“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.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Gotta agree with your students, or at least argue with them somewhat anyway.
ReplyDeleteTo me, no matter what writing I'm doing, whether it's good or not good, it's always a jump of faith.
A jump of believing that whatever you are writing is bettering yourself as a writer.
A jump of faith in believing, no matter what, that you are a writer. And you are learning and growing and becoming better and better. But you are a writer.