The Transport of Energy

Writers oscillate.

We spread and we condense, and rotate, and we idle along the central axis that is our own creativity. Creativity is the intrinsic nerve that we tap to write ‘story’.

We can sometimes short-circuit ourselves.

We take to paths that sometimes lead us far away from our starting point, to a series of new starting points that feels more like work than innovation. Sometimes, when we least expect it, we can hit a gold streak -or mine it cold, or worse; we can tumble onto ourselves and end up back where we started.

Yet, we never really leave story. We move through time, along that core axis of creativity; always, moving and changing and moving and moving – even when we think we are still. Because, we writers are always thinking story. Story is always there – in an overheard conversation…in a personal experience...in a change of light…or a desperate challenge to find ourselves.

We find story. No; we leave story. We think to publish story. No; we put story away.

We leave stories and outlines of ideas behind or we reinvigorate old ideas, breathing new life into them. We are constantly in search of stronger characters, clearer and more detailed premises, distinct backstories, and unique plots…only to sometimes short-circuit ourselves again.

We get lost in our heads. We sacrifice for job and family. Or, we hold our breath and take the plunge, and take the burn that goes with it. Yet, we never truly give up on story. We keep tapping into our creativity. We keep oscillating along our core, our energies transported here or there while the world of matter changes around us.

Looking back at the four last Fiction Forge Indy posts, I realized that we are experiencing a kind of wave function for Writers.

Lost in ourselves… In Paused, Mike Moir wrote: 

"I found myself unable...no, that’s not right...unwilling to put pen to paper or fingers to keys. My imagination, so long my friend and chief distractor, seemed to have fled my addled mind. I would stare at my notebooks with pen in hand and nothing would come. The cursor blinked mournfully at me as it rested in place. It seemed to me as if something inside had died."

"My wife and my friends have been instrumental in this recovery…. I may not be completely back to what passes for normal for me, but I am getting there. I will post again, dear readers, I will write again."

Doubting our talents… In Same-ol-story I wrote: 

“'This is why I can never publish, a dear fellow Forger once said to me – more like roared at me. ‘You can’t ever finish it off!’”

 Doubts “…that almost led me to tend garden plots instead of story plots.” And, “Do I have the creative depth to write poetic prose…?”

My “perpetual works of progress” that never seem to get anywhere; only to end with an unbalanced weight of hopefulness that feels more like a never-ending cycle of abuse than a rewarding path to recovery. However, I can confirm that I am actively writing this story – and I do plan to finish it – after a few more bouts of doubt!

Healing the burn… In For all you lovers of Lambert, Heather wrote:

“I sent Marta an email telling her that I wanted to revise my work.  She could expect a new manuscript the first of January 2018. I sent the stories through my writing group.  The collection has changed since my MFA and has evolved even more in the last eight months.  The email from Lambert inspired me to rework this into a more holistic group of stories, and I'm much prouder of the work. With the feedback from my writing group, the stories are more interesting and more fluid than they were back in 2011.”

“Lambert has a bad reputation for spam emailing academics to publish their work without reading even the titles.”

“Many of the blogs report that they are unreliable in paying royalties.” I also realized what a blessing this was."

“Had it not been for this email from Marta, I would not have reworked and rewritten these stories.  I had ditched this project years ago, calling it ‘franken-revision.’ Now, I'm not working on them as much as I would like.”

Searching for premise… In Publishing, Nick wrote:

“The last few weeks I have been toying with the idea of starting a publishing firm of some kind.” 

“…(T)he small guy, the unknown writer to have an outlet to get noticed.” 

“I have a hard time with self-publishing through Amazon. That, to me, seems like lighting a single black cat firecracker. You get to light the fuse and watch it fizz. The anticipation starts as the fuse gets shorter. Your anxiety grows the closer you get to submitting your work. Then boom. It blows up and makes a big noise. You published your work. Your family and friends are happy for you and support you for a while… Then that’s it. The fuse is gone the noise is over and your published work stays adrift in the endless sea of 1s and 0s on the interweb.” 

“So how about this idea—starting a small publishing firm?  What are your thoughts?  Give me some input.”

So, in a way, we writers do function like a wave before we reach the point of whether our work sees the light of day.

We spread and we condense, and we rotate, and we idle along the central axis that is our own creativity. We grow, or we sate; yet, we can never really leave our creative core. We can never really quit ourselves, no matter the lost wanderings or the debilitating doubts; the painful burns…or the interminable searching.

We move along our own axis: creativity.

If we behave like waves, then I guess we writers can be a function of any whole number between 0 and 1. Yet, true writers have a degree of creativity that is closer to infinity. So, how probable is it that we would end up not writing at all, regarding whatever interval state we find ourselves, at any given moment in time?

Not likely. Not likely at all. Because, you know why. Story. There is a story to write. And always, story is how we resonate.