Falling down the creative well
I was just reading a writing magazine when I misread the title of an article. Hence the name of this journal entry. It made me think of the unfinished stories and tales in progress I have. With all of these loose threads dangling in the wind you would think it would be easy to find something to work on. It's like I have dozens of half sipped glasses of water sitting around and I still I go back to well to get another cup. If I could just finish one glass I am sure the next new one would taste sweeter.
I dread the day my well runs dry. I am afraid if I keep wasting it's waters that one day it will. However if I make sure the underground stream that feeds the well remains unpolluted and unclogged then it should be fine. One way to nurture a creative well is provide it with that underground stream. It's easier than you think because everything you read, watch, see, and hear can be a source of water. Unconscious and underground until you need it.
Did you know J.R.R. Tolkien wrote the first sentence of the hobbit while grading papers? He was grading exams and was about halfway through the stack when he came to a random blank sheet of paper. On that paper he wrote "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." At the time he had no idea what a hobbit was. It was a simple sentence on a blank sheet of paper. Now almost everyone knows of Hobbits and Middle Earth. What's in your well?