A recent conversation with an acquaintance about my writing led to the question of when I find time to write. My quick answer to her was that I do most of my writing in the solitude of the late evening when the house is quiet. Later, I thought about my words and realized they weren’t entirely true.
It is true that I put most of my words on paper in the night-time hours, but I think about my compositions around the clock. Most of the creating happens while I’m engaged in another activity. I might be baking, or cleaning, or waiting in the after school pick-up car line. Sometimes the overheard words of a stranger beg to be written about. Their comments may take my imagination on a ride that lasts for days before the thoughts become text. A character might take up residence in a tiny corner of my head and stay a while before his story finds its way to the written page.
Instead of telling the partial truth by saying that I write in the evenings, I should have stated fact and said that I write every day, all the time, nonstop. What I do in the evenings is to sit down and organize the thoughts of the day onto the page.
The whole truth is, if I’m breathing, I’m writing.
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©Anita Stafford 2021
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