I read a book on creativity a while back, a borrowed one, unfortunately, or I would be able to remember who said that an artist/writer needed to “go for a long walk, and every day, and alone.”
For me, that’s it: how I prime my pump. I can’t go with anyone, not even my dogs. I have to go every day, or I lose the momentum of my imagining.

Yesterday and today, the walk resulted in a story, called “The Outside Music,” which I very much like, even in its rough first draft state. I haven’t read anything exactly like it, and I made it to fit Texas and the American South, so it may be “marketable.” Sigh. I hate thinking of the market when I’m writing, it seems so much like preparing your toddler for a rigged beauty pageant.

But there’s enough saleswoman left in me to know it’s necessary.

Maybe someday it won’t be that way. Pleasant dreams!

(Oh! I did have an idea for an MG or chapter book today about a kid magician who keeps doing tricks that go very wrong and very right! He cuts his brother in half, and can’t get him back together, etc. I think I’ll play with it this weekend. My oldest son has more than enough magic books and tricks for research!)

Here’s a teaser from today’s story, the first few lines — poetic, though lacking references to local flora/fauna:

Once there was a boy who could do something very unusual —
He could be still. Completely still.
And when he was perfectly still, he could listen.
And when he listened, he could hear the music of the Outside.