There’s a particular kind of madness that strikes in the dead of night. When sleep eludes me, my restless mind decides to throw a parade of fleeting thoughts. Sheer brilliance flashes in those moments but, by morning, rarely do I remember what any of it meant. My unconscious mind, in its infinite wisdom, occasionally gifts me bullet points for the next great American novel or paradigm-shifting essay. But most often, I wake to find that those thoughts have evaporated, leaving behind nothing but the ghost of a melody or a line that feels like it might have been profound once. 

I yearn for a special place in hell for those moments when I awake, pen in hand, ready to immortalize some divine revelation, only to discover I can’t recall a single coherent word. So, I lie there, staring at the ceiling, hoping the words will return. They rarely do, like those elusive friends who say they’ll text you back, then vanish into the ether. The Muses are fickle creatures, and they don’t respond well to threats nor bribes.

As artists, we’re often told to seize these fleeting thoughts, to treat them like rare, precious gems. But it’s exhausting to keep mining those gems, especially when half of them turn out to be fool’s gold. I’ve come to realize writing, like any fine art, is a selfish pursuit masked as a noble one. It’s an endless quest to capture and communicate those ephemeral flashes of brilliance. 

I’ve always dreamed of my words flying across oceans, touching hearts thousands of miles away. Perhaps they have, in their small way, even if the numbers didn’t quite live up to the grand fantasies I harbored as a child. I was childishly delusional enough to think the world was just waiting for my first novel or other published work. Clearly, it wasn’t.

I haven’t given up on those novelist dreams yet, though. I have works floating in the cloud that are so close to being published it’s almost tragic. But it’s not about waiting for the perfect time. If I waited for the stars to align, I’d be dead before I wrote the first chapter. 

No, the problem isn’t fear anymore. My essays seem to be the only place where I can say what I truly need to say, with no embellishments or fantasies to dress them up into something grander. My stories, on the other hand, are the playground for my overactive imagination, where I can spin tales that probably only I find amusing.

For as much as I write, I never feel it’s enough. Some writers are content with a handful of well-received works, but not me. I’ll revise a piece a hundred times and still find something to tweak. It’s why my novels, save one, remain unpublished. There’s always one more thing for me to fix. I’m the textbook definition of a perfectionist, and it’s a curse.

Why can’t I just let my work be? Why can’t I accept it as it is, focus on what it could be, and stop obsessing over what it was? I suspect this is a universal affliction among artists. It’s that chronic dissatisfaction that drives us to create, to push boundaries, and never settle. We can’t bear the thought of mediocrity, of our work being anything less than extraordinary.

Yet, life itself is as fleeting and elusive as those midnight musings. We’re all just passing through, our time on this earth a brief flicker in the grand scheme of things. Maybe that’s why we’re never satisfied—deep down, we know that nothing we create will ever be perfect. But that’s no excuse to stop trying. All we can do is aim to be the best version of ourselves, follow our instincts, and keep creating—no matter what the result might be.

So, the next time I wake up at 3 AM with a line of poetry in my head, I’ll write it down, even if it’s gibberish by morning. I keep telling myself there’s something worth saving, something that will one day spark some hint of joy or wonder in someone else. If not, at least I tried.

~ Amelia Desertsong, September 3, 2024