Now What?

This is unknown territory. This is a step off the edge.

This is the end of everything I’ve planned out so carefully, and I don’t have time to draw up another blueprint. It’s stand still and do nothing — or choose a road without knowing what lies ahead.

Sometimes, I like the idea of the unknown. The unknowable, even. When it’s tame, it’s intriguing: unsolved mysteries that speak to my imagination but don’t directly affect me. Or totally solved mysteries made up or retold by clever authors. Or the feeling that an evocative place would make a great setting for some kind of adventure, and part of the fun is not knowing exactly what kind.

There are other unknowns that frighten me. What will happen if I talk to the stranger sitting beside me on the subway? What exactly is in the shadows in my closet the night after I watch a horror movie? What will my life be like if I go after the things I want and not the things I feel like I should want?

Now what?

Sometimes, when I finish a novel, I feel like all my creativity is over. The daydreams about characters who entertained me so much I looked forward to going to bed so I could think about them until I fell asleep — they no longer seem compelling. I don’t turn them over and over to learn what plots they fit, put them in different situations to see what will happen, stretch them to find out where they break.

So I’m stuck with nothing to think about. No idea or story that rouses my interest. No fictional characters, my own or someone else’s, that stir my passion enough to give me strong opinions about who they should apologize to or how one should find out the other’s secret. No TV show leaves me dancing with impatience until the next episode I don’t scour fan analysis of any unfinished book series. It feels like I’m never going to be passionate enough to create my own stories again.

Now what?

Some blog entries seem to pour from me. I can’t wait to put my thoughts into words and my words into print and my print onto the Internet. I just want so bad to explain how this book made me think or why it feels like my favourite TV universe just kicked me out or what it’s like to be someone like me in my sociocultural environment.

But once those ones are done, I stare at the screen. There’s nothing I particularly want to say. My brain is zoned out: no strong feelings, nothing I need to get down in words. What if I never have any interesting ideas again? Or, at least, none that I care about? Any thought I have might feel as boring and trivial as the dozens of Internet articles I skim each day on my commute. This blank OneNote page and blinking cursor are mocking me.

Now what?

I’ve prepared for the difficult part ahead as best I can: I laid out my clothes last night, I checked the weather report, I packed my favourite lunch. I made sure to include some caffeinated tea, and I came up with a scheme to use the work-kitchen kettle to make fresh pasta in my Thermos. I have extra copies of all my files backed up on Google Drive and a USB stick and my tablet and phone just in case.

But it turns out the TTC is running late, and today’s slideshow didn’t copy over, and the computer says the damn projector isn’t connected. Of course I know my material, but with the sleep weighing down my eyes, I’m stumbling over my words. Besides, I was going to get the students to respond to something I post on the screen. If they can’t see the image, I don’t have a lesson plan.

Now what?

I step into the elevator with an acquaintance or student or colleague. I’m in the car with a friend. My boyfriend and I are having dinner after a long day of work for both of us. There are plenty of things to talk about: the weather, how the semester is going, hockey, friends, family. And then suddenly there aren’t plenty of things to talk about.

This is supposed to be when one of us introduces a new and interesting topic, but all I really want is to put my earbuds back in and listen to podcasts until I get home. Can I do that? Or is it rude? Do I know this person well enough that they expect me to be social? Do I know this person so well that they don’t expect me to be social? What if we both just stand here, wanting to play on our phones or stare out the window, but neither of us can, because the first person to make an anti-social move loses this game of introvert chicken?

Now what?

That is not her line. I know because her real line is my cue, and without it, my line makes no sense. Also, what is she doing? Crap, does she think this is the next scene, where we have to clear the table? Because that skips the key point that makes the plot make sense. But I can’t bring it up — my character’s not supposed to know about it.

Damn it, the longer I stay silent, the deeper in she’s digging us. I could use my prop… no, I didn’t bring it on stage this show.

The audience is not going to understand a word of what happens next.

Now what?

I finally got the thing done, or maybe I didn’t get it done, but I can’t muster up any energy to figure out what to do next. I’m not finished marking papers, but I can’t get my brain to work right, and my finger won’t click to open the right files. Or maybe I am finished marking papers, but all the stuff I now have time to do seems boring and useless.

I know I have literally hundreds of books, magazines, saved online articles, comics, games, TV shows, podcasts, movies, correspondence, recipes, craft projects–I live in a glut of entertainment. And if that weren’t enough, I have plenty of friends I love to hang out with. But somehow time is stretching out into bland greyness, and none of it seems appealing. Maybe I’m tired and need some sleep.

Or maybe in the next ten minutes, I’ll stumble across the new thing that sends me into a rapture of imagination, and all I’ll want to do is write and daydream and sketch out plots. Maybe serendipity will send me something I wasn’t expecting that strikes sparks and lets me create something new.

Now what?