What It Is I Do All Day.

Yesterday I was struggling to create a concept for a client. Nothing I came up with was moving or funny or unique or good.

I worried.

What if I couldn’t produce anything? What if my clients didn’t like my work? What if my boss gave up on me, thinking my initial creativity an offshoot, a one off?

(Shudder) What if I’m not as good as I think I am?

I sighed. I browsed the Inter Webs. I walked around the office, only to find that everyone else was Very Busy and therefore Not Interested in talking about my concept ideas.

I sighed again. I walked back to my desk and thought about Yosemite. I checked some of my favorite blogs (I’m getting to a blogroll, I promise). I ate some pretzels. I thought about Bishop.

And then it hit me.

An idea.

It was good enough to write down, and as I stared at it in written form, removing words, rearranging sentences, I decided that it might be good enough to present to my boss.

And then I remembered this:

How Poetry Comes to Me
By Gary Snyder

It comes blundering over the
Boulders at night, it stays
Frightened outside the
Range of my campfire
I go to meet it at the
Edge of the light


I have to remember that; the words, concepts, ideas are there, just beyond my reach, waiting.
It takes effort. Time.