There are many reasons folks don’t write. Lack of talent isn’t one of them. Functioning out of time and space is.

We have street intersections and wear watches because we function in space and organize ourselves in time; BUT writing annihilates space and time in different ways. This can disconcert. This can stall you out.

Once it took me two months to write 500 words. That’s 10 inches in a newspaper column and seems like a very long time to fill such small space. That is about one word every three hours.

Once it took me four hours to write 2,000 words. That’s 40 inches in a newspaper column and seems like a very short time to fill such a big space. That is about one word every seven seconds.

I can’t explain the difference but can report I nearly abandoned the first assignment and seriously doubted the worth of the second assignment. Disconcerting.

Although writers do eloquently dictate time and imagine space…crafting it from memory, fantasy and a wild sense of domination; we don’t control writing. Writing controls the writer and I for one find that disconcerting. Humbling.