I don’t understand this block inside of me.
I’ve made enough through writing and Hollywood adaptations to retire ten times over.
Is that it? Have I become complacent?
But then again, my sole motivation for writing was never the money, even if it does make life a hell of a lot easier.
“Tanner?” Kenny says, in that way that tells me he’s said it several times and I’ve been ignoring him, lost in thought.
“I’m here,” I sigh.
“I just don’t know if teaching a class is the best use of your time.”
“You mean that teaching a class doesn’t earn you a commission, and I’m your best-selling client, and you just bought a second holiday home in Malta.”
Kenny chuckles shamelessly. “Okay, fine. Yeah, I mean all of that too. But still—”
“I don’t know if it’s the best use of my time either,” I cut in. “But I’m burnt out on traveling and I’m burnt out on reading and now it seems like I’m burnt out on writing, too. So what the fuck else am I supposed to do? Maybe I can inspire somebody. Maybe I can help somebody. Writing saved me. Maybe it can save them, too.”
I can hear him thinking, But that doesn’t sound very profitable.
And he’s right, at least in the way he defines profit.
I stand up, pacing up and down the front of the lecture hall like a caged animal. My suit hugs me tightly, making me feel ready to explode any second.
Even the punishment of the workout I put myself through this morning does little to quiet my whirring restlessness.
“You know I’ll always support you,” Kenny says. “And you know I’ve got to make these little fishing calls, too, to see if you’ve had any bites recently. I’ll leave you to it, Tanner. I didn’t mean to piss you off.”
“You haven’t,” I tell him. “Trust me, Kenny, I want to write just as badly as you want me to.”
I hang up and place the phone on the desk, stopping for a moment to glance at my notepad, the way I always write my first drafts, ever since I was fifteen years old and writing was the only way to deal with the trauma tearing like a tsunami through the structure of my life.
But now I feel nothing, not the barest flicker on a candle.
I drop down onto the floor and start doing push-ups, ignoring the burn in my arms and my chest from the workout this morning. Punishing my body is the only way to tug my mind away from my confusing inability to write, this ennui that has settled like a cold mist over my soul.
What are you looking for, Tanner?
I fire the question into my mind over and over, a bullet that never hits its mark.
All I know is that I’m looking for something, or perhaps even someone.
But the idea of finding a woman has been laughable to me for years.
I’ve never found one that lights me up with the passion of writing, of traveling, of fighting, of doing.
The thought that I’m a sexist, impatient piece of shit has occurred to me more than once.
But that doesn’t change the fact that no woman has ever triggered anything inside of me, anything primal, anything that calls to me like the wild does.
I stand up, stretching my arms out, and then pause when I see that somebody is watching me from the doorway of the lecture hall.
I glance at the clock.
Thirty minutes to class.
The only reason I’m even in here so early is that I thought the lecture hall might bring me back to my college days when my furor for writing reached an apex and I published my fourth novel, and my second most acclaimed after Promenade.
I glance back at the door, at the pair of eyes staring through the pane of glass.
And then they’re gone, withdrawn as though in shy retreat.
I walk across the lecture hall and grab the door handle, telling myself to be as polite and personable as I’m capable of being.
But that’s getting more and more difficult lately, because not being able to write is like having a large part of my personality torn away from me, and now there are bitter instincts rising within me to take it out upon the world, and the people in it.
These are my students.
And every one of them has talent, even if its inchoate talent ready to be watered and yet to flourish.
I’m here to help them.
I throw open the door and the watcher steps back, letting out a confused noise.
I let out a noise, too, but mine is deep and growly and sounds beast-like.
I stare. I fucking stare and I keep staring.
Please don’t let her be a student.
My heartbeat drums heavier than it did kayaking toward a deathly waterfall or sneaking through the jungle with the deadliness of nature teeming all around me.