Every writer knows about this.
You're going along spinning sentences. Chugging them out, workmanlike. The piece is fine and serviceable, and it's saying what you mean.
It's like pedaling a bike. You pump the pedals and you move forward.
But about an hour into it, maybe two hours, if you keep pedaling over the crest of the hill, something happens.
Suddenly, from somewhere you can't pinpoint, lines and phrases begin to tumble out ready-made. You didn't think of them, exactly. It feels more like you are hearing them and writing them down.
You have no idea where any of it comes from. But there it is, right there on the screen.
And the scary part is, it's better than you could ever write on purpose, in cold calculation.
You didn't really create any of it. You just took it down, as dictated.
I hate talking about this because it sounds so foofy and new-agey. And because I don't truly understand it. I also worry about jinxing the process.
But that's what happens. It's how the really good ideas arise. The ideas that give you goosebumps or make you gasp aren't willfully engineered.
They just appear.
The really hard part is getting the hell out of the way to let it happen.
