Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.
I froze. Not because I had nothing to say, but because I had no time to let the thought become itself. I had just finished yesterday’s blog and thought I might begin circling today’s, the way I sometimes do. When that happens, I like to leave an idea somewhere in the back of my mind for a while, to let it ripen, to see what gathers around it, what deepens, what falls away. But this prompt wanted the thought immediately. No waiting. No quiet maturation. Just write down the first thing that came to mind.
So the problem was not that I had nothing to say. It was that access had been denied to the ripening process. The prompt wanted immediacy; I prefer slow formation. It wanted the verbal equivalent of blurting. I tend to trust thoughts that have had time to mature before they show themselves in public.
And yet there is an ironic upside. The interruption worked. Instead of letting tomorrow’s idea drift around in the background for a day, becoming gradually more itself, I had to deal with it immediately. Which means that, against preference, habit, and what I think is basic creative decency, I am now ready a day early.
The Afterword 
Leave a comment