After celebrating the finish of the novel’s first pass revision, I celebrated the end of 2011 and the birth of 2012. There was Baby Duck champagne, there was a live feed playing on the television, and Christmas crackers were passed out.
The ball dropped, we wooped, we pulled the crackers apart with a satisfying bang and a whiff of silver fulminate, and out popped the favor. Mine was a pocket pen.
Brought it home. Tried it out on a piece of paper, but nothing came out. I ran the ball point round and round, pressing circles into the paper.
Not very auspicious, I thought.
But I kept at it. Surely it couldn’t be dead, right? Round and round and round, and I was just about to give up and count it as a loss.
And then finally — sputter, ink, and long, black loops start to flow smoothy.
The naturally occurring metaphor. Not so rare after all.
The writer’s ear. It’s much like the more vaunted ‘photographer’s eye’. Either you have the knack of noticing things like naturally occurring metaphors, or you don’t. Good catch.
I think I’ll print that out and put it on my wall…
I was really struck by the image when it happened, but I worried over posting it, that it might seem trite. But I figured, what the hell. I self-censor too much, hold back. It struck me, goes in the blog. New rule.