Where Is The Creative Writer?
He or she is not always here, or there, but farther away
Writing is a sickness for me, and I want to be sicker. I write for an hour, and unbeknownst to me, four have passed. Four hours in which I am absent from the reality of my life. Four hours in which I could have been with family, grandchildren, friends, or had lunch out with Jenny.
Writing is how I connect, communicate, love, and find a way to touch people. Writing takes me away from life’s reality, wrings me out, and sets me apart in my own world.
The lamps in my study, the rug, and the extremities of the room are forgotten for the extremities of my creativity: a woodland road, a silver summit, a train crossing a vast plain, and nowhere in these scenarios am I thinking about Jenny’s visit to an exhibition of haute couture, or my grandchild’s soccer practice, or the kettle I put on that boiled an hour ago.
What comes to mind is the selfishness we, as writers, adopt. Unintentional, we plead, gathering veils to throw over our guilt.
My excuse sounds like this: She was in the city, fleeing amid the steeples and domes, running like a beggar, and they chased her until dawn when she finally collapsed at the edge of the wood.
Waking from my imagination is impossible; such a collision with reality will result in me never knowing what or who is chasing her.
What is happening for me, and of course, for you also, is a startling atmospheric accident, an idea so bold, even a writer’s shyness must deal with it immediately.
Not later, after a conversation about the electricity bill or the car’s maintenance schedule, no, not while the story idea is illuminated, this gem, this fugitive ship floating in your head, and the last thing you need is the thorn of reality calling out, anything that violates the extremity of the creative space in which you have found yourself.
Let me ask you this: how many apologies do we make for taking the time to write and then abusing the time? At a cost to who? Yes, mostly, it is at the expense of those we love and who love us.
As writers, we need our loved ones to understand our need for escape, but more importantly, we need them to catch us when we fall back to reality and still love us.
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