Writing Fiction and Melting Ice

Since I moved to the beautiful NC mountains in August, I have found myself dreaming without actually writing. I wonder if other writers do the same thing…find themselves in a new place, or in a new frame of mind, and with no deadlines pressing them, urging them onward to further creation, I wonder if they too sit back, stare out their window at some verdant vista, and dream.

I have been doing so for months now, and am only now beginning to come out of my own head, and only now looking toward putting stories on paper again. I wonder, once I begin, how my stories will have changed.

I feel almost as if my writing life has been like the stream running behind my house: frozen on the surface, caked with flotsam and jetsam, with thick shards of ice. But underneath the surface of that ice, runs a steady stream, still strong, still vibrant, changing with the light as it rises and fades, moving over bare rocks, making music.

I will pick up my pen again this weekend, with a sort of quiet joy. I wonder what kind of world I might create, and how it will look, my words emerging from beneath layers of broken, melting ice.