I don’t know about you, but the start of a new month is always an inspiration for me. It’s like a fresh page in the journal. A field of fresh snow, unbroken by footfall of either man nor beast. The dawn of a new day. Any day can inspire me, but the beginnings are somehow just more. . . fun.
For some reason the Muse has been calling me over the past several weeks, and I’ve not been able to answer as fully as I would like. I’m finishing one book and in the middle of writing two new ones, each with their own set of challenges. Ideas are abundant but time to sit down and capture them is not. For me, the joy is in the expression of ideas, whether that expression takes the form of the written word, images, or some combination of them.
For the longest time now I’ve been wanting to start making memes — you know, those images with sayings embedded in them. Some of the ones I’ve seen are truly breathtaking, and I’d like to try my hand at making my own. I’m looking forward to making that happen.
But in the meanwhile, it’s enough to try to keep ahead of the ideas by making sure I capture each one before it flies away, perhaps to be lost to my pen forever. Sometimes all I can manage to do is jot a few keywords — and hope I remember the fuller meaning when I next see them. Most of the time I do, but every so often it’s a puzzlement to sort out and decipher.
Ideas are as fragile as butterflies on the wing.
The thing about ideas is that they are meant to fly free; you can’t really hold onto them without damaging them in some way. Perhaps it’s an unattainable goal but to get the most pure form of expression without tainting an idea, you just have to let it show up and be as raw as it came. And tell it like it is.
That’s what I’m aiming for this month: letting all those ideas light on my hands, kiss them gently, and then fly free with all their beauty intact.