One year ago today I was standing on the fields of Culloden in Scotland. It was coming to the end of my trip in Europe, and I was brimming with promise.
Beyond this blog and the record of my adventures, I didn’t write much in Ireland or Scotland. Not beyond a verse or a scribbled idea. I wanted to. I itched to grasp pen and paper and let the words flow. I secretly hoped for a bestseller (perhaps reading one too many books where such things happened). But it wasn’t to be. In fact, though the ideas were and are there, the stories still have not come. I still feel the mists of the emerald isle and the deep magic of the Highlands calling. I still feel as though I have a story there to tell. But I cannot reach it. I cannot touch it.
When a story is strong – when I know it needs to be told, I can often feel the pen in my hand or my computer keys beneath my fingertips before I touch either. I can feel the words rolling off my tongue though I have yet to speak a word. I can hear the voices of my characters clamoring to get out and be heard. I am bombarded on all sides by the story, a simple length of bull kelp being buffeted by a storm. It’s irresistible. It’s tangible.
Currently, I am living with intangibility.
To a certain extent I believe writing can be forced. As I have heard and read, many devote a certain amount of time each day to writing and they stick to that. They write, whether good, bad, or useful, it doesn’t matter but they write. To a certain extent, I agree with this philosophy. It isn’t one I am currently practicing, but I do agree with it.
However, what do you do when the story doesn’t want to be told? When it isn’t ready? I’m sure you could sit at your computer or desk and force it forward, perhaps cajole or bribe some of the words out…. but would it be what it could have been had you just waited?
That’s the question that stands before me. The stories are there. Floating. Ethereal in the space of my mind and soul. But they are as fleeting as the end of a rainbow, and just as precious. They are not ready – perhaps I am not ready.
I am of the mind that stories and author’s find themselves. They stumble across each other in the ether of consciousness and recognize a familiar soul. Sometimes I think the act of writing isn’t so much an act of creation as it is a recognition, transformation, and becoming.
So I have stories untold, and stories told. I have tales in progress and some yet to be discovered, and I find that I am in a state of waiting. We can lose out on so much in life when we anticipate a future (or future events). I’m going to try and stop anticipating. I am going to try and stop berating myself when I don’t write. I’m going to try and stop questioning my skills, and my stories, and I’m going to try and just be.
After all, if my head is too full of worry and fear, how will I hear the new stories come when they are but an un-formed breeze awaiting the pen?
Sheena Lyn 