Are you a writer?

With so many people writing stories, poems, blogs, books and other creative outpourings, some may have wondered ... when are you officially a writer?

It has been said that, if the first thing on your mind when you wake up in the morning, and the last thing you think about before falling asleep is writing, you are a writer.

If that indeed is the case, then I am a writer.  Every morning when I wake up, I think of all the mountains I’m going to move writing about this, that and the other.

Unfortunately, once in front of my computer, my inspiration more often than not, dies.  I want to write something, I feel I have to write something, but the inspiration just isn’t there.  So I do something else.

And then, when I’m no longer thinking, as if by magic, the words come.  Sometimes it’s a sentence, sometimes a paragraph, sometimes a whole storyline.

I had such a moment of clarity today, at 6:45 p.m. to be precise   Unfortunately, I had dinner on the stove at the time.  I had chicken breasts on a pan, potatoes in a pot and a salad waiting for seasoning on the counter.

It was wonderful, all day I had struggled to find the right angle to write about a specific plant, and now, now suddenly the words flew in my head and out of my fingers at the speed of a hare being chased by a pack of dogs.

I was in the middle of paragraph six when suddenly … I smelled something.  I knew that smell, it was the smell of something burning but I couldn’t … oh good grief, the chicken!!!

I would have given an Olympic athlete a run for her money at the time it took me to get from my chair to the kitchen.  Did I walk, did I run or did I fly?  I can’t remember my feet touching the ground.

Unfortunately, even though I was fast, I wasn’t fast enough.  What once were golden brown chicken breasts were now … how can I put this?  Well done … no.  Overdone … no.  Burned …. euh no.  What was on the pan looked close to being cremated.

I did what any guilty cook would do, when putting the meat on the plate, I flipped it over on its good side and served without blinking or blushing.  Once in the company of yellow potatoes, green salad and red tomatoes the meal look good enough to … well, eat.

Will this ever happen again?  Probably, for I am not a cook, I am a writer and when inspiration calls I can’t answer … “Can you come back after dinner?”