butterflies are free!

I’m going on my first ever trip to Florida. I’ve seen pictures of the blue sky, the ocean, the palm trees and the enormous beach front hotels. It looks like the Florida of my imagination. I’m going there to vacation, to lie on the beach, to spend time with my friends, and to relax.

Relax? As a writer struggling to emerge from my 50 year old cocoon the notion of relaxation is as foreign to me as interest payments on my bank balance. I don’t want to relax! I want to be writing and creating and letting the world know I’m here and I believe I have something to say!

I’m not taking a computer. My desktop probably wouldn’t fit in my luggage. What’s a writer to do?

I write long-hand so all I need is a pen and paper, right? But what if I have no ideas? No inspiration? Last night the four short stories, which keep each other company in a dark file on my hard drive, called to me. Print us! Work on us!

So, voila! My Florida work is ready to go. I’m excited now to find some shade under a palm tree, to scratch and scribble and perhaps return with something that delights me. A week to write? Paradise.

Comments

  1. What I forcing myself to do with no inspiration is find it,,,freewrite, think of anything, then fill a page, then walk away from it. Come back, and see if it gives you anything. If it does not, do another one, until something gives.

    Have a great trip.

    Dann

    1. Thanks, Dann. Very true. The way I write is to scribble away, and then work a bit on stuff I’ve written in previous days. Someone said, I think it was Ernest Hemingway, “Writing is rewriting.” I find that comforting.

  2. I know what you mean about going away somewhere and needing to bring something with which to create. I find myself needing to lug my sewing machine along for a one-night-over at the cottage. A pad and pen sounds easier to travel with.

    Nancy

    1. True. Happily, writing requires very little in the way of supplies and equipment. The challenge is to wrench oneself away from chatting and coffee drinking.

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