The Strongest Muscle

What I hated most throughout the great year of fourth grade was the phrase "follow your heart". Not because I thought that following my heart would be foolish, but because I hated cliches.

I wrote a short story for a Young Author's Convention about, well, a post-apocalyptic setting. Apparently my fourth grade teacher found it deep or something, whether for its, erm... maturity or because it was nothing like what any one else wrote. That's not to say my story was unique. It followed a pretty basic pattern: Aliens attack Earth. Two weeks later, many parts of the world struggle for their survival against impossible odds. The Americans win. You know, fairly basic stuff. Japan fights with a wide arsenal (giant robots included) but is almost completly wiped out. China is simply "glassed", otherwise, melted. Europe erupts into chaos when Italy chooses to join the Alien menace. (at age 10, I didn't realize this particular irony)

Why do I bring this up? Well, for one, I had to get myself started with something. I never thought of myself as poetic or even artistic, and yet I was commended for my creativity for a couple of the stories I wrote while in this grade. This was the time in my life when I actually wrote. The seven or eight short stories that I penned that year actually meant something. Plus, STU, on the playground, now had a definite plot.

I was in a groove, my heart was in it. And it made so much of a difference when it was. Now, though, my mind is in it. I think out the details. I "plan", I "question", I consider. I contradict. Much more often than I would prefer, I chalk out maybe two paragraphs a month.

Fluidity is what I wish I could regain...