There’s nothing like the feeling of joy and contentment that washes over you after a good writing day. A day where everything just clicks into place, where the characters dance off the page, wisecracking among themselves, telling the reader secrets that you, the writer, never knew. Right at that moment you start to believe in the alchemy of the creative process. It doesn’t happen very often. In fact, sometimes it can be a right old slog to get words onto paper, but you have to battle through those days, hoping that golden days are to come.
Interestingly, the best writing days often sneak up on you unexpectedly. You may be feeling a bit under the weather, a bit glandy, but you make yourself sit down at your desk regardless and just get on with it.
Slowly, so slowly, you start to move your fingers over the keys and after a few sentences it starts to get a little easier. And after a few paragraphs you begin to relax into your writing; and after a few pages you are lost in another world, a world of your own making, and you look up and three hours have gone by in a flash.
And you roll your stiff neck, flex your fingers, and give a deep sigh, completely and utterly happy. Because for those three hours nothing else mattered – there was just you and your characters, communing on the page.
And those magical snatches of time, when every single molecule of you is caught up, immersed in story, are what make writing the best job in the world. I wish the true alchemy of writing on all of you.
Yours in writing,
Sarah X