Feeding the Beast

Easy is right. Begin right
And you are easy.
Continue easy and you are right.
The right way to go easy
Is to forget the right way
And forget that the going is easy.
Chuang-Tzu


To Hell with the workshops, rules, writing books for the time being. Can’t afford them. Don’t have time for them. While ever one I’ve ever taken, read or listened to has taught me much more than the cost, by and by, all the things I learn gives me also that tiny bit of hesitation. Am I doing this wrong? What about that suggestion?

Sometimes, what my writing needs is freedom. Free-dom. Abandoned rules, tossed outlines suggestions, forgotten ‘blueprints,’ ignored organizational tips. Chaos writing, free spirited word gathering, wasted time. That’s what I need to rejuvenate writing flow, get my creative juices excited again.

I can’t think of a better time for that than spring racing into summer. I’ve already been elbow deep in planting my gardens: vegetable and flower. That has always jumpstarted my creative thinking.

Even with all the rain and cold we’ve had this month, May is a favorite of mine. There’s the gardening and the warming…and there’s the lilacs. Lilacs are tied up in my memories of childhood: my own and my children’s. Lilacs are my mother. All through May a big bouquet of lilacs graced my mother’s kitchen table and their scent is summer beginnings. In honor of that, I have a sweet-scent bouquet from my own shrubs sitting on my file cabinet draping purple and white pinnacles over cut-glass vase.

Back to childhood and summers. Remember childhood summers. The wildness, the freedom, the long, hot days stretching out forever…a whole summer. Remember and let go of a little discipline and stuffy office work and go a little wild with your writing.

As I plug away at editing Elsa and the Tie-down Man you can be sure I’ll spend at least a few minutes each day in chaos writing; rules and suggestions ignored and only my summer wildness at work. I think I’ll even find some time for a picnic in the canyon and a nature hike or two. River haunting and museum visits. Most writers called it filling the well. I call it feeding the beast.