Alexander Hicks

"It is easy for her, I find myself observing and noting while standing in the middle of the black room now, not easy for painters in general, but for her, to produce a work of art. All she has to do is to feel up for it, take her brushes, start painting and some five or six hours later there is a work of art, perhaps not of particular class, yet art nonetheless. But it is so much harder for me, not for thinkers in general, but for me, to produce a written work. Irrespective of my feelings about it, seeing how I feel predisposed towards writing every day, I have to sit down and prepare myself, order and arrange everything around the desk and the shelves, check allocation all over, sort everything around me, the chair and all the notes, along the covers, go through the preparatory routine, place the paper correctly, preserve highest concentration, etc., and I have been doing all that for years now and still haven’t wrote a word. I could see myself, standing as I was in the black room, passing through the living room, on my way to the kitchen perhaps, or simply to rest, passing while my living companion was painting, throwing colors all over the white canvas, and while scrutinizing her at work I could notice her subtly noting, whispering, You haven’t published anything. That's what she would say in a barely audible tone, imperceptible almost, before turning around and repeating it in my face, Nothing, that’s what you’ve wrote so far, I could hear her saying, though she never said any of this, only I imagine her saying it constantly. She parades her ides on a canvas every few days, while I keep thinking of the first thought about the psychology poetry book to be written, sitting in my chair considering solutions and variations about possible beginning, all the while arranging the pencils on the desk before me. It is unbearable at times, I think to myself. "