Thursday Thoughts: Drawing a Blank

If you are a witer (of anything) do you ever just have a complete loss for words or ideas? Ever sit with pen in hand stating at that blank piece of paper (Pen? Paper? What are these items you speak of?) wondering what to write about?

I’m doing it right now…well, I was. Now I’m writing about not writing.

I try to write things down when ideas come to me. Usually it’s a line that eventually becomes a poem. Sometimes I forget and that greatly clever poem/story is denied the gift of creation. I’m sure I have been on the cusp of a best seller.

I was walking in the rain one time and the water on my glasses prompted me to write this poem:

Freeze Frame

I snapped my fingers
And stopped the rain in mid-plummet
A million tiny lenses
Magnified the world
I saw
Suffering, perseverance
Kindness, sorrow
Misery, compassion
Tolerance, agony
Pain, sympathy
Unity, divisions
Grief, generosity
Peace, war
Purpose, despair
I blinked, and the rain continued to fall
I continued to walk
And let the world cry
And cry it did

I have to make an effort to remember to remember to write things down because sometimes the best ideas are fleeting and if we don’t grab hold of then right away we risk losing something of worth.

—Leon

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s post: A Conversation With Author/Poet Nicole Pierman. And for all you non-poetry/non-sci-fi readers, I break out of my comfort zone to showcase a fiction author.

Leon Stevens is a multi-genre author, composer, guitarist, songwriter, and an artist, with a Bachelor of Music and Education. He published his first book of poetry, Lines by Leon: Poems, Prose, and Pictures in January 2020, followed by a book of original classical guitar compositions, Journeys, and a short story collection of science fiction/post-apocalyptic tales called The Knot at the End of the Rope and Other Short Stories. His newest publications are the novella trilogy, The View from Here, which is a continuation of one of his short stories, and a new collection of poetry titled, A Wonder of Words.

My new book page: http://books.linesbyleon.com/