The Writing Process: A Graceful, Impeccable Cyle

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour.

-Blake 

Perhaps one of the best descriptions of the writing process I have come across was recently sent to me by a student in one of her weekly letters (I ask my students to write me weekly):

"My writing process is slow, but equally elaborate. I've been doing research. . .pulling inspiration from every which way, and imagining the characters as real. Everything I watch, read, and see plays a part in how I color my story with details. . . .Everything is an influence that I can essentially make my own. It's a graceful, impeccable cycle that repeats itself daily. I think when someone is in a certain creative flow, anything can inspire the process."

The artist becomes one with the subject; everything is fair game to be used and will provide energy to fuel the process. 

I love her description of a "graceful" and "impeccable" cycle.  You realize when you get intimately involved with a project that it takes on a life of its own and wonderful coincidences or synchronicities begin to occur on a regular basis as the energies in the universe seem to conspire to help you along.

An artist is someone who is connected to all things and open to all energies, always seeking harmony with some nebulous creative flow, one who uses every experience, every perception, every bit of information as fuel for the creative process which is about defining that indefinable energy--the artistic end product if you will.

For me, writing is mostly about finding the holographic truth, the whole contained within every part, the universe within each grain of sand.