How do I write?

Writing is the physical act of etching words into thin cardstock. It is a tree’s sacrifice for expression. Falling into hundreds of categories, each piece shines in individuality, yet stitch into a helm of similarities.

Writing is escape. Life stills with my beating heart. I glimpse over the horizon and watch the sun’s ray catch hollow bark, and impulse ripples perspective. I snatch up my pen and let ink sprawl over stained notebook paper. The world is no longer my stage, but something beyond that. My mind becomes the reality of written word. 

Writing is opportunity. I watch worlds unfold over the small medium, yet I remain still in my seat. I excavate treasures with Erik the Red. I sing with the children not yet brought into the world. I fly in Aladdin’s carpet over the pyramids of Egypt. New planets soar for the Milky Way, and the stars become great metaphors.

Writing is creativity. My metaphoric stars climb into similes with the sunflowers. Roses are angry and lilacs are sad. The fire department catches flame until it is saved by an arsonist. The small boy who speaks a foreign tongue outplays the 6.2’ American in a round of basketball. “Orange” can rhyme with any word I deem fit. I can jump into the page and see my diction unfold into a figurative sea, washed in mysteries, entangled in an enigma.

Writing is passion. My character leaps for the fiery pit, and I feel the ashes over my goosebumps. The wedding proposal comes into full swing; my heart leaps with the protagonist. Earthquakes, doomsday, and family breakfasts all have one thing in common: I am right there with the ink. My shoes are to fit any size, any gender, any race, any species.

Writing is heartbreak. When a world curls up in my fist and dunks for the small corner of my writing space, a part of myself dies with it. When I feel my protagonist is ready to see the world, but the rejection letter states otherwise, tears flow over the pages. Rejection piles over my writing space, filling writing papers with a hard dose of reality, sucking my escape into the portal of defeat.

Then, writing is magic. I pick up my pen and let it take me where it will wander.

Writing is everything. Writing is waking up to the smell of fresh-brewed coffee.  It’s falling in love with the spark of someone’s eyes. It is defeat, rising out of the ashes with a magnificent flame that blinds the sight of reality. Writing is the reward, the punishment, the war, the peace, the rise, the fall. The opportunity, the creativity, the passion, and the heartbreak swell into a single magical image, condensing the world and your mind to one space.

Writing is belonging.

So, how do you write?