Lately, I find it hard to write, to enter a marathon of fingers, my fingertips serving as sneakers on pavement. But to be successful at the art of writing, like in any sport or performance or speech, you must practice. My goal this year is to do NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month). I don’t know if the effort will be successful, but I know I’m going to try. The only consideration I need to remember—and this goes for any writer—is you can’t just finish a piece in one sitting. It takes time, and it takes months (if not years) of preparation. I have until November; that’s less than 9 months away. I need to start readying my hands to handle the workload, and my mind to handle the stress. I need to ready myself for writer’s block and sore wrists, for moments when I’m going to feel hopeless and feel like giving up. I can dedicate a month of my life to writing, but it takes a passionate writer to dedicate twelve of them. To anyone who is doing the same, I wish you luck!
And for those of you who like my poetry, an on-the-spot creation just for you:
War of the Words
I can picture syllables, placing them like soldiers on a battlefield,
the letters fastened like guns to their waists;
but in alignment they are ordered to fire…they make the most beautiful sound—
a harmony of loud bursts, of bullets ringing through the air,
words created from synchronous violence.
Some, though; some are lost.
Letters gone silent,
syllables hushed.
The casualties of war,
of linguistic misfires,
of soldiers too syllabic,
of sounds too cacophonous to survive
a battle of words.