Process

I said when I started my blog that I was doing so more to keep myself disciplined about getting something out there everyday. Instead, I write when the mood strikes and I find it impossible to do otherwise. The creative process is nothing if not the constant learning, inventing and re-visiting ideas and thoughts to examine whether you have something to say or not in your writing. There is no deadline, I tell myself as I sit down to the keyboard or pen and paper depending on my mood. It's just a blog entry, not a submission to a publisher, I say. So why does it seem so important to try for a piece each day?


I'm not good at forcing myself to do things. I either do or do not, to paraphrase Yoda. To bid an idea come may work for some writers, but I'd rather have it come and bid me join it. This is how it works for me most times.


I need food in my stomach. Words come more easily if there are no rumbles of protest from within. I need fluids - coffee, herbal tea, water - in steady supply. Music before and after but never during the writing itself. Quietude must prevail. Sometimes it seems like the best flow comes right after meditation when my mind is clear and open, relaxed and present.


I've been working with great love all morning on another piece, an essay about my  late grandfather. I am happy with the first draft and have left it to gel some before I return to it to edit, repair and polish. I'm frankly a little sleepy and hungry from digging in my memory for glimpses of him, his mannerisms and habits. It is a good feeling, almost like an in-person visit with him. I wrote and wrote.


And really, that's all I needed to do.