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By wistful Date: 2005 May 29 Comment on this Work [[2005.05.29.22.32.13774]] |
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Sam propped himself up on one elbow, and snuggled in to her back more closely, so he could breathe in her hair. "You should write more", he said, as he brushed a lock of her hair from off her cheek, so he could kiss her there. "You write really well." She shrugged. "And so do a million other people. Just because you can string sentences together in a coherent way does not make you a writer." He traced the landscape of her arm from her shoulder to her elbow with his fingertips. "I didn't just mean you have a great command of the rules of grammar and sentence structure. Your writing flows. It's engaging. It... I don't know. It breaths." He squeezed her forearm, and flopped onto his back. "You should write more." Stacy sighed and rolled over to face him. She worked her way under his arm, and rested her head on his chest. "It's not just about being able to express oneself, you know. It's about having something to say." She let her fingers play through his chest hair. "I have nothing to tell the world that they haven't already heard a million times. Nothing pithy, nothing clever. Nothing insightful, or witty or profound. I have no unique insights or experiences that would cause people pause." She paused, and let her hand fall still. "I have nothing to say." He stroked the back of her head. "You know, there is a Chinese proverb" He laughed as she groaned and rolled away. "Seriously, this isn't something I found in a fortune cookie. I read this quote the other day that said 'A bird does not sing because it has the answer. It sings because it has a song.'. Maybe it doesn't have to be new, enlightening, or different. Maybe it just has to be yours. Maybe its very nature of being common and familiar is what makes it appealing. Because what you write is familiar and usual and all of that, and yet it is more than those things. There is music in there. It is your song." Stacy breathed shallowly into her pillow. "And what if no one likes my song? What if no one wants to hear it? What if they dismiss it, and think my efforts a waste of their time? How can people put their souls into their work and not be diminished by it?" He held her again, more tightly this time. "How can anyone else's opinion, good or bad, change what it is? It just is. But how sad if something that could connect you to even one other person was never created at all..." He felt her back shudder as she buried her face more firmly in the pillow. He kissed the nape of her neck. "You should write more." |