Member-only story
Water Is My Creative Fuel
I moved to the coast at 23. I’ll never leave.
Dancing fingers of morning sunshine slide beneath the blinds covering the east-facing window of our bedroom. Patterns of light and dark play across my closed eyelids, pricking at my consciousness. I roll to my side to block them, but it’s no use. I’m awake.
I slip from the bed, leaving my husband still sound asleep. It’s barely 5:30 a.m., but my mind is already racing.
The edits for my new novel are calling, demanding my attention in a most intrusive manner. All night I tossed and turned, trying to turn off my brain long enough to catch a few hours of restorative sleep.
I didn’t fall asleep until well after midnight and, yet, here I am, wide-awake at this unseemly hour.
A rather difficult transitional scene is challenging me. I need help, and I know just where to go to get it.
The water.
I grew up on the bone-dry prairies where cracked lips, parched from the lack of moisture, were the norm. The nearest body of water was a man-made lake, miles away from our farm, and Chinook winds blew down from the mountains, bleeding every ounce of water from the dusty soil.
I love water in its magnificent plethora of forms: streams, rivers, oceans, and lakes. I…
