When the spigot turns

I can’t just turn the spigot and the words come pouring out into rockets, bells and poetry. I have to sit in an easy chair and THEN turn the spigot.

I have to pick up a pen or turn on the computer and imagine a girl whose mother was an explorer of time and space and dimensions. I have to look out the window and write down what I see. I have to listen to music and feel what I feel and then tell you. I have to read a book about living on Prince Edward Island during a terrible war overseas and process what that was like. I have to jump at the sound of a bird being surprised that the open space into my well-lit room is a barrier he couldn’t see — and hope he wasn’t dashing so fast to get into this space that he’s crumpled and forever gone below. (He wasn’t.)

In short, I have to live and, living, write the life into words.

Everything I see and hear and feel and smell and taste is something to write about. It all collects inside, welling up in the well, until I sit down and turn the spigot.

And so, on a morning when I’m not sure what to write, I just start the fingers to forming words and see what they tell me.

Published by WarrenBluhm

Wordsmith and podcaster, Warren is a reporter, editor and storyteller who lives near the shores of Green Bay with his wife, two golden retrievers, Dejah and Summer, and Blackberry, an insistent cat. Author of It's Going to Be All Right, Echoes of Freedom Past, Full, Refuse to be Afraid, Gladness is Infectious, 24 flashes, How to Play a Blue Guitar, Myke Phoenix: The Complete Novelettes, A Bridge at Crossroads, The Imaginary Bomb, A Scream of Consciousness, and The Imaginary Revolution.

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