Writing Works (For Me) Like This

I’ll feel the pull of a current, and I’ll wait for the current to get stronger.

If I pursue the pull of the current before it’s strong enough, I won’t be able to ride the wave of the story because it doesn’t yet have enough force or momentum to carry me.

So, I wait and mull and think, letting the wave, the idea, build and gain strength.

When I can no longer resist its pull, I let the wave take me.

I dive into the wave and feel the current swirl around my feet and draw me into it.

Sometimes it feels like the tide gently pulling me out to sea, sometimes like a rip current dragging me under.

Sometimes the current feels like it can go on forever, and the ride lasts for weeks or months or years.

Sometimes it’s only a small wave that looks enormous when I dive into it but recedes before I realize its gone, nothing more than an illusion that leaves me treading water, waiting for the next wave.

On some days there are more waves than I can ride at once.

Waves—big waves, small waves—keep rolling into shore.

As soon as I find myself finished with one wave, I swim out to where the waves form to grab another and ride that one for as long as it lasts.

Leapfrogging from wave to wave.

Working on one idea until I’m spent or the wave’s energy is exhausted (or leaves me exhausted), and taking the time to recover my strength so I can ride the next one, and the next.

Always looking for a wave strong enough to carry me, to keep me afloat.

I love being in the moment of riding that wave.

I love feeling the current pull me in, the sea spray in my face, the taste of salt on my lips, the smell of seaweed, the feel of the sun on my back.

Most of all I love swimming in the water, immersed in the glorious sea of writing, splashing in all of the stories rippling around me.

I love how the waves of stories pulse and roil and uncurl beneath me.

Inside me.

Writing works (for me) like this.