On blood moons, fantasy novels and the overwhelming feeling of what's the fucken point

Honestly, what's the fucken point?

From the opposite side of the world, I recently tried to convince my sister that creative, artistic endeavours were still a worthwhile use of her time.

Part of that could be attributed to selfishness, I suppose. My sister is, after all, currently illustrating a children's book I wrote about a little donkey with a big imagination, and I certainly would not want to her to give up and leave my book sadly un-illustrated.

But I could see her point.

Wars, corruption, droughts, floods, fires. The impending cascade of system-collapse - either economically, societally, environmentally or any combination of all of the above.

Still though, I tried to talk her around, from Albania to Australia via the little green messages of WhatsApp, as much for myself as for her. Since I have struggled to find motivation to keep writing over the past few months, in convincing her I was really hoping to convince myself.

Then I saw that last night was a blood moon eclipse.

Jesus Christ. Fucken really?

To put it bluntly: if I was writing a Game of Thrones-style fantasy novel and I had a blood moon eclipse just as the mad pedophile emperor, decaying daily in mind and body, sitting in his own shit-soiled robes, surrounded by an evil coterie of fawning dullards and smirking psychopaths launched a war and called it peace...I would probably tell myself I need to tone it down just a tad.

And since I am, in fact, trying to write a fantasy novel at the moment, I have to ask myself...honestly, what's the fucken point?

What's the point for any of the projects I'm currently working on, come to that? The epic fantasy trilogy that has been kicking around my mind for the past six years. The novel based on the Black Paintings of Francisco de Goya (the original proof-of-concept of which was published on Vocal back in the day as a short story). The children's book about the little donkey, Oatey. Even my next compilation of poems that I usually publish on an almost yearly basis.

What's the point of any of it?

When reality is become fiction, what is the point in trying to create new fiction? And reality is not just any fiction these days, but the most lurid, on-the-nose in purple prose fiction ever to be shat out by a coked-up fantasy fanboy with delusions of literary genius and all the insight of a 14-year-old incel. This is what we're living in. These are our times. Fuck. How embarrassing.

On the other hand, writing is something I've always done, simply for the joy of doing it. Simply because it feels good to lock myself away in a little creative bubble and lose myself in a different world for a moment. And that is just as important now as ever, if not more-so.

That is what I told my sister, and am telling myself again today. Reminding myself that the reason I write is because it feels good to write things. It doesn't always work, but usually it does. And all of a sudden, the good old YouTube algorithm suggested an ancient mythology video to me and I got a new poem out of it. I wrote it down, and felt a little better.

Blood moon eclipse and all.