From the Inkwell, From the Vein.....

I've given a writer friend a few pep talks lately. They weren't anything too dramatic, just a bit of: ---it's okay to ignore your internal editor for awhile. ---it's natural to feel like everything you write is horrible. ---it's fine to have bad days. Most were directed toward his insecurities, which, not surprisingly, mirrored my own. And, since those conversations, I've taken some time to reflect on what we talked about, musing on just who I was trying to pump up more-- him or me. There's something about trying to encourage someone else that makes inspiring thoughts stick with oneself. It's like, you've taken in all this information meant to promote your own thoughts of well-being and creativity, but it isn't until you've tried passing on the digested motivation that the wisdom finally sticks. And, there's a lot of motivation out there, some inspiring, some ass-kicking, some even intended to make you buck-up (because how could

The pebbles fall, like coins tossed, along the cliff’s steep edge, like fevered wishes tumbled from trembling lips, a dry and bitter kiss. Where do the dreams of those lost and never numbered go, when the night wicks away hope’s light? The mountain’s face, shorn sharp and straight, unending, a living wall twinned, yet dwarfed, by the halls of troubled minds. Stones cutting, thoughts biting, rock hewn rough by wind and despair. Can you hear stone giant’s painful sigh? It’s a little thing, oft unseen, the single raindrop, a lone tear, pulling up the deep and settled roots of hills and hearts. Who remembers those forgotten who always mattered most, Who numbers the world’s fears that’ve settled in the dark?                                                                             --- e.a.s. demers

Today...tonight... 2 hours ago, I did something I've put off, procrastinated, and shied away from for the last 10 years--- I submitted my first work of fiction to a literary journal. When I first started writing (no, let me phrase that better), when I first began writing again, just after college, all I could think about was someday becoming published---one day I could call myself an author. It's funny, but when I was an 11-year-old poet, I never thought about using my writing to make a living. I just wrote because I wanted/needed to. And, while that want/need is still the same, 23 years later, now...NOW... I'm thinking of my writing with a career in mind. It isn't so much that I believe I can truly make a living from what I write---though I would love it if I could. No, what I'm thinking about now is the cold, hard fact that writing must be treated as a profession, and not a hobby, if I ever intend on doing anything with it. Every year I've accumulat

Rain fingering its path along frosted panes, twisted, cold tracks, entwined, run in soft timbre to the downpour’s disdain, shunted harsh streaks to malign. The frail blooms of summer’s offering, shattered, cast away, in the flood, discarded, the heart weak and malingering hopes lost in the fragile drowned bud. Yet, as evening’s dark blankets mid-day rain, muting all colors to black, moonlight in liquid tendrils mirrors, light’s clear, cool dreams in painted glass.                                                               ---e.a.s. demers