I stare down at the notebook resting against my knees. Blank. The top of my black, gel ink pen is tapping furiously against my chin. My brow is furrowed in thought as ideas, scenarios, descriptions, and sentences flow through my mind like a river. As ever flowing as a river is, it never stops, it is unable to be caught and held. Fleeting.

I lean my head back against the patio furniture, squinting against the morning sun that’s rising to my right. Clear blue skies… cloudless… with a temperature of already 90 degrees. It’s only 8:30am. I sigh. I can feel the need to write those ephemeral thoughts down on paper, the want to get them flowing through my pen instead of through my mind and lost to the void, yet as soon as I place the pen to paper, they vanish. Like seeing a certain star out of the corner of your eye, only to have it disappear when you move to focus on it.

I take the pen away and close my eyes. The thoughts come flowing back. Funny, they remind me now as a school of minnows swimming through the Niagara river. Their scales flash and twinkle up at me as the sun hits them while they swim along. Inviting me to join them; join in their fun. I go to touch one, but the moment the tip of my fingers touch the surface of the water, they scatter, afraid of being caught.

Perhaps I should have learned to fish before I became a writer.