What Writers Do. (?)

I have rewritten this beginning a few times over.

I hate that.

I hate having thoughts that are not words and feelings that are not thoughts.

But then again, I love it.

I love messing up my mind with things inside so much bigger than myself,
and having the opportunity to write, and rewrite, and rewrite again until
all (or most) has spilled out on the screen

and erased.


And then there are those few lines that make it. I'm sure they puzzle why,
like that lone survivor of a merciless crash or the furious swirl of a cyclone writer swift-
ly gnashing all the realities around to bits. . .

except that one,

like this.


Writers are curious people.

Even their words are baffled. 'Why me?' A writer's choice of content and word
is some crazed mystery only tucked in the tiny wrinkles of the author's brain,
untouched by probe or scope of why or how.

When crossed with such a question, it ruffles the writer
until he or she gives some stream of strange, but somehow intellectual sounding, answers
that crash into the reader's mind like a semi or burst out the top of the heart
like a green shoot busting into bloom.

Or

you get the dazed shake of the head;
the lost train of thought;
the distracted and disgusted

"Don't ask."


February 24, 2010