The Writer

I have a story trapped inside me.  It's trying to get out but I can't find the words.  I can see it each time I close my eyes and I hear it whispering each time I am in the silence.  It beckons to me out of the corner of my eye, enticing my mind down the quiet dirt road, flirting from within lit windows framed by flowered curtains, calling from the empty bed or quiet chair.

I can see it sometimes, like a lit room with an open window viewed from the street at night.  I gaze inward, wondering what might be inside.  Who lives here?  What is a day in their life like?  What do they love?  What do they hate?  What will they cry for?  What will they kill for?  Is their life any more interesting than mine?

Perhaps the story begins at a dance with women in long dresses and men in fine suits.  Maybe they glide through the moves of a courtly air, the light pouring yellow with age from the gas lamps to guide their measured steps.  Mayhap there is a stringed quartet pouring their hearts into songs they learned by ear.  The girls are gazing at the boys with hope, the boys are gazing at the girls with desire, the matrons are gazing at the girls with envy, the gentlemen are gazing at the boys with distrust.

Or perhaps it is a family story, a girl who grows up to look just like her mother, a boy who grows up to drink just like his dad.  They fall in and out of love with each other, each seeking something they can't define because they never learned how to say "I need you, I'm sorry, come home."

Maybe this story is about friendship and two girls who swore they'd never grow apart, even as they grew up.  They dated the same guys, fought with the same friends, moved in and out of the same towns, loved each other like sisters even as they grew apart.  Then one of them dies, like you know she will, and the other is left wondering why, with a broken heart, she didn't talk to her friend as often as she should.

I wander through these stories, even thicker and more real than reality in their moments.  They come to me, unbidden, as though I am the only vessel to tell their vital tales.  Yet I cannot write a word, for what word could define a moment of fiction and "what if?" that is more powerful than my own life, my own family, my own beating heart? 

Maybe, when I am ready, one story will flow from my fingers like water from a fountain.  Until then, I wait in the desert with mirages of oceans and only sand in my eyes.

Author's Note

An old journal entry I stumbled across recently. It is just as true today as it was then.

As writers, I hope it strikes a true note with you. Or if not, I would love some insight to your own creative process.

Thanks for reading.

Reviews

[Nigel Newman]

Gosh this is good. When I started to reading I was drawn in, and the stroked by the beautiful imagery and phrasing. "It beckons to me out of the corner of my eye ... flirting from within lit windows framed by flowered curtains, calling from the empty bed or quiet chair." And then, in one sense, you give us plot summaries that entice, and yet we all know they've been done a hundred times already. That's some skill - to paint life into seemingly predictable scenarios.

I write words, but I also dabble in complete song-writing. And yes, once in a blue moon, something flows from somewhere in such a natural and spontaneous way "like waters from a fountain". Kismet, luck, whatever you say, maybe faith. But it's also coupled with hard-won experience that means that the spontaneous outpouring manifests itself in well crafted ways that might have been beyond us in earlier years.

Very nice work!
Nigel

[Octavia]

I completely agree that hard-won experience is the key to making mundane or over used events seem once again worth reading about. I think my worst fear as a writer is that everything I have to say has already been said or explored in better and more interesting ways. However, when I feel that way, I have to have faith that delivering my own truth and my own experiences in as honest and emotionally open way as possible will connect with a reader no matter how many times that particular story has been told. Even when I am writing sci-fi and fantasy stuff (which is my main genre), my goal is always to keep the audience engaged by having compelling characters who struggle with the same issues real life people do. If I do this with hard-won skill and dedication to detail, I have to believe someone will be interested enough to read it.

Thank you so much for the review. It made me think and do some more self-reflection.

I shall go investigate your writing! I hope that you will take a look through my other work as well.

[Secret Soul]

Your narrative, with no real scenario, told a beautifully truthful story.

[Octavia]

It is truthful. Thank you for the compliment. I am glad you connected with it.

[Farmgirl]

You are very talented Octavia!

[Octavia]

Thank you.