In an intimate moment, I’d mentioned to someone that I had finally gotten to writing again, that I had found a muse of sorts and that I was fleshing it out. They asked me how I felt about it, and I said…

“I hate writing.”

We laughed, and I was a bit surprised I’d said it. It’s not that I hate writing as people think of it, but by the time it comes to getting the idea out of my mind through my fingertips, or even vocalizing it in a way others understand, I find that aspect of writing the most taxing. I don’t think in words. I don’t imagine in words. I don’t know that anyone does. Maybe, because I haven’t done as much fictional writing, I simply haven’t grown the callouses to make the process less painful. I don’t know how true it is with other writers who do this sort of thing.

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed,” Hemingway once said. For me, the fun part is the imagining, the testing of ideas, the planning. But when it’s time to get it out and share it, it can be painful. And to be even close to original in a world full of the same stories written by different authors, it’s hard, at least for me. Sometimes the words roll out without conscious thought when you’re dealing with something people can readily understand, but to be original means taking people to places where they may not understand – to suspend belief sometimes, to get people to look at things differently, or simply to share a complex perspective as simply as possible.

And so, while I may not be posting much…

Tap, tap, tap…