel right either.  A feeling of despair came over her.  How could a writer not have an inspiration?  Maybe she wasn’t really a writer, maybe she should just accept that and let herself off the hook.   Then she thought of the stories she had done already.   They were pretty good and she felt happy that she had written 6 stories in 7 days.   She was a writer.  Writer’s write and she was writing.

Finally, she came up with an idea.   She would write about not being able to write!   It was perfect.   Write what you know.   Feeling inspired at last she began:

Carly had been working hard all day….