Greetings, readers! I’ve returned to my computer after having experienced two days of an electrical blackout on my island! It’s been a rough few days, and save for being able to catch up with my current reading, there was very little of anything that occurred within the span of those days.

Being the freak that I am, I spent much of the day brooding within the dark solace of my room, as my computer had run out of charge and I’d been suffering from Manuscript Separation Anxiety (MSA). It was a very severe case. My fingers itched to get back to their usual round of typing and the story arcs I’d been so anxious to write had slowly begun to erode like a thin mist within the realm of my imagination.

Suffice to say, I was miserable.

A part of me had hoped to finish up the next fragment of “A Price for Dead Men” (“A Price for Dead Men” Part 1, “A Price for Dead Men” Part 2) but I was unable to access the internet for a period of time longer than five minutes.

And so there I was, the miserable little wretch that I am, writhing upon the floor of my dwelling while my creative juices drowned me due to not being released on the canvas of a Word document. In due time, I’d lost all hope in my writing–I thought I’d lose track of all the content I had planned for the week (Which to a certain extent, was what happened), but then it hit me. For the first time in a few months, I was reminded that there were other avenues for writing than my laptop. So having no other options, I scoured through the drawers for a notebook so I could write in the same way I had started my first novel.

By hand.

My posterior firmly planted on my chair, I thought on what kind of story that I wanted to write, and when the idea came to me, the words flowed from my hand. My stylus waved around in curling patterns as I formed the letters of the words that made up my story. The sentences came to me with a clarity that I had not felt for months since I’d started work on my main WIP, but it felt natural.

For a good few hours I remained on my seat as the story unfolded before me, and the first bars of darkness started to creep into my room from the windows. Writing from the notebook meant that there was no shine coming from a monitor to tell me what was being written, instead I only had the faint flickers of a candle I’d set on my desk to guide me. Shadows danced along the lines of my paper, and the lead tip of my pencil was obscured in a darkness that had soon engulfed my room. Yet I continued to write.

A sentence here, dialogue there, and a little rhyme to add spice to the story, sthis was how I labored onwards. I had to squint my eyes every-so-often, but I was enjoying myself. It shouldn’t have been any different from the days that I write on my laptop while being able to see everything clearly, yet there was something in the atmosphere of my room that made writing different. I was like a monk copying down an old historical tome with a quill, while tempests and thunderstorms roared from outside the walls of my monastery.

It only goes to show the effect that the place you write in has on you. I can tell you for certain that It’ll be a while–and I mean a while before I have an experience like that ever again. So if it doesn’t interrupt your schedule, I’d recommend all of you to write on a notebook every now and then, and maybe set the mood with a candle or two while you’re at it.

The story in question is in the form of a small fable, and also one of the few tales I’ve written in first person. I plan on releasing it on this blog with my next post, after revising it over the course of the weekend. I hope you had fun listening to this little anecdote of mine, but that only begs the question…have you ever had a “magical” writing experience?

As always, this has been the QuestingAuthor. Keep writing, my friends.