Sunday Writing Meditation: Hauntings and Sparks

I've been haunted all weekend by a phrase. Phrases can act as writing and/or story prompts for me, certain phrases demand that I write them down and let them feed on my imagination. I'll have slips of phrases that bounce around my head and if I try to ignore them they turn incessant and insistent. Some of the phrases probably aren't all that clever or extraordinary beyond the fascination my mind holds for them. Other times they seem to come from me or conversations with friends, loved ones even overhead by two strangers (strangers can offer some of the best phrases empty of any context but what I create.) Occasionally song lyrics will provide them, too. But from whatever origin, they repeat in my mind and become something more than their original intention. They become sparks to a story. The phrase becomes either the opening words, the plot, the climax, the first indication of a new character's birth. They spark.

Now I love when sparks happen, when I'm feeling sparked inside. The way inspiration slides over my thoughts, warms my confidence. That feeling whenever things are flowing or clicking, when all the words pouring out smoothly like they have always been within me and were just waiting for me to release them. When the story and context feel right. At those moments I feel I am doing what I should be doing and all is right with the world. Harmonious. I love being haunted by words and phrases - it's pleasure.

But I can't let myself get hung up on needing to feel this way in order to write. Because in later review what I actually write during that time may not be all that great (though often it could become better and possibly damn good). The writing's fate lies in my persistence to continue and in the rewrite(s). I must remember not to believe the haunting feeling born from a phrase and coupled with that everything-I-write-is-brilliant feeling while I'm sparked represents the entirety of my ability to write well. My writing comes from more than just random flashes of inspiration. It just takes flight from the flashes.

After all, it's what happens after the spark fades, when I'm pushing through to the other side where my real reward lies, I suspect. That is where the writer in me is tempered. So that's my Sunday meditation: Be haunted, use the spark and enjoy it but don't be discouraged when the feeling fades away. Push through.

I'm going to go write and have some brunch, in the reverse order. What will you do?