It’s in the quietest moments that writing finds me. Once I begin, everything else disappears. I forget about the laundry, the food in the oven, and the setting sun beyond my window. The words cannot leave my fingers fast enough. Pages fill as my mind races to capture each thought before it slips away. The obsession can last for hours or days. I forget to stand, to eat, or even to drink, resentful of any interruption that forces me to serve the needs of my body over the demands of my imagination.
Not every day unfolds this way. Some days, I struggle to find a single sentence of meaning for my characters. They sit silently on the page, waiting for a conversation neither of us seems able to begin. The blinking cursor becomes an act of quiet defiance, marking the passage of time while my words refuse to take shape or define the characters on the page that I can see in my mind.
The longer you practice as a writer, the more you realize that silence is your companion and adversary, depending on the day. Sometimes it serves as a source of inspiration that fills the blanks, and the next day, an emptiness that tests the resolve to keep writing.
sherrystruthtofiction 