well, something’s working. and it’s definitely not the pain relievers i took for my neck, which now hurts on both sides upon rising from tussly, tossy sleep. but something is working away, like a kernel searching and translating, sending synapses through pink tunnels of grey matter, burrowing, borrowing, invading my waking and sleeping thoughts.

i’ve started writing. well, duh, you say, i’ve been kind enough to humor your postings now for three weeks….where is this going, trish? i’ve tapped into the creative, the exhilarated, the pensively consumed and they’ve packed themselves in a delicately doilied handbasket headed straight to Fruition. the mental artists i’ve gathered to push me and and inspire me have been busy, painting my life the color of music, sunlight, euphoria and Love. what has me gushing through this written portion of my poetic license exam? despite my rushed morning yesterday, despite a busy and silly day, spent in american malls and plastic parking lots, i found the heart and mind to crawl deep inside another mind, a character, a fiction, and spill some of her story on paper. ok, well…spill some on screen.

it seems that this “don’t look down” and “just practice your craft” attitude is worth something. i’m sticking with it. i’m finding that by surrounding myself with encouraging and courageous people, i am suddenly encouraged and courageous. throw in a mix of my soul food, mostly music and lust and freedom and words, and suddenly a seed planted more than two decades ago in a desperate, starving, teenage mind, is growing like jack’s beanstalk from my fingers and heart. so, before i’m “ready,” before there is “enough time,” before i have “a leg to stand on,” i’ve roped myself into posting here in some dependable fashion…ready and read or not, and now also into finishing 60 or so more episodes of fiction writing like i had last night…60 or so more episodes of literary brilliance…to complete my first great american novel. teehee.

ok, granted, i’ve started a few before…but this one is different. this one burns and churns in my mind and then writes it’s characters, illuminating for me the heart of the matter one simple line at a time. i’m in a new phase of life, where i’m writing because it’s FUN, less concerned than ever that it’s perfect or brilliant  in the opinions of my exhaulted literati. i’m writing without much attention to other than what pleases me, page to page. i’m writing because i’m meant to and because to not finish something would be as great a disservice to my deathbed as any i could imagine. i want to put my money where my fingers and bragging words are…i want to give it my everything…my heart, time, ego and humor. i’m inspired even as i’m aggravated by a recent car commercial that suggests that missing it’s end of summer sales event would garner the same deathbed regrets as never penning the novel i promised myself…and every friend i’ve met in 25 years of travel, boasting and fantasizing.

this morning my neck is almost paralyzed from too many computer hours and not enough sunlight. my daughter is beginning to whistfully call for a rescue from a cheery saturday morning crib. it’s one of the last pool weekends of the summer. it’s time to recharge, to keep this wave rolling and my spirit high upon its face. i love this feeling, i love these words, and i love everyone who’s ever bothered to read a single one of mine.

to anyone with the spark of a writer’s soul out there…especially the ones caught up in day-to-day doldrums or drama, i will share with you what a writer told me once long ago. he was a prolific guy, in his early 20s, already penning book number 3. i’m not sure any of them were publishable, many written in wee hours fueled by scary drugs that also became the subject of much of his work…and likely his line of work….but he had a passion for words that only other nerdy writers ever really understand. i wasn’t writing a lot at the time, and his words struck me, and then reverberated through years of writing even less. as i lamented the difference between my heart’s desire and my (un)productivity, he said, “a writer never stops writing, sometimes we just stop recording for a while.”

i’ve carried that statement in my writer’s mind, repeated it several times following laments and trips to the poser closet, and hoped always that the reassurance it offers would be more than a platitude for me, that it would portend my mid-life or late-life authoring genius. that’s one of the cool things about writing…you can start the career whenever it strikes you. i’ve always known that i had until my deathbed to pull it off.

i hate to jinx myself, i fear spouting my enthusiasm all over the web, when i’ve only just begun to weave a tale, a tale i can see all the way to the end, but that needs about 88,000 more words to be believable. but accountability, putting the energy out there and staking everything on this momentum, this ride…well, so far it’s workin’ for me. i’ve never been so “all in.” i thought “all in” would be scarier…that it would be harder than this to “not look down,” but i’m finding that it feels a little bit like skydiving…you think it’s scary until you do it…then you realize it’s all just bliss and release…that fear is just fear, not Fruition…and that the risk is worth it and what living is all about.