BitterSweetLife

A Writing Process?

The words come at me in a swarm and I try to pluck them from the air and pin them down. I pick, I prefer, but I take what luck gives me. I press the words down, determined, into a makeshift mosaic that blurs and whirls like a dust cloud, a pesky flock of gnats. Now and again I catch a glimpse of a shape.

I put the words together. I take them apart.

The words bite and I rub my eyes, then snatch more of them from the buzzing swarm, though most escape me. They are skilled at subterfuge. They wing behind irrelevant memories and hover. They hide behind bland connotations. If I could catch the right words I could change the world.

But the story-picture grows, and suddenly it’s there, and I’m powerless to change it. The struggle is over, though the exertion has left my eyes irritated, my skin pale. Is this all?

I take a close look at the colony of words I have captured. Together they make a picture: I've written a tiger. I assess myself in proximity to my work (how much of it is me?) and see that the tiger is snarling and lunging and I’ve got a white-knuckle grip on the tail.