Love for Writing

For some reason my mind slips to the many late nights I have spent in Sienna, a coffee shop that is located next to the ocean in Santa Barbara. From dawn to dusk it thrived with its daily dosage of tourists and business people, who would order cappuccinos and then proceed up State Street to view our beautiful town. At night fall, however, the entire scene transformed. From out of the dying natural shadows materialized a mysterious brand of people, a bitter contradiction to the clean-cut clientele that had earlier patronized the establishment. During these hours I would listen to old men trade five-dollar philosophies while playing poker for nickels and squinting their eyes at the smell of the sea air that drifted aimlessly up from the pier. I was the lone figure in the back, staring at my friends and acquaintances that sat just a few meters away. I always had a journal and sketchbook, and would scribble out drawings and poetry with a half-grin on my face. Every once in a while I managed to produce a line of particular potential and I would glance around to see if anyone felt the same enthusiasm I did for my private little revelation. Naturally, they did not. They simply continued their games, political discussions, and senseless, but amusing, monologues. Few things in life stimulate me the way writing does. In all of its forms, there is nothing as stunning as language.

As with anyone, I am vulnerable to writer’s block. On such an occasion this dreaded plague would strike, I ...