Normally I take a tiny spark of inspiration, mull it around in my mind (usually while out doing the school run in the rain), then sit down and write something. A writer I follow on twitter described the process as being on a par of making a stew, the pot is constantly simmering away in the background and bits are added until the finished food is ready to eat, complex layers of flavour and aroma having been allowed to organically build up.
Every time I see a spark, a glimpse of something I want, it slips though my fingers. Or if I manage to catch it and try to massage it into something more, it goes flat and limp. So instead I read; I read everything I can get my hands on, in the hope that it will help.
So I've pulled myself together and decided that maybe I should sidle up to it, not look it directly in the eye and just start. It's the starting that's important and it's the starting I haven't been doing. A synopsis looks forlornly at me and I'm still on the fifth chapter of a story. My poor protagonists have been sitting around in a desert waiting for me to get my act together since last month. I just hope they haven't got sunstroke.
Then there is my muse, the person who inspires me, fills me fire, whose magic no longer works. Shouldn't I be able to do this alone? I did before I met them. It's been like having a lover whose left me. I was perfectly fine and capable before they came into my life, even happy, but when they left, they left a large and gaping hole. I know what I'm missing.
But look. I'm writing and it feels good.
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