I’ve learned over the years that writing, like most worthwhile pursuits in this world, is a process. I’ve spent years hoping and wasting time, wishing that writing wasn’t really like that, hoping to sit down and unload all the words of genius inside my head quickly onto the page and be done with it, but, usually it doesn’t work that way. And whatever gods patrol the top of “Good Writing Mountain”, all decided long, long ago not to make it that easy on us mortal writers. They decided to make us work for our fame and fortune, and to leave us to spend time with our ideas and craft. And now, 15 years and a few gray hairs later, I am just now learning that lesson. There are no short cuts.

I have also learned that, for me, creativity seems to come in cycles or waves. If you have ever sat on the ocean’s shore and watched the waves build and crest and crash against the beach, or if you’ve ever sat just off-shore on a surfboard and watched the waves begin to swell up as the roll in closer, then you know that waves, like really good writing and ideas, comes in cycles. They come in sets. They roll in, one after the other, and keep coming like they’ll never stop. And then they do. You look out at the ocean and its flat, like there’s never been a wave. And after a little while, you start to wonder if there will ever be another one. And if you surf, you sit and float and you wonder what happened to all the wonderful waves that were just there. Is it the same ocean? Is something broken? Is there a wave machine and it’s just made its last wave of the day? But it’s the end of the day, and it’s not the last wave that the wave machine will ever make. It’s just nature. And, just like when we surf, if we surf (and I highly recommend that we all do — the hell with the sharks, — they’ll just have to get used to it), when we write we write on nature’s schedule, not our own. The waves will flow again, just as they always have, — they come in cycles and sets. And when they come, I surf, or I write. And when they don’t come, then I rest, just like the ocean rests.

And to me, that’s how the wonderful world of writing works. The immortal gods of Writing Mountain have given us all the wonderful gift of imagination and a wonderful sea of creativity to float in and play, but we will have to put in our time and work at our craft, like everything else in nature, a little bit at a time. And we will have to work in cycles, and play when the waves are there to play on, and rest when they rest. Surf’s up!