When inspiration strikes

There's a lot of debate among writers about waiting for inspiration versus just sitting down and putting in the time. Seems whatever it is that a particular writer does, they think that is the best way to do it. Thing is, I think there is a spectrum and writers are scattered all along it. Some just sit down, same time same place, every day, and write. That's all fine and good, but that doesn't work for me if I don't already have something I'm working on. I just end up sitting there, watching the cursor blink.

I've been pretty stuck lately. While I've written about 60 pages of poetry (yeah, I know, that doesn't sound stuck), most of that hasn't even been typed into the computer and it sure hasn't been edited. A lot of that is just emotional spewing on the page, trying to get the events of December 14 and aftermath out of my head and onto the page. Have no idea if those words will ever be sent out. They're sitting for now.

Writing erotica has not back come easily. I wrote one little piece for my own whatever. I haven't been able to get back to any of the novels I was working on (or thinking about working on). I've let plenty of submission calls pass by. Even when I felt the words piling up behind my mental levee, I couldn't open the floodgates. I kept having this image of myself, finger in the dike, while cracks and leaks developed all around me. The words were there, I just didn't want to let them flow.

How come? Because I knew what those words wanted to say. And that knowledge terrified me. Yeah, I'm just another neurotic writer.

Then something clicked in me, late in the afternoon, while I puttered in the kitchen fixing dinner. After doing the dishes, I took a walk, and jotted hard-to-read notes to myself in my little notebook I carry in my back pocket when I walk (it lives in my purse otherwise). Also, a couple of songs popped into my head: Ani Difranco's In or Out, and Talking Heads' Burning Down the House.

I came home, made myself a drink and started typing. Only got about 500 words down, but it's a start. I know what it's about, but I can't say what it's about yet, since it's still forming. Yeah, there will be sex in it, because I am writing it, but it's about ... everything. Don't know if it will be any good, but it wants to be written.