Write The Shit Out of Today

There was something that happened to you today.

It was amazing. It happened. It happened in imaginative Imax. It may have been the most normal thing that happened to you. Maybe it happened a little different than you remembered it.

The old lady on the bus got you in the ribs with her bony elbows. Maybe it just hurt a little. But let's make that lady's elbow a little more hostile. Let's pretend that she did it once and then wouldn't stop. Maybe she was just trying to get some elbow room you just couldn't give. So, she attacked your ribs with a bony vengeance. Your wife was talking to you about divorce that day, so you were already in a bad mood.

What did you do?

You pushed the old lady. That's where you are in the scene. You standing over an old lady you just pushed on the bus.

That's not working out for you? Then maybe you need to dig deeper. Maybe you need to go more meaningful.

Perhaps you need to go back to that time in high school when you were alone on a swing imagining the end of the world because you'd just had too much crap from a bunch of adults who didn't understand you.

The scene needs to be more concrete, so let's say it's a day in winter.

You'd left the house without your sweater. Your knuckles are bleeding because you'd been taking out your frustration on this tree. So, there you are with bleeding knuckles, cold, and yet hot enough to think you've got a fever. And that's when you spot the broken piece of a glass bottle. Maybe you start picking at your bloody knuckles with the glass bottle, contemplating whether you're going to kill yourself or whether you're going to turn your anger on some malicious adult who doesn't know when to stop.

Then you see the blood running down your knuckles and you think something. What do you think?

These are scenes that need to be written, but they're not your scenes. You need to go further inside of you.

Why? Why do you need to go further into memories and things unusual, everyday, and tragic? Why does your world need to be written?

Because you are you. And every day poetry and creativity and frivolous art wins is another victory for every adult with a bruised rib and a kid with bloody knuckles who imagines the end of the world. And we learn about each other and the great randomness of life.

We learn how unbelievably meaningful it is and how much fun it is to communicate, write, read, live, and breathe word-music. Even pain becomes beauty.

So, yes, write the shit out of today.