If you're inspired to write, you have to. You have to drop everything else and just write. Those words have always been in your mind, and it's going to get very crowded in there if you don't let them flow from your mind into your heart, through the passageway that is your soul, down your arm and into your little messenger fingertips. Give that pencil everything you've got. Don't hold back. If it doesn't sound eloquent or poetic, good. But if it does, that's good too. The moment you start writing for someone other than you, is the moment that the words skip one crucial step in the writing process... the soul purification. Words aren't pure unless they are filtered through the soul, and the soul only engages under circumstances of true inspiration, of genuine feeling. Your words are like little fetuses, and it's not easy to ignore those literary labor pains. Just so, if you try to engage those words before they're ready... they won't have near the beauty and severity as if you had waited for that light bulb moment. And you can tell. If you're reading something that someone else wrote, no matter how long ago or how far away... you can identify if the words have been soul-filtered from the first letter. People think of words, sometimes, like rain droplets. Like little harmless sprinkles that mistily fall from the slightly darkened clouds. But I can't say that's the metaphor I associate with words. The soul knows no sprinkling rain. The soul is more accustomed to torrential downpours, to tornado-like whirlwinds, to crashes of thunder and streaks of magnificent lightning. If words are trickling out, it means they're edited or forced. But when you feel that storm welling up inside of you, at the base of your sternum, and then spreading all the way to you fingers... you know you're onto something. And whether you have to sit on the curb in the middle of walking your dalmatian, or scribble something down on the skin of a mango you're peeling... you've got to write. Think of what would happen if the sky decided to hold in it's rage. I'm pretty sure the world would implode. You've got to love the feeling of powerful words emptying from you, because it's the closest to yourself you will ever be. And I'm emphasizing on words, here, but it goes for any form of expression--painting, drawing, dancing, running, horseback riding, photographing, playing music, singing--whatever it is that is inside of you: *let it out*. Free yourself. The liberation of releasing a storm is nearly like nothing else. It's like a mix between everything beautiful in your own mind. For me, it's a mix between a tree on a brown shirt and late-night hair washing; torn up green sofas and opaque windows and deserted formal classrooms and moonlit woods; racing horses and circular walks and illegal statues and midnight music and fluffy stairs and minivans; eating worms and living room back flips and lime green wall paint and 2:00 a.m. brokenness; running from fears that exist inside and train tracks running through a cave; the moon at its fullest and leather bracelets and unspoken love; antiques and extensive autumn trees and the moon changing colors and childhood books; abandon parking lots and pseudo-intoxicated confessions; disregarded windows and feline exceptions and sleepy theatrics; soul-deep music and cursive letters and warm organic tea and aging books under lock and key; creeks and rusty white trucks and people with real love and strips of dusty sunshine in the mornings. And really.. so much more. I can't express, singly everything inside of me. Which is why I write. Which is why, when the reckless storm is pleading.... let. it. free.
No comments:
Post a Comment