Blue Days

Writers--sometimes we wake in the middle of the night--we reach for a pad and pen and jot down the thoughts that came out of nowhere about our book, story or article. In the morning, the words may seem brilliant, other mornings we think why did I lose sleep over this? Sometimes we plant our rear ends in a chair, rev up our computers, and begin to type and the words seem to flow—dialogue, narrative, from fingers to keyboard to page. Sometimes we sit and stare and stare and stare at the screen. There are times we wonder if we can write at all—a blue day-- and times we shut the computer off and go for a walk but then we return, plant our rear ends in a chair, turn the computer on and begin again.

We write when we’re happy, angry, hurt, or sick and the words help when we’re distressed and need to escape into another world. Worlds we create, worlds with people we grow to love, tolerate or hate. We join forces with our characters, argue, fight and laugh together and the words grow into sentences, the sentences into paragraphs, then pages, chapters and books.

When the words don’t come and our characters retreat--a blue day--loneliness begins creeping in and sometimes we’re ready to throw everything away. But we tell ourselves-this has happened before and came out all right in the end-and we begin again and revise again and let it simmer until ‘til the magic day we know the piece is as ready as it will ever be and it’s time to let go and send our child to make its way in the world.