When I write, I wait. I meditate. A day passes. Another. A week.
Finally, I am ready. I have thought everything through. I have inspired myself.
And I write.
But then the bizarre happens. As the letters fly from my fingers, I lose control. The seed that started this process is growing on its own.
I watch in fascination as the seed grows into a plant. Into something I never envisioned.
The fruit drops from the tree. People gather around to taste my creation.
They enjoy it.
I say to myself, "So somehow it worked this time. Next time, I need to stay in control. I need to stick to the plan."
And so I meditate. A day passes. Another. A week.
And it happens all over again.
And again.
Scrub. Rinse. Repeat.
For months, this was how I approached my writing. I needed to be inspired. The letters had to be surgically, painfully removed from my brain.
This began bothering me. Would my writing always slide like a slug? Slowly, in a direction it never even realized it was heading?
An answer hit me from afar. A great writer in Toronto, whom I wrote to for advice, told me to just sit and write. Every day. No matter what.
Was he crazy? I needed inspiration. I needed to build up a creation in my brain, and let it fly. A self-contained ball of truth.
But then I thought back. To the first day I ever wrote a story. I shrugged aside years of wishing I had written, and I simply wrote. I didn't think. I wrote.
And out came a story. Out of nothing. No plan. No meditating.
This was the first time I began to truly believe in G‑d.
And now it made sense. Inspiration, creativity, is not self-generated. It comes from our Creator. Through us.
No one "creates" anything. We are the vessels of creation. Out of us, infinity flows.
And so it is with all challenges. With all blank pages of paper. No matter how many pages we are presented, we can fill them. Every time we don't know how to act or what to do, we must remember that G‑d is with us. When we allow His energy to flow through our souls and into the world, we can light all of eternity.
