"For in truth it is life that gives unto life
- while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness."
[Kahlil Gibran, "The Prophet"]

Solved the writer's block problem. I had a chat with Jenny the other night, who, being an artist, I figured (rightly) could appreciate the nature of my dilemma. We bounced some ideas off each other for a bit, and eventually came to the conclusion that my problem essentially lied in two things: 1. because I was writing about a real life event, and one of particular significance to me, there was an underlying fear of "falling short" - that my abilities to detail the events could not possibly give a reader the true gravity of it, and 2. that most of my problem centered not around the chain of events, but around detailed the sexual portions specifically. This second point was the one that gave me the most confusion, because having written other erotic tales, detailing real events vs. fictional ones should be irrelevant. So what's the hold-up?

She gave me much food for thought, and - as cheesy as I know it sounds to the less artistically-inclined, and I myself would have scoffed at it years ago - perhaps the most important advice to me was to 'let the story be whatever it's going to be' (instead of making it into what it's not). Most people view art or writing or any other "creative process" as just that: creation. To the artists, writers, etc, they often see it as more of a "channelling" process: something inside that needs to come out. Now I hardly consider myself an "artist", or even much of a "writer" given the considerable lack of quantity of written works to come out of me, but I do do some writing, and I have my processes. And I have often described my writings as things that "needed to come out", and that, as it turns out, was the real crux of my problem here. You see, as much as we did have fabulous sex that night, and as much as it was a very erotic and sexually-charged evening, the reason that night stands out in my mind was because of the romance, not the sex. It's a romantic tale, not a sex story.. I was trying to make it something it wasn't, or at least focus on an aspect of it that wasn't as important to me... or perhaps... (to get back to the cheesy-but-true artsy-fartsy stuff)... not the part that was trying to come out.

So taking that advice, today I much more freely cleared through my writers' block, focussing on the aspects of the story that I really wanted to tell, and then moved it to where it belonged - my "short stories" section, instead of my "erotica" section. I cut the story short just where the sex begins, at least for now. Will I some day get into the very erotic events that follow? Perhaps. But that's a story for a different day, as it were. For today, it's the story of a Valentine's night, and what I did as a gift for my girlfriend at the time.

And as for my fears of the story falling short, I've dispelled that fear too. You see, I know that if I read that story written by any other guy I'd laugh and roll my eyes and ask him if he was paid by Harlequin Romance, because it's about the most over-the-top and cheesiest tale I'd ever heard. But I know what I wrote contains very little, if any, embellishment of any kind. I know what I did, and what she did, and what kind of a time we had. I know that for once, everything did come together to create that perfect night we all strive to build and enjoy. Whether anyone else chooses to believe me or not, or what they think of it when they do - be it an "awwww" or a set of rolled eyes - is not important now.

What's important is that I "channelled" what needed to be channelled; I shared with the world the story of one special night that I wanted to share.

I hope you all enjoy it, but if not, well... I did.