Monday, June 6, 2011

June 6th - A piece called 300 words (it actually has 378 words)

300 Words

300 words how hard can that be? That’s all I need to write today. Just before I slip off to dreamland whole reams of words come flowing out. There is character development, plot, and subplot. Every bit of the story flows so easily. It’s real, tangible and oh so good. There never was a better story written, wonderful, touching, grand, emotional, impacting! The critics will say striking, deeply felt, poignant. My novels will be bestsellers for weeks, even months on end. My poetry will be deep, or amusing or fresh. My children’s stories, every one of them a Caldecott winner. My screenplays will be Golden Globe and Oscar winners!
I know what to say and how to say it so that it will strike an emotional chord with the reader. My mysteries will be, well, mysterious. My love stories will be no less than lovely. I can see them. I can hear them. I can feel them.
The one thing I can’t seem to do is write them. The words come easily as I lay prone upon my bed or when I’m standing in the shower. They just flow when I’m driving in the car. The characters are brilliant. They are wonderful, engaging and multifaceted. They are people you want to know.
I head off to my office to write the words down and suddenly find myself playing games or checking emails, or picking up the laundry or making a PB&J for my little girl. I finally settle in and focus but the words won’t come. The brilliant thoughts and ideas disappear as quick as an ice cube in the Texas sun. My sentences are stilted, my thoughts convoluted, my ideas unclear, murky muddled.
What was I thinking? I don’t know how to write. I can’t do this thing. There is not a creative bone in my body. I have been kidding myself. I don’t have anything to say, It is foolishness I tell you!
I flounce off to the other room and lay on the couch and a story begins to unfold of a lovely writer held captive by an evil wizard named Life that steals her words and holds them trapped in a bottle until nightfall when they escape and visit her while the wizard sleeps.



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