Artists find favorite spots to paint, by the sea, in a park, a mountaintop, or a kitchen (thinking ‘still life’ with apples, bananas, cherries because I’m hungry for them). Writers must need their favorite spots as well.
Most of my writing has come in the last twenty years, much of it stored in 8″X10″ cardboard manuscipt boxes until one was published in 1995. The others have been gathering dust until just the last few years. When I reached the Sea of Cortez, it seems my need to write increased along with my desire. And, write I have.
There are nine books finished now, eight fictional, one non-fiction with just a few final touches left, and another ficttional manuscript just recently started. It has dawned on me, what the artists have apparently known for all these years, that a writer must find a spot that agrees with her or his make-up, her or his health, her or his moods, her or his changing priorities. I’m convinced that the sea is my favorite spot, because I’ve never enjoyed the ‘flow’ of writing that I feel here, the phrases that seem to effortlessly come out and please me. Yes, I know, they ‘please me,’ but they might not find the same measure of enjoyment in others eyes.
I find myself wondering why this is so, why one can find a spot where writing becomes more natural and rhythmic in its outpouring. Perhaps it is because I can see the horizon there in the distance, and my mind is free to roam toward that far off spot and grab from the passing zephyrs those little gems of words and phrases that go by as though on currents of their own. Perhaps it is because I do not feel hemmed in on all sides so my mind is keenly aware that the horizon and all beyond are mine but for the asking of my imagination. Pehaps it is because it is so beautiful here by the sea where the villas touch the sand, where the hawkers sell their wares among the sun worshipers, where there playing upon the water are jet skis, sail boats, yachts, and the large twin yellow ‘bananas’ that toss the squealing young adults into the choppy waters.
Whatever it is, the transparency of my delight must indeed be obvious. I’m a wordsmith at his favorite spot, doing what it is that he perceives he does best. My only wish now is to have my writing enjoyed by many, as many as I might be allowed by the God of that distant horizon on the glorious Sea of Cortez.
The Final Curtain 