Go read something

Recently, I was challenged to write five hundred words in a day. My mind flew from one end of the spectrum to the other in rapid succession.

"Five hundred words," I thought. "That's easy!" 

"Five hundred words," I thought. "That's a lot..."

It's funny how perspective changes things. 

More often than not, I wish to write words that mean something. I have been known to jot down inane gibberish, but in general, my mind fixes upon the meaning behind words. 

Sometimes, when I am feeling particularly creative (or obsessed, take your pick), I can write thousands of words. I wrote about 14,000 words in a single day once - but that was because I was transcribing, and it was my job. It becomes more difficult to write that many words when you are writing as an expression of what is within your own soul - when you begin to think of pictures and story lines along with the words. When I write from my heart, the message is more difficult to transform into something intelligible. The pictures in my mind from my own stories and heroes have to be translated into words, words, words, and that can be difficult. It takes time and effort.

I think that's why I often gravitate toward poetry - poetry expresses ideas in less words, without losing any of the meaning. It can take five pages to capture the same image as you can express in five lines of poetry. I don't even try to imagine I am at such a skilled poetic level; I'm just saying it's possible. Christina Rossetti does it.

It's not really fair to leave it at poetry. Prose has its own beauty, its own expression, its own meaning. Sometimes prose can be poetic in its own way, musical even. Writing can be an expression of beauty, like the heart-wrenching song of a violin. It can stir you. Sometimes I read prose or poetry and I become fired up. At other times, I relax as I read, the words seeming to draw me close, settling in. At other times, I want to laugh, or weep, or sigh deep down in my heart as I turn each page.

There is a power to words, a power not easily expressed. It is just there, clearly seen, like an ink stain on a brand-new beige carpet, or a child's fingerprints on the wall. You read and you feel it, you sense that in reading there is more to the words. You are a part of something, drawn in above and beyond mere sentence construction. There is something, something...

Is it monstrous? Will it tear you apart and make you tremble with a thousand fears? Is it mysterious, like a mourning dove sitting on a branch, singing songs into the mist of morning? Is it gentle, like the tender, safe caress of a mother to her newborn? Is it exciting, climbing to the very peaks of adventure?

Well, what are you waiting for? Find out.