Listen! Listen to the small sounds of the early quiet: dog lapping at the water, heater rising to greet the turning of the seasons, refrigerator’s low hum. Listen again, deeper, listen into the beat and pause of the words within you. The rhythm coming through your hand, pen to page, offers a particular pulse. But writing is a whatever-works sport, and I’d never dictate your materials, times or approach. Go for the surge, for what leads you up and down the hills and valleys of a sentence. The syncopated beats of individual words. The satisfying full stop of a period at the end of the line. It’s about syllables and sound as well as meaning and imagery. Trust it. Trust the rhythm. It’ll take you where you need to go, answer the perpetual questions of the blank page, call out the stories only you can tell, offer you the next right word, remind you when you read aloud just what you were trying to reach for when you wrote, what exactly you wanted to say. Tap into rhythm instead of doubt, or right alongside it–a harmony. Turn on that inner music and dance.
