When I’m sifting through a new story idea, it comes out in the strangest ways.
One of the first symptoms?
I find myself clearing my desk.
You have to understand that I go months without clearing my desk.
In the midst of a long creative cycle, a tidy desk would throw me into a panic.
Once I’m done with one piece of writing and transitioning to the next, I’ll be halfway through the de-cluttering process before I realize what I’m doing.
It makes me smile to see the outward signs, like the first bud on lilacs or the first robin of spring. Things are changing.
And then there’s this little manifestation of my idea sifting:
But how to sort them, that’s the question.
Probably the unevenness contributes to my sorting issues.
I can take care of that.
Brown was never my favorite idea.
Red.
Sort of a cliche for February.
It can go.
Orange is so autumnal.
Blue was introduced in 1995 and it’s pretty, but it still surprises me. I open a bag and think, “. . . whoa. . . blue. . . ”
Because that’s the kind of deep thoughts I have while eating tiny candies.
Not that I’m a traditionalist because hey, those brown ones didn’t make it past the first round, did they?
But. . . hey!
Who ate the blue ones?
Okay, so now I’m down to this:
Equally traditional.
Equally springy.
One the color of grass.
The other the color of daffodils.
And there it is.
The winner: Yellow.
That’s not what I was expecting.
Good thing I cleared my desk for this.
