Start here – an empty bowl, a canvas, a mound of clay, a blank page.
Add one part desire and two parts inexplicable necessity to express your
innermost thoughts, your subconsciously inspired, and often sacred, visions via
the written word.
Stir carefully.
Add a dash of creativity, patience, dedication, and aspiration. The
mixture may be lumpy. If so, add a dash of persistence, and adjust
patience as needed. If lumps still exist, carefully remove the darlings –
you probably don’t need them anyway.
Mix well.
Fold in a lifetime of experiences, ideas, and dreams. They may seem small
and perhaps individually insignificant, but they will grow to unimaginable
heights of aesthetic and linguistic beauty when kneaded, molded, and given
proper time to rise.
Cover and set aside.
When enough time has passed to allow for objective appreciation, carefully
observe. Look deep within your creation. Identify its beauty.
Nurture its weaknesses. Fill its lifeless gaps. Weave plot and
drama, and emotion throughout. Leave it in its most naked, most glorious
and exposed and endearing state. Then watch as it bakes, filling the air
with the aroma of success and completion. Glory at the sweetness; the
flower of contentment and satisfaction equaled not even by that of the
rose. When visually golden and linguistically clear, remove it from the
heat.
Let it rest.
Baking, painting, molding, writing. The artists’ outlets can take on many
forms. It’s a passion. A curious and demanding need to express the
demons and angels that live somewhere between our subconscious selves and the
medium of our choice. What will they create today? What will I
create today? Tomorrow?
When this journey with pen and paper, keyboard and screen began, it appeared as
a seed. One simple seed placed somewhere within the depths of my
mind. Sometimes rattling, sometimes lolling, or rolling from space to
space searching for the right place to be embed, to extend roots and
grow. Many times, it failed. And many times it tried again.
Until finally, after many years of relentless determination, it took hold and
flourished. At first I didn’t notice. I couldn’t believe that
something so limitless could exist in a mind so simplistic. Someone had
to show me. Someone had to open my eyes to see the light that it needed
to grow, the light that I needed to grow. I noticed, and I
cultivated. Keeping it healthy has been a challenge. Much like the
maintenance of a philodendron, regular attention is essential to keep the
writing alive; to keep it growing, sprouting new petioles and unfolding new
leaves. Though agonizing, at times it is inevitable that a piece of it
die to be born again at another time or in another piece. This process of nurturing
the life of a page, a chapter, poem, or novel has been enchanting. It has
drawn me into its arms, caressed my words with green tipped thumbs, and watered
my imagination.
This plant, this infiltrating mass has consumed a part of me and I will never
be free. Nor do I want to be. Collections, essays, drafts, and
debris have all been gathered. Some destined for dissemination into the
minds of many, some amassed into boxes to be ground into the flour of another
existence. A circle. One life feeding another, and fueling an infinite
existence through biology and ink. Pines, wheat, berries – pulp, flour,
dye – paper, bread, life. All existing to co-exist. All dependent
one upon another for survival, and to complete the circle that is science and
art, life and death.
The fruits of this effort have been many. Harvested at just the right
time, they have become the elements needed to produce a more complete artist, a
writer. While I may never truly feel that the title is appropriately
bestowed, it is, nonetheless, fact. I must write. I do write.
Therefore, I am a writer. Perhaps never an author, perhaps never a poet,
but a writer, nonetheless. The seed has been sown, the flowers spent, and
the bounty reaped.
Looking forward, this journey must continue on its simple path. This is
not a difficult task. A quite simple one really. Write. Every
day. Gibberish, nonsensical ramblings, words that flow from the pen as
water tumbling, splashing, gushing over cliffs, pooling at my feet, and washing
me clean of the pages of the past and leaving me washed in color with a fresh
pallet. A novel without words, pottery lacking form, brushes absent of
paint, or an empty wooden bowl. The process begins again.
Start here.
