A Tale of Plunder and Prose

A journey through the mind’s high seas captures the struggle to reclaim creativity from the clutches of distraction and doubt.

Captain Blankbeard is a greedy old pirate who sails the far seas of my mind. He makes a living by looting the ships that carry my thoughts as they cruise through my neural canals to the great port where writing is born. Like any seafaring swashbuckler, he targets the container ships that haul only the most valuable booty––the gold-filled nuggets of creativity and pearls from the rare oysters of innovation that shine so brilliantly the sun must avert his eyes––leaving me with measly skiffs.

I’ve done my best to ignore Blankbeard, believing it would be safest to distance myself from his self-indulgence. Lately, though, with foreboding essay and presentation deadlines, his pilfering has become increasingly troublesome. Just as my best thoughts begin their trek through my mind, Blankbeard snatches them up and locks them away.

So, over reading week, when I had some extra time on my hands, I strapped together a raft and set off in search of the hoggish buccaneer to settle this once and for all. With the recent pressure to think creatively, the vessels transporting my thoughts have hailed in vast fleets. I only had to approach a couple of these clusters before I spotted Blankbeard’s brigantine, her silhouette carved against the horizon with two mighty masts piercing the sky.

I approached with caution, ever aware of the herculean cannons that lined the sides of his ship––the weapons he used to force my thoughts into surrender.

“Wha’ brings ye?” Blankbeard asked as I approached the ladder, his voice almost lost amid the clamorous waves lapping against the boat. Before I could reply, he spoke again, “Ye’ve got t’ wants somethin’. In me many years o’ sailin’ these seas, 18 at last count, ye haven’t come t’ visit me once.”

“I’ve come to make a deal,” I replied as I hoisted myself onto the deck.

“Deal? The lass wants a deal? Well wha’ kind o’ deal?” he sneered.

“I need you to stop stealing my ideas until the end of 2024.”

“Stop collectin’ me booty? Nay! Why would I do that?” Blankbeard wailed, the stomp of his peg leg, reverberating across the deck.

“If you stopped taking my thoughts until the new year, I could finish the semester and…”

“And wha’? Get on wit’ it!”

“If you would let me finish,” I said, trying to maintain my composure. “I could wrap up my fall courses, and you’ll have a bounty of ships to pillage with all my coursework next semester.”

“Now that, me dear poppet, be a reason,” Blankbeard boasted. “But ye’ll ‘ave t’ do one thing fer me.”

As I contemplated what he could possibly ask of me, I noticed a couple of skiffs spring up off in the distance––my thoughts.

“I’ll needs ye t’ keep writing for the Sundial Press. Yer thoughts ‘ave been the shiniest ‘n most valuable since ye started workin’ on that article, ’n I wants more like ’em!”

“You’ve got a deal.”

Extending his right arm to shake, he promptly realized that was his hook––we shook on the left instead. As I watched the brigantine sail away, I heard his raspy cry, “Ye better get those articles published, by the way. I be nah one t’ give up me booty fer naught!”

Upon settling back into my desk chair, the words began to flow from my fingertips, each keystroke shaping the narratives that eluded me amid Blankbeard’s antics. Yet, as I shuffled through my brainstorming techniques and writing strategies honed over years of combating Blankbeard, a realization dawned on me: that pirate is responsible for my resilience as a student. He has trained me to fight mental block, cutlass in hand, so when my creativity falters, and I have 1,000 words due the following day, I’m prepared for battle. We might be arch-rivals, but we certainly enrich one another’s worlds––his with plunder and mine with prose.