What is the difference between an internet relationship, and a relationship established and maintained on the internet? Indeed, *is* there a difference between the two? I would say no, there is not: everyone I talk to on imvu, or on MSN or by email is a *real* person, someone who has a body, a brain and—most importantly—emotions. Perhaps it’s because I’m from an older generation that I don’t make distinctions between the two, but it seems that most people these days do, and I am in the minority. My recent experience with friendships formed in the rarified atmosphere of cyberspace is that for most people they are not “real” in the sense of friendships with people with whom you meet physically, or even talk to on the phone.

Of course there is an element of fantasy on the internet, and indeed the whole concept of imvu is built around a fantasy life. Yet we ourselves are not fantasised; we are real, are we not? We are all people of the real world; we have simply chosen to use the internet as a method of communication, as people of previous generations would have communicated by telephone, or telegraph, or letter. Why then should it seem any more acceptable to ignore, blank and even abandon friendships made and maintained on the internet than it would to treat more “physical” friendships in the same way?

As I said, maybe it’s an age thing; or maybe it’s just that I’m too hung up on the thoughts and emotions of the “the other person.” But if you have read to this point in my little diatribe and are still contemplating sending me a message, then please, could I just request that you consider whether or not you would see such contact as contact with a real person, or merely with a curious avatar. If you are of the latter persuasion, then I think it would probably be best if you passed along to the next homepage. If, however, you feel a certain resonance with my opinions, then I would very much welcome your message!

There is a pain that doesn't respond to medicine. You can't soothe it or bathe it away. It's the most acute pain I know.

This, before we go any further, will be drivel. I am forcing myself to write here in the same way that an arachnophobic would force herself to fish a spider out of the bathtub, or agoraphobic would physically force himself out through the front door. It’s not that I’m afraid of writing; no, I’m afraid of not writing. Afraid of the page in front of me, naked in its wordlessness. I’m afraid of soiling it with illiterate, derivative guff. I’m afraid of writing something not at least the equal of the best I’ve done previously.

I realize this is in no way unique. Show me the writer who hasn’t at one time or another had an encounter with “the block,” and I’ll show you the liar. It’s part of the business, the devil forever on one’s shoulder. It’s been several years now since my output was at a level whereby I could with at least some degree of honesty refer to myself as a writer, or even to list writing amongst my hobbies. In truth, though I still do mention the writing when questioned about the things I enjoy, for the last couple of years it has become a torture rather than a pleasure. And here I am, squeezing out every word as though I were trying to extract a spoonful of juice from an old lemon. I have no sense of direction, no idea where this is going or when it might end. Indeed, every full stop is accompanied with a frisson of fear that there may be no capital letter to follow. I can feel myself waffling, filling, padding, desperately drawing out the words in an attempt to fill at least a single page.

When I began writing, after years of fruitless wishing, it was enough simply to have created a story, however banal, corny or badly written. I was deliriously happy to discover that I had it in me to be creative at some level. Growing self-confidence took me eventually to three completed novels and forty-odd short stories.

That was before the drought came. Studying, additional work responsibilities, and life in general came flooding into the acres of writing time I had previously enjoyed, washing away the seeds of creativity, scouring the earth so that nothing would grow. The imaginative regions of my mind now feel like bare earth, with nought but a few straggly weeds struggling up through the sun-beaten cracks and crevices in a vain attempt to find sustenance. At the moment, there is nothing here to meet the plucky shoots, and they wither and dry almost immediately.

Where does imagination come from, I wonder. What is it that allows the mind to shake its logical shackles and run free amongst the billion facts, figures, faces, names, places, events and experiences stored amongst the galaxy of neurons, weaving together new combinations, some real, some impossible, crafting and polishing stories that have never been told, investing them with characters, dialogue, descriptive prose, conceiving the overall shape of a story from beginning to end as a single entity, in the same way that a multi-dimensional being would be able to encapsulate our universe from beginning to end as a single discrete entity.

Whatever it is that allows such mental acts of creation, it has either deserted me entirely or, at best, become dysfunctional. I’ve managed to fill a page, that’s true. But I wouldn’t call a single word of what I’ve written here creative, or imaginative. It was simply something that had to be done, a purging in the manner of a medieval leech-wielding doctor. And do I feel better for having purged? I suspect the answer would be the same as that given by anyone suffering at the hand of the aforementioned doctors.

Why hast thou abandoned me, my Muse?