Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

A Forgotten Crossroads

If you ever feel unmotivated to write go back and read an essay or short story you wrote earlier.

I guarantee that if you do you'll see an unwritten something or the other crying out. "Birth Me, Birth me." That something from the earlier context is pleading with you to give it expression.

I took a piece written several years ago, "The Precious Princess" and submitted it last month to a WDC contest. I had to change some things to to satisfy the prompt, and those changes made it a better work. Every day I would go back and "Tweak" this or that.

One of the things I resolved to do was work on "resonance." Many who write have no clue what resonance is all about. Since the advent of "Free verse" it is becoming less common. It is the "heartbeat" of a work and almost invisible when at work.

Last night on "Utube" I saw this video on Damascus Steel. These guys were trying to figure out how to make it. The art and science has been lost to antiquity. I remember thinking that this is a good analogy to the type of poetry that Kipling Wrote, a skill that is all but lost in modern times. If you read "Gunga Din" you'll understand what I mean. Just as a metallurgist looks in wonder at a Damascus steel sword, I look in wonder at what old Rudyard wrote, and my jaw drops open in sheer amazement. The sad fact is that it got too hard to write and so the state of the art devolved into what we see today.

Anyway, I'm drifting off topic. Go back to something you wrote earlier and therein you'll see the inspiration you're looking for. It's like wondering about a path you might have once taken. It is right there in your earlier material. Just go back and take it.