Craft Wednesday #1 The Small Room

   This blog needed a place for talking about writing. "Craft Wednesday" will be me talking about all things writing: how to write, why to write, and my own craft journey. I hope to learn and share experiences with you.

  I find it funny that I am sharing (some) of my work with the entire world. Well, those with internet access. Hello, Venezuela! Hello, England!
     I usually like to keep my writing so private that I hide away when I put pen to paper. This may be because I work best on my own, without many distractions. But I can write comfortably in coffee shops where many people keep up a steady hum - I suppose it is only electronic noises that distract me.
     I could swear sometimes that I feel wi-fi working, each molecule shuffling in the air. It does not feel like a tree when a tree whispers or creaks.
     I need room to breath.  The poet William Wordsworth said, "Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart."  Sometimes it's nice to run with an idea; it's essential to let something out, though, some piece of yourself set on a page for the world to see. That's what we want when we throw a temper tantrum, right? Or scream at someone, or kick at tires.  We want someone to see. We want someone to know.

     I also need room in which to speak. If the conversation is cluttered and thick I feel no need to lend my voice there. Well, almost none. Besides, if I did speak -- I think to myself -- they would not understand my thoughts. They would not understand either the subject matter or why I would think of that peculiar thing in that moment.
     My voice then, sounds in a small room. I find a room like this on a page. It does not matter much if the page is blank or partly full, only that if writing is already on the page I must find a way to coherently continue that vein, so that it can reach the heart. From the writer's heart to the reader's -- the truest writing travels through lined capillaries and inky plasma, or in bits of electronic energy.
    And maybe someday those breathings of the heart will be oxygen in the veins of the world.

*I am quite aware that arteries carry blood away from the heart, while veins carry blood towards the heart. Most veins tend to carry deoxygenated blood, the kind created before you exhale your breath -- your words. The word "vein" can also mean "a distinctive quality, style, or tendency".

I want to try to be consistent.