While the gettin's good

It's quiet here except for the dull vibration of the water coursing under our home to cool and nourish our lawn, and the slight tinkling of the ceiling fan in the living room; and the frogs and crickets chirping down by the pond-we can't forget their oh-so-peaceful summer chorus. These are usually the moments I am inspired to write-these, and rainy days-the dark, quiet, zen-inducing days. Though these are not the moments that the content arrives, but they are the moments the readiness to "pen" them does.

 It's funny when and where the content arrives. I've read personal accounts of many other writers who receive their revelations as they lather their hair with shampoo, or zone out in 5 o'clock traffic, or brush the crud from their teeth at the end of the day. For me it's sometimes within these strange daily rituals that my story takes shape, but many times it's at an even more inconvenient time: right as I'm finally drifting off to sleep at night-or trying very hard to stay asleep past 6am on a Saturday. And we all know why this is the way the writing genie grants your wish for great material--it's because your mind is finally an empty vessel, be it a mere 3-minute window or a glorious 10. It's also most certainly never the moment you have a pen and pencil to jot the stuff down, or even a free hand to type it into your phone or computer. It becomes quite the exercise in memory retention-and letting go of control.

 When I was pursuing my degree in Fine Arts at the University of Colorado, in Colorado Springs, one of my professors had the most sadistic but effective methods of curing all of us students of perfectionism. She would have us work for days--weeks even--on the same still life study until we were fully satisfied with our work. Then, she would have us erase every line, every mark, every detail of our composition until only the faintest veins of our toil remained. And then we would have to start again-the same still life, the same piece of paper, a new composition built on top of the grave of the old. We had no idea if we would have to endure the process once again, how many layers of graves there would be. Your mind wants so badly to just re-trace the lines and resurrect the body underneath, but your gut knows that there is something even more amazing yet to be birthed if you can just let go of the past. I wasn't especially grateful then for that lesson, but I am now. Now, when my mind suddenly explodes with material I've been waiting for, and then as quickly as it appeared, vanishes from my mind leaving only the traces of the body, I can take a deep breath and watch as it's buried beneath the sands of business until all is quiet again and there is nothing but me and the dim memories of what was-and the great anticipation of what is yet to come.

And gosh, that anticipation gives me such a high. I think I love the feeling of sitting down in front of my computer to finally bring to life--to our physical reality--the workings and fantasies within my mind just as much as actually seeing them in the flesh, fully birthed and standing there on their own after all the toil. They may not be perfect, they may not ever be as grand as the virgin inspirations were, but they were the ones that were meant to last.