The Rhythm Of Writing

There is a rhythm to writing that only the writer can hear. I don’t know if I would describe it as the sound my fingers make when they tap away at the keys on the keyboard or if I would say it is the words I hear in my head.

Ask me to describe it and I’ll try to tell you about the sound of rainfall upon the rooftops as well as the sound of the rain in a forest.

Sometimes it reminds me of the sound I hear on the heavy bag when I stop throwing combinations and just start pounding the bag with all I have got for as long as I can.

What I am certain of is I do my best work when I find my rhythm and it doesn’t always answer my call. Not unlike my children it sometimes waits a while before it chooses to respond.

Hide-and-Seek

Sometimes it ignores my requests completely so it forces me to play hide-and-seek. Those are usually the moments when I am tired and mentally fatigued, the times when 198 ounces of coffee don’t provide the jolt that moves the mind in the ways I want so I have to search for a different tool.

Push-ups, curls, running in place or anything that gets the blood pumping usually helps to make the gears turn and the juices flow.

That and the confidence in my ability and the understanding that years of practice have led to muscle memory that I can call upon.

Just write.

Just tap one key at a time until you make a word, hit the space bar and then do it again until you have created a sentence. Rinse and repeat a few more times and you find you have a post, a tweet, a status update or an article.

How do the great authors write?

One word at a time is what my high school English teachers said but I am not sure that I believe it. That is because when I find my rhythm the words come to me in buckets.

Sometimes they flow like great flash floods and I fight to make my fingers keep up with the flow coming from inside my head.

This Is Why I Blog

This is part of why I blog. It is like oil for the the great writing machine locked up between my ears. It is one of the ways I make the wheels turn and just one more tool I use to find my rhythm.

You don’t have to be able to hear it. You don’t need to know what music moved me to make these words run down the page in a way that was entertaining and informative.

You just need to be able to read them and feel like you need to keep reading because you don’t want to miss one because you fear to miss the message.

Sometimes I worry about the words I write because I wonder if they will meet the mark I have set for them but I worry more about not putting them down because you miss every shot you don’t take.

Better to swing and miss than not miss at all.

Better to dance a few steps and than none at all.

You can’t find your rhythm unless you try to.