Jumping off Cliffs

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.”-Kurt Vonnegut

There’s something beautiful and deadly in those words. Writers may not always have the reputation of the boldest and most daring of humanity – my students would definitely argue the point – but there is a glimmer of boldness on a well-crafted page, a flicker of madness perhaps, and a trace of courageous splendor.

After a solid year of disciplining myself to write fifteen pages per week – be they fifteen pages of exquisite truths and magnificence or fifteen pages so fowl no soul would dare to stand downwind of them – I find myself suddenly antsy. I haven’t fulfilled my fifteen new pages in months.

Editing can fill the mind with possibilities for only so long. I woke up this morning before the sun was up, and I pulled up the pages of my novel. As I reviewed and reread, somewhere inside of me, new characters started to whisper. This was the first inner-rustling. I’m not sure if I’m ready to begin again, to jump off that cliff, to hope and pray that I find my wings before gravity pulls me down, but a new project is beginning to take form in my mind.