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My mind is full of words, but none of them are clinging to each other and the few that bump and hold together, however briefly, are whispering, and I can barely hear them over the din of all the phrases sloshing against each other in garbled conversation.
It is not a creative day, not even one to press into a chain gang of little efforts: organize, sort, and summarize. My thoughts are lethargic and oddly cantankerous when shuffled about in search of meaning.
I am resolved to putting one word in front of the other, simply letting whatever rises to the surface for a spot of air be sacrificed to expression, going down on the page. So be it.
Yes, one of those days.
I don’t have them often, maybe once a year. But here one is, planted firmly in my available writing moment.
A stagnant field under a swelling of greasy water.
I try to imagine the kind of flooding river that relieves a serious drought, but my inspiration is not buying it. This is swamp, this is bog, this is puddle, and I did not remember to wear my boots, not even the ones of brilliant pink broken up with splashes of yellow ducks. My feet are cold.
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| luck and the trick play equal part |
Look at my hands. On one index finger is a puzzle ring. Such rings are lovely metaphors for writing. Characterization, description, setting, conflict — puzzle pieces that when brought together create a story. Today I slip the ring off and gently separate the four circles of fitted silver shapes, but I don’t allow them to drop away fully from the others.
I know how to put it back together. It will take me anywhere from two minutes to two hours. Luck and the trick play equal part in the creation of a whole ring. I have not mastered the trick enough to rely entirely on it. Much like writing, I am still twisting and turning, thinking it through, watching for the sudden drop into place, ease into fitting as if I was in control of the results.
Does any book, short story, poem, essay, article ever slip into place no longer tricky, just trick. I hope not. Part of the joy comes in the struggle. This is writing, sifting through the slough, the remnants of both memory and meandering, the slithering together of parts and a bright, shiny unexpected whole that whether seen from the beginning or cobbled together reaches completion.
Do you have such days? Are they in the end successful?
#creativity
#writing
