What Is Truth?

The mud is thick. It sucks at my boots as I drag my feet free from its insidious embrace one painful step at a time. The story is tied in a sack by a rope at my waist. I have to lean all my weight forwards to pull it behind me as the mud tries to snatch it away, leaving me with nothing. I want the story to float ahead of me on a beautiful sparkling stream, a bubbling brook that laughs and leaps and supports me as the ideas flow and the words pour forth, pulling me behind them in the wake of their joyful progress. Instead, I have to force the story on, yanking and cursing and wondering why I should even bother when nobody cares about it except me, and I'm not really sure I do any more. It would feel so freeing just to let go and let the mud close over the story sack, sucking it into the dark depths where nobody would ever see it and I wouldn't ever have to think about it again. But I know that's not what I really want. I want the story to see the light, I want it to be finished, and I want the opportunity to submit it to places for publication. I just don't want to have to slog my way through the mud to reach that point. And I remember a time when the journey was just as much fun as reaching the destination, and I wonder what happened to that feeling and whether it ever really existed, and if I can create it again. But I don't know how.