Spike's Writer's Block

by KillerSteel

70 Pieces of Parchment Later...

Scritch, scritch, scritch.

The sound of a quill scratching against parchment filled the silent library, the light of the midday sun leaking in through the windows, illuminating the lone writing desk in the center of the library. A lone, purple dragon sat in his simple chair, tapping his chin between the rare moments where he actually wrote anything down.

“Uhhh… no, that won’t work,” he grumbled, crumpling up the parchment in front of him and tossing it onto an ever-growing pile of scraps behind him. He pulled a new sheet off the shrinking pile on his writing desk, placing it in front of him. He stared at it, trying to derive some way to place the words in his head onto the page.

“Great, I get a need to write, and not a single good idea has popped up. Every single story I write about me and Lady Rarity has ended up being nonsensical! Maybe I should stop putting my dreams on paper,” he groaned, leaning back in his chair and staring up at the ceiling. He traced the lines rising up from the wall to the center of the ceiling, the bookcases standing tall around him, “Thank goodness Twilight doesn’t need all this parchment. Usually all it takes for a letter is one sheet. Weekend's coming up in three days, and she usually sends her letters on a Sunday. Gives me lots of time to work…though I’m starting to wonder if that time's worth wasting.”

“Maybe I just need to brainstorm for a bit…” Spike closed his eyes, staring into the darkness as he sighed, “Ok, brain, give me a GOOD idea this time… something exciting, shocking, with lots of intense scenes and fighting!” He said, letting his imagination draw the world of his mind. After a minute or so of concentration, he opened his eyes to a large white room. He looked down at his claws, then his body, seeing they were still of their typically diminutive size, “Brain, I need something a bit more… you know, manly. This is my imagination, I should be taller at least!” Spike shouted into the void around him, but to no avail.

“Alright, fine. Ok, let’s see here… it’s, uh,” Spike looked up into the blank canvas over him, squinting his eyes slightly. He tapped his chin, wondering how to paint the scene around him, “Ok, it’s a nice sunny day in Ponyville."

With the words uttered, the world bent and twisted around him, buildings rising from the ground as a sky painted itself across the white; a perfect copy of Ponyville. He was standing in front of the library, and the streets and houses stretched off for about sixty feet before ending in white. He looked up into the glaring heat of the afternoon sun, squinting.

“Sweet, that’s a good start. Oooook… so, story. Let’s see, what’d I have planned earlier,” He furrowed his brow, quirking his mouth up to the side, eyes questing the dirt road beneath his feet for a hint, “It was… ninja ponies who captured Lady Rarity, and I had to go save her. Alright, that’s the conflict. Now, what else makes a good story? Twilight always told me a saying, ‘A journey is in the road, not the destination’, or something like that. So, if the ending is me saving m’Lady, and getting that kiss… what would be the road leading up to it?” Spike folded his arms, conversing with his mind. The silence of the town pulled his eyes away from his feet, seeing the roads completely devoid of life besides himself.

“I wish Brain would just… automatically create ponies for me to talk to. Then again, it’s up to me as a writer to do that. So! Who should I make in this world? One choice is obvious!” Spike looked at the street before him, not even making an effort to think before an image of Rarity faded into view.

“Oooh, Spikey Wikey, you look positively adorable today! Did you do something with your spikes?” The unicorn asked him, trotting up and squishing his cheeks between her hooves, smiling all the while.

“Uhhh…sure, yeah, I did!” Spike nodded, his mouth moving into a curvy smile. Maybe I should’ve thought of her last though, drooling over her is going to mess up the entire story, and I don’t want that… Spike thought as he pulled the hooves squishing his face like a big pastry away from him. Rarity pouted at him like an insulted pup before walking over to the library behind him and sitting down, looking around at the world as the dragon returned to his thoughts.

Now, I have my damsel in distress… next up, what’s going to happen in the story? Should I start when she’s captured, or before? Who’s involved in the kidnapping? Of course I’m going to be the big hero, but even heroes need equipment and information. Who would I ask, and who would know? Spike put a claw to his chin as he looked up to the left, staring out into the painted blue sky the sun was hanging in. As if answering his prayers for an all-knowing deity, Twilight appeared beside him, and Spike looked up at her smiling face.

“That’s true. Any time I have a problem concerning information, I’d go to Twilight. She is the smartest pony I know, after all, but what if she doesn’t know? these are ninja ponies, after all, so they’d be really sneaky; kidnapping under the cover of darkness and all that. She’d still be a big a… shoot, what’s the word? Starts with an ‘A’…" he scratched his chin, wracking his brain for the word just on the tip of his tongue, "As… asseeeeh… asset? I think that’s it.” Spike shrugged. Good a word as any!.

He watched Twilight walk over to the library and take a seat beside Rarity, them exchanging a smile before looking around at the world absent-mindedly, “Alright, so, I have an ally and a damsel. Still no villain, and no journey. Well, writing is slow and a lot of work, but the end result is something really awesome. Usually.” Spike nodded, walking into the middle of the street.

“Alllllright. So, ally, damsel. Next should be a villain. So, who would be best as the main villain? They’d have to be sneaky, clever, cunning, and evil. Who fits the bill for that, though?” Spike looked at the ground, tapping his foot, "It's not like I know any supervillains."

He looked up to the sky to see if the blank blue-white above could help him, but he didn't make it far. Just in front of him was a perfect visage of himself!

Spike leaped back in surprise, nearly losing his footing, “Woah, ok, I can NOT be-“ he stopped, seeing the handlebar moustache on Other Spike’s face. Something just clicked at the sight of that grin just under it, “Ok, with THAT, I can definitely be the villain. But, if I’m the villain, then how can I be the hero? Hmmm, maybe I CAN be the villain. I mean, I can be cunning, can't I?" His brow rose at the thought, but quickly furrowed, "Do I have reason enough to be the villain though? I do really like Lady Rarity… but what if somepony else liked her too? And she liked them more than me?”

Spike raised his brow, looking at the ground before the scraping of claws against the dirt caught his attention. He watched his dastardly-moustached clone run over to Rarity, picking her up and raising her over his head. The other Spike blew a raspberry at a stallion. Wait, when did he get here?

The stallion quickly shook his head, grimacing at the daring insult blown at him, and the two started running down the street. Spike and Twilight simply watched on in silence at the silly scene as the other Spike leaped over a fence, tripping and crashing to the ground. Sadly, his pursuer made the same mistake, landing with a heavy thud!

Rarity's screams for her hero to help faded away as they blew through several walls like a pair of bulls, “Ahh, this is supposed to be a heroic story, tragic, heart-breaking! Not some silly story… though I have to admit, humor is good in a story,” He nodded, still grinning over the scene he watched, and started down the street, looking around at the buildings.

“Alright, so, instead of a hero, I now have a damsel in distress, a villain, and a love interest… kind of. He’s just a stallion that likes Rarity, nopony's gonna wanna read about him. I know I wouldn't. Maybe he just needs a name? Obviously a stallion needs a name, and I can’t call him ‘The Stallion’ in the story. Names, names…” Spike squinted his eyes, his claw tapping against his chin as he sought the perfect name, a list of the ones he knew scrolling through his mind's eye, “Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rose, Lyra… ohhh, come on, Brain! Come up with something!” He started pacing back and fourth, arms folded across his chest.

“What are good names for a stallion? So far, I’ve only thought of mares. Big Macintosh, Thunderlane… Wow, there aren’t a lot of stallions in Ponyville, are there?” Spike lowered his brow at the thought, the population situation hitting him, “Come to think of it, Ponyville is almost all mares. Argh, why is this coming up now?” Spike growled in frustration, closing his eyes. He opened them to find the streets filled to the brim with mares, both familiar and random creations of his mind, all staring at him.

He immediately jumped a good three feet into the air before crashing on his rear, “WOAH!” He closed his eyes again, his sharp breaths being run like a speedy race by his lungs. After a few moments, he finally opened his eyes to find the streets empty again. “Phew… ok, Brain, no more scares like that.”

Spike got back up, looking around. The Ponyville in his head was still only a small chunk of land around the library. What kind of locations would be in this story, anyway? What kind of story would it actually be? Spike groaned, a look of frustration growing on his face, and he stared down the street, thinking. Hoofsteps grabbed his attention, and he turned around to see Twilight walking up to him. She leaned into his face, mere inches away.

“Spike?” She asked, Spike staring back at her with a confused look.

“W-wait a second. Brain, what’re you doing?” Spike stuttered, knowing he didn't give Twilight any possible dialogue in this place.

“Spike, hey, Equestria to Spike!” If she was some random creation, it certainly didn't hear him.

“What is it, freaky mental Twilight who seems to be acting on her own?” Spike asked, rigid from surprise.

“Spike!” Twilight shouted into his face, causing Spike to scream as he flew out of his mental trance, finding himself back in the library. “You alright, Spike? You were just staring up at the ceiling.”

“Yeah, I’m fine, I was just thinking.” Spike yawned, stretching out. I'm getting somewhere, at least. Kinda bad that I have to start over now, though.

“Thinking?” Twilight raised an eyebrow, turning to the small mountain of scrapped parchment lying on the floor behind them, “Oh, right, you were taking up writing, weren’t you?” She turned back to her assistant with a smirk.

“Yeah, I was. I’ve tried a million ideas, and they all sound fine in my head, but as soon as I put them down on paper, it all just falls apart!” Spike gestured wildly with his claws before planting his chin on the desk with a defeated sigh. Twilight moved up to the left side of the desk, looking at him.

“They can’t be that bad. What’ve you tried?” She looked interested. It's been a long time since I ever wrote anything. Wonder what goes through his mind?

“Whole lot of ideas involving me, Lady Rarity, and too many villains for me to remember, imagine, or even count. Every single idea just seemed, I dunno, stupid,” Spike replied, looking at Twilight with half-closed eyes, “I tried brainstorming, just closing my eyes and drawing everything out in front of me. I was really getting somewhere too, until you shouted in my face.”

“Woops. Hehe, sorry, thought you’d fallen asleep or, Celestia forbid, had some kind of problem. Just a little worried, that’s all.” Twilight grinned, brow raised apologetically.

“It’s fine. I remember the important details of what I got…mind if I talk to you a bit about it, see if I can think of anything else on the way?”

“Sure, go for it! This is the kind of thing I’m good at.” Twilight answered with a smile, walking around to the front of the desk. She sat down and put her chin just over the desk, looking at him with curiosity written on her expression, “Alright, let’s start with the ideas you had from your brainstorming.”

“Right. First, it’s a story involving me and Rarity. From my brainstorming, I’ve thought of myself as the villain; dastardly moustache, evil grin, crazy laugh, the works. From what I could gather from it, I found out that another stallion had already taken her love, and I decided to kidnap her, in order to try and make her love me over him. The stallion right now is just ‘The Guy’, absolutely no personality, not even a name. I haven’t even pictured him as anything other than an earth pony,” Spike lifted his head off the desk, propping it up on one of his hands as his eyes looked up at Twilight.

“You, a villain? Never would’ve thought of it,” Twilight grinned at the idea of her assistant running around committing dastardly deeds.

“Hey, I can make a pretty good villain! Dastardly tricks and evil plans, I can make it all!” Spike replied with a toothy smile and a laugh. He looked up at the ceiling again, tapping the desk in thought. “Right, that’s uh… about it, actually. I thought I’d have the main enemy be ninja ponies, but ninjas just seem… not original?”

“Cliché is the word you want,” Twilight nodded, her eyes turning to the left as Spike nodded in approval, “Sounds like you have a good start though. I’d agree with ninjas being unoriginal though… a good story has a villain that isn't in-your-face. It’s subtle evil.”

“Subtle?” Spike asks, furrowing his brow in confusion.

“Subtle, like not completely known. An act that’s performed without anypony finding out immediately. Not obvious, but under a guise or cover.” Twilight tapped her hoof against her chin as she mulled her explanation over in her head. What's a good example of that, though?

“Ah, yeah. That’s true… but what about the action? If nopony knows what happened, then where’s the story? ‘Hey, Rarity got kidnapped by somepony but we don’t know where, how or who.’ Story’s over.” Spikes gestured with his free claw, waving it off to the side.

“Not quite. Clues are always a huge part of finding somepony, and a villain always leaves something behind. Should it be obvious though, and should the chain of clues be really long or short before leading to the villain? That’s up to the writer to decide,” Twilight smiled, already thinking of some of the things she'd read over the years, “I’ve read lots of stories where the villain isn’t very obvious to anypony, but the main character always finds that one clue that sets him on the right path!”

“Have any recommendations?” Spike asked with a raised brow, watching the quickly expanding look of excitement on Twilight’s face. Oh boy... she's getting excited!, his own expression of horror grew in response to hers, knowing exactly what she was about to do, “Oh uh, wait, no need to start pu-“

Twilight's horn sparked to life, and before he could finish his sentence, about 20 books slammed down onto the writing desk in front of him, building a neat tower that extended up towards the ceiling, the purple aura holding them vanishing. “… I’ve really gotta stop asking these questions.”

“It’s fine! These are all personal favorites of mine, mostly mystery stories!” Twilight popped out from behind the pile with a big smile. Spike started looking over the spines of the books directly in front of him, reading out the titles to himself.

“Sherlocke Hooves… A Chain of Unfortunate Occurances, that’s a mouthful… In Her Majesty’s Secret Guard, oh, I’ve heard of that one! Let’s see, what else? Uhhh... huh, never heard of this one. ‘The Windigo’-“

“Ah, yeah, that one… I don’t really think you should read that one until you’re older,” Twilight grimaced, raising the top of the pile with her magic so she could pull the book out from it. She moved it over to a bookcase behind her, randomly placing it back among the stories, and turned back to Spike, “So, how about it? Ready to start reading for some inspiration?” She smiled in excitement, brow up near her horn.

“Hang on,” Spike leaned back behind the pile, out of Twilight’s vision, “Can you lift the books up? It’s sitting on my parchment.”

“Oh, sorry.” Twilight quickly moved the pile of books up, only managing a few inches before the pile hit the ceiling. “Wow…didn’t know I enjoyed that many,” She mumbled to herself as the sound of scribbling rose in front of her. She looked down to see Spike just finishing up his writing.

“Ok, wrote down my ideas so I don’t forget them. Which one should I start with?”

“That’s an easy one!” Twilight said with a big grin, pulling a book out from the bottom of the pile, and it floated over to Spike.

“Sherlock Hooves, eh?” Spike looked down at the cover, inspecting it. It was a very simple hardcover book, with a simple drawing of an earth pony with a magnifying glass as a cutie mark. The pony was wearing a trench coat and a double-lipped cap over his brown mane, though it was hard to pick out any further details, “How good is it?” Spike looked up over the top of the book at Twilight.

“You won’t be able to put it down as soon as you start reading.” She still had that same, infectious grin on her face.

“Oho, is that a challenge?” Spike smirked.

“Want to make it one?” Twilight's brow fell, returning the smirk with her own smile.

“Sure. If I stop reading, you have to clean up the library after your next researching binge. If I read it cover to cover without stopping, then I’ll clean up after Pinkie Pie’s next party,” Spike grinned; Pinkie’s parties may be huge, but after spending so long dealing with Twilight’s messy hurricanes she called ‘research sessions’, it wouldn't be hard for him to hold up his end of the bargain.

“You’re on,” Twilight says, and the two shared a hoofshake, or hoof-clawshake, to seal the bet. Twilight trotted off to the kitchen, mumbling something about being famished, and Spike resigned himself to his book.

Alright, Brain, get ready for inspiration… Spike readied himself for whatever would come, and opened the book to page 1.

Comments

[KillerSteel]

What images work as covers on this site?!

Damn Google Images...

[TheSecretBrony]

906901 Go to the story's main page, y'know where you can select chapters, click on the edit button, it should bring you back to the form you filled in for submitting it. Find an image you want to use as a cover and save it to your computer, then look for the upload image, click browse find the image on your hard drive and upload it simple.

Looking forward to seeing more of this, it certainly reminds me of the predicament I'm in at the moment.

Who knew writing fiction could be so difficult?

[NaturalGlitch]

I can seriously sympathies with Spike here.

This is a very funny and easily relatable type of story here. I'm going to read it a few times.

Well, in season two, there has been an influx of stallions, and the only real reason there's so many mares is because of place holder flash animation... and Hasbro said more mares. Still a funny joke, though.

Nice shout out to some other fanfics on this site, too. I always think that's a funny idea.

[KillerSteel]

Glad everyone's enjoying it! I'll try and bring you all new chapters from time to time, trying to find a job right now.

911943 I know, right? Suffering the same situation for Silent Ponyville.

912022 Spike'll fight through it eventually, just like every writer. I hope to have a fully written story by the end, no clue what it'll be about right now though.

[KillerSteel]

911943 Got it, thanks. Now I have a cover image!

[KillerSteel]

Never expected so many favorites...makes me wanna get Chapter 2 out to you all. I'll see if I can get it done soon.

[Frost]

Yeah, I have an imagination like that too. Just line everything up and watch how it plays out, then write it down. It helps if I have time to WRITE IT DOWN, though. I can simulate complete conversations in my head, but I don't have too much time to write it down on this website.