What I Learned About Writing 2010: A Faery's Musings on Writer's Block
Sunday, January 24, 2010 00:00 AM EST
And so the faery whispered, "Just write. Write until you can no longer see the words. Listen to the song within you. It may be elusive at first and indeed you may fill many pages before it finally comes out, but give yourself over to the adventure and it shall unfold before you."
"Surely you need a plan," I took off my glasses. "Without a solid structure the words just fall apart. Babble it becomes—unfocused, wayward babble."
"And what do you call this scribble scattered about?" she said, snapping up a few scraps of paper from my desk, then others from the far end of the room.
"Foundation," I replied.
"Surely structure can be found here," the muse tossed the notes into the air and incinerated them. "Structure without a soul."
"Why in the blazes did you do that?" I growled. I wanted to rip those ivory pink tails from her skull.
"If you truly believe your words have soul, then it should be able to take the form of it's choosing. Such is the way of the faery folk," she swooped to within an inch of me. "Humans frequently have trouble with this."
"Fine, we'll try it your way," I snatched a feather from my desk and blotted it with ink. "What should we call this little escapade?"
"Whatever you want."
"Let's call it ‘On Faeries and Fowl Intentions.'"
"If you wish," she replied.
"Or ‘How The Faery Flogged Constable Whizzlepop.'"
"See. Wasn't that easy? You've already taken the first step."
"First step?" I tossed the feather aside. "That was all nonsense. I just did it to entertain that warped little brain of yours."
"Or entertain a possibility."
"Rubbish. All I did was expel it from my mind."
And then it hit me.
That was the point all along.
"The first step," said the faery, "is to clear your mind."
I gritted my teeth together. She was right, of course. There was a certain magic in letting go of the words; of not holding them in too long. Instantly my mood lifted, and as promised, the words began to flow—to such an extent I could barely keep up.
"And who said you can't teach a human new tricks?" she winked and flew away.
Calamity, I named her then and there. And so the adventure unfolded...
