It’s forced at first. It has to be coaxed out and nurtured before it can really begin to blossom into something beautiful. That’s what they say, right? “All great relationships are based on a lie.”

It just spills out and goes from there, a whole world opens up and paints the white, cellulose walls with audible color. Sweet sounds of creation conjured by my plume fertilize the vacant space between words. This is great.

The pregnancy of the pause before the pen is put to paper is a feeling full of heaviness, brought on by the message I have to bear. This feeling of release is exciting, as the weight of the words leave my mouth. This is cartharsis.

Then of course, there is the block and the pressure mounts. Dammed back, not by the natural beaver lodge, but by a man-made monstrosity severing the jugular of a serpentine river pouring life down-stream. I close the window to stop the noises of the party next-door from damming back my creative juices. But still I can’t work out the block. Something is jammed in there, keeping me from continuing further into uncharted territory. My thoughts have been run aground and I’ve no way of pushing off into the inexorable current that will bear me along to my final punctuation. This is tragedy.

I remember! The dishes are to be done. And so they are done. My odyssey begins again in earnest, under full sail with all hands manning the oars. Thus the river flows its course and all is well. Thoughts are the under-tow, words are the fish and the frogs that color the waters with the vigor of life. The message is clear, un-mudded by the pollution of cliché, thus it refreshes. This river flows into others, creating an endlessly complex web in which river after river and stream after stream may flow and trickle on forever and for always.This is a story.