She sat there with the pen gripped tightly in her hand and she stared dully at the blank piece of paper in front of her. She had been sitting there for hours, willing her pen to write, but no words came.

Ideas came to her in vivid bursts, but as soon as it started to take shape in her mind it started to fade, becoming a shadow at the edge of her mind; a word stuck forever on the tip of her tongue. Every time she started to create a tale, it disappeared.

The seemingly never ending well of ideas in her brain finally dried, leaving her thirsty for new inspiration. Where originality once flourished, cliché ideas sprung up like weeds, infecting her brain with a virus of predictability. But something was there, a half formed idea at the bottom of her well, but it wouldn’t come.

So she sat, surrounded by blank paper that mocked her with their emptiness.
A gentle breeze wafted through the open window, playing lightly with her hair, and shuffling papers randomly from their piles.

Squeezing her eyes shut she put forth every ounce of concentration on that single, glittering idea that strove to drive her mad.

The breeze picked up, blowing the paper gently from their stacks, but she didn’t notice anything but that thought slipping through her fingers. As her last hope dashed away, she struggled even harder to catch it. It was like catching smoke with her bare hands.

The breeze was now becoming a strong wind, blowing around her with determined fury, picking paper off the ground.

Her knuckles were white, gripping her pen so hard in concentration. Her hair whipped around her head in a raging whirlwind, but she paid it no heed. A piece of paper caught her cheek and her eyes fluttered open at the sudden pain. The wind was a cyclone now, spinning around her in a snowy, battering tornado promising thousands of tiny paper cuts.

But the paper flew faster, until she was surrounded in a blur of white. Awe and confusion settled any feelings of shock or fear that would normally be felt during such an experience, so she watched placidly as the paper spun. As she stared, images and words imprinted themselves on the swirling maelstrom of white, ever changing; presenting themselves and disappearing in a practically simultaneous fashion, it was almost subliminal: flower’s blooming, children laughing, a sword, a canvas, a hero, blood, and fruit. Images thrust themselves at her, relaying a story through the pandemonium, but at the same time telling no story at all.

Eventually the wind lessoned and died. The paper settled, strewn randomly around the room.

She sat on the floor, pen in hand, and grabbed a piece of paper. Now she knew exactly what to write…