Writer’s Life: The Creative Process

Photo by Anderson Mancini Creative Commons

Dandelions make a great metaphor for the creative process. Our ideas begin like a tangled mess of weeds sprouting up in the far corner of the backyard. We ignore them for a while, maybe think about cutting them down before they get a chance to spread, but then they grow flower heads and start to look a little pretty.

We try to see the best in them. Try to convince ourselves that they are worthy of admiration, that maybe they’d look nice braided together and worn on top our heads for all the world to bear witness. But still we do not pick them, because in our hearts we know that they are merely weeds that we’d be embarrassed for even our neighbors to see.

But then, those yellow crowns magically turn into a fluff of white, and suddenly what was once a weed is now divine inspiration…ready to be plucked, and the seeds of our deepest wishes and yearnings instantly metamorphose into brilliant, captivating prose to be set adrift on the gentle and roiling winds that are the written word!

Okay, I admit it. It’s a horrible metaphor. Really, I just thought this dandelion image was amazing, so I’m using it, and that’s that.