Writing is like a flowing river!

Writing is like a flowing river. Though this river may not always flow smooth, clean, or fast enough sometimes, it is still like a flowing river. Just as a river begins, it may not know where it will eventually end up. This is similar to the way I feel most the time when I want to put on paper the thoughts and feelings I often have about various subjects. Sometimes I catch myself trying to force words into places they don’t belong in hopes of quickly getting through yet another section of what may seem like a raging rapid area of a river. This is most often the time in the river I decide to make my way quickly out of the rough currents to shallow ground in order to finish walking in the opposite direction.

As I eventually realize that I’m making my way back into smooth currents, it usually dawns on me that even though there are rough currents in making this journey, there are just as many smooth currents along the way. Looking back on old times in grade school, my English classes were never my strongest subjects due to possibly my fears and doubts while traveling up and down these rivers. It is clear to me now that on many occasions I may have been making this journey without a paddle, in the sense that I never put much work and thought into where I was on this river and where this river could take me. With mentioning that these currents are not always smooth, it is easy to say now that with the proper tools, techniques, and time, any river of the magnitude can be traversed no matter where it flows.

Just as anyone can attest that a smooth river is easy to travel along, the same person will most likely agree that a clean river is just as important. With that being said, time and hard work are usually what help make this a possibility. On many occasions I have taken my turn at fishing random spots along a river’s edge not knowing what exactly I was going to come home with at the end of a long day. This is very much like the thoughts I always have when sitting down to start a writing project. There are times I come home with fresh fish to fill the freezer as well as those times I stop at the store so I can buy fish to bring home to fill the freezer. On those long days that would redirect me to the store before returning home, I would still catch random stuff mostly sunken logs and moss that would tangle my line to the point I would cut my lines (this is similar to the many wadded up pieces of paper in my trash can after a writing project).

With the ever changing currents of these rivers playing a huge role in where most of these rivers could end up, so does the pace of a writing project. On most occasions, words tend to not come to my mind fast enough when needed while when they are not needed and I’m doing daily tasks and not thinking about writing, the words are plentiful. Just as a fast flowing current can cut through the edges of a river bank, a slow current has the same opportunity and power. As I have learned on a few occasions in the past, throwing a fast paced writing project together can do more damage than good when it comes to the critics while a slow pace project thrown together normally wins the heart of its’ reader. Though both these types of writing assignments have the same power, the fast paced or rushed assignment usually lacks the proper requirements to hold up to the standards.

So as I began this blog, I had very few ideas where it would end. I again thought of it as a river and as I can now tell along the way, it has nearly reached its’ end. In my mind, it took longer than it probly should have to put these words on paper, and along the way it took some turns and twists but eventually got here. With some sections of this river coming to my mind smoothly, clearly, and fast, there was a great deal of the sections that had me in a whirlpool trying to find the shallow escape. Now with all this thought of writing being like a flowing river, I do believe I will grab a fishing pole and build a dam up here at the end to try and catch a fish or two.