What can I say when I hear the peal of bells in my head, sending me off into a field of stampeding thoughts? HELP! Not a horse in sight, just thoughts running amuck – running sideways, backwards, running head on into each other. That’s what I’m feeling at this moment. I’ve just run amuck, along side every other writer who can taste the finish line.
Who will finish their assignment without ripping out every last brain cell that ever managed to think a coherent thought, then sending an innocent into the brink of disaster, including oneself?
I’ve never been in a stampede of horses, much less in a writing frenzy. I hear those distant bells approaching, but I have no idea whether they’ll be ringing in the new year for me, or tolling out the old year; taking with it my new baby, laying prone at the bottom of the muddy field.
I can see it now, mud-covered limbs flailing haphazardly. Those are mine. Did I dot the “i”? Did I cross the “t”? The comma splice somehow mysteriously snuck in - and heaven forbid I should loose my frame of reference. Where’s the body of the text, the beginning, the middle, the end? Blast! I think it was stomped down into the muddy mess which was to become my new year’s resolution for a manuscript.
Clanging again, my life is a never ending toll of a bell, just short of that congested field we call writing; all hoping for a mixed metaphor, coming vaguely close enough to call it creative. Forget the horses; forget the public and the mud-splattered field of vision, just look at that clean spot on the end of your nose; and you say, “What clean spot? I’m sure there must be one someplace.” I grab for the Kleenex box, whip out a tissue and smear the mud to one side. Ah, that’s better. Straight ahead I stare, trying to hold focus, driving full speed until my eyes are crossed and those brain cells are threadbare.
The clanging finally starts to subside. A new calm takes its place…The saddle is off....Focus, focus, focus - My new year resolution is met with a word, finished.
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