The perfect caste, the easy drift, and then wham!

I’ve got a fish.

Writing is like that, too. Sometimes when I sit down at my laptop or take my spiral notebook and one of my favorite pens the words flow. The only sound is the rap-tap-tap of my fingers dancing across the keyboard or the scratch of my pen filling the blank space between the blue lines on the page.

It’s amazing when that happens, I finish my writing session happy, content, and excited; not only because of the quantity of words I’ve written but the quality of my words. It’s like catching a fish, removing the hook, holding it for a mere moment in my hand admiring its beauty before I release it back into the river. 

Not all writing sessions are like that just like not all days out fly fishing are successful.

Even with the best intentions, the strongest rigs, my own tied flies, and the added success of yesterday I caught I still come up short, frustrated, and irritated that I’m not catching fish.

Writing, too, is like this. I struggle, I wander, and I search for what I am trying to say but my words are pale, diminished in some way and just like an unsuccessful day on the river I don’t know what I am doing wrong or how to fix it.

I try again and again to get my word count. I slog forward, leaving my writing session feeling undone, uninspired, and defeated.

The path to success is never easy. I can’t see where I am going. If turn around I can’t see where I’ve been, but I trudge on. I know the more write, just like the more I fly fish, my words will come. I will meet up with the river, I will fill the page, I will once again catch another fish and I will once again fall into the magic of writing. It will all come together. Eventually it always does, I just have to keep working at it.