9 O'Clock

I've probably mentioned this before, but I think it bares repeating (repeating) -

 I think I've done my best writing while personally at my worst. 

As Hemmingway once said, 
"There is nothing to writing. All you have to do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."

This resonates with me deeply. This fall, my first completed work, Rienspel, will be releasing via Amazon. Writing this work, especially the end, helped carry me through a time when I felt purposeless and void. Only a few years ago, I was out of work. Frustrated, embarrassed, and powerless - the one thing I had going for me each day, was to get up and write.

To this day, 9 o'clock is 'the magic hour'.

It's the time of morning when my house would be quiet and empty. I would brew what coffee I had, turn music on, and write. There, in that suspended mythos of creativity, there was only the story. There was only the characters and there was only the plot. When I woke up and sat down - and after a few sips of coffee - my day synced with my character's day. In my experience, when a writer is broken and humbled, then there is less of him to get in the way of the story. Like the slow brewing of coffee (french-press style, in my case), the bits and pieces of my life settled down, and what was left was pure and unadulterated ambrosia: Pure Story. I was myself - unleashed before an open page, white before my black-lettered voice.

If my heart ached - there it was that I could feel the power I had inside, raw and unrefined, propelling my tale on and on. It was a heady place. Delve too deeply or inquire too closely and the vision would vanish away... But then, when the sun rose again, when the morning rains came once more, there was 9 o'clock. And it was time for magic, once more.

Writing helped focus my purpose when I felt I had none.

The other day, one of my friends and beta-readers, Jennie, told me I was 'so talented'. I still feel boggled by her compliment. In my mind and heart, once the life-dregs have settled once more, I still feel like the Ryan I was during those magic hours years ago. When I felt like every other pride, dream, and source of definitive power had left me exposed to the world... there was still writing. It wasn't very good, and it wouldn't matter much... but what I created mattered to me. That was what I had and it helped carry me though.

Whatever you have and whatever state you find yourself in, know that you can always create something. Sub-creation is a power we are all given. It is small and it is humble. But it has the power to guide you through the darkest of life's storms. We each have our own 9 o'clock - we each possess our own magic hour.

- Ryan

ps - my novella, The Grey Isle Tale, will be releasing via Amazon mid May! Get ready to face Mororedros, the Sea Dragon!

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. Ernest Hemingway
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/ernesthemi384744.html

There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed. Ernest Hemingway
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/e/ernesthemi384744.html