I’ve written about some pretty hard-hitting subjects for this month’s A To Z Challenge, but today I want to take time to celebrate something unequivocally positive: the joy of creative flow.

It’s a hard state to reach, sometimes. The first 20 minutes or so of sitting down to write can be a cranky, unfocused, fumbling affair. But if I stay with the words and push through the grumbles and uncertainty, I soon find myself transported into the world I’ve created.

Hours fly by, the clock unnoticed. Fictional lives find voices that pour from my fingertips. I feel immersed and engaged, almost a little high.

When I come down, I’m full of uncertainty again, briefly convinced those hours were wasted and every paragraph I composed was utter crap. Eventually I settle into a stable middle ground in which I can assess my work’s strong and weak points, make changes, and move forward again into that state of flow.

The creative cycle can be a trying experience, to be sure, but it’s also one I wouldn’t trade for the world.

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