Are you ever just sitting somewhere,
bored or tired,
and there are people around
and maybe you’re having a good time,
but then all of the sudden
you hear someone say something
or someone does something
that just lights a spark in you,
and suddenly you have to write,
you NEED to write—
there’s this little bit of extra you
that’s eating away at your being
in the pit of your stomach,
you can feel it,
and you become convinced
that you will be fundamentally altered,
that you’ll never be the same,
if you don’t write it down
right that second,
because it’s such a
brilliant,
perfect,
glorious idea
and the world needs to know it now
because you won’t remember it later
when it’s more convenient;
and you’re sitting there
staring at everyone around you
talking and going on normally,
and suddenly you don’t care about them
or what you’re doing
or where you are,
you just don’t understand;
why can’t they see that this changes everything?
It’s like backwards writer’s block,
it’s an epiphany,
and it shows up at the worst of times.
It’s that feeling that makes your heart actually,
physically
yearn to pour itself out into words,
and you’re sick with the need to write,
it’s eating away at you silently
and only you can feel it,
and the rest of the day is wasted because of it.
That is the point at which
I believe
you are allowed to call yourself a writer—
when writing becomes an extension of yourself,
as vital to you as breathing.