To be a book

You need more than creativity to write a book. You need experiences. Deep, rich experiences when your mind has already started working on the book. When it translates the wind into a metaphor, the sand into time. It requires surrender of ego. It requires the ability to step outside of your comfortable self and be like another. It requires the acceptance that there can be bigger, greater inspirations outside of you, inside the heads of others, even the people you dislike. An author can not be judgemental. She can not like or dislike people or things, because she is seeking to learn, because she is begging for inspiration, from all people and things. And when you achieve that, that level of submission, you find all inspirations within you. When the wandering is done, all the experiences, the vices, the idiosyncrasies, the characters are you. And so you can make love to the sun every dawn and dusk while it grazes gently on your skin, and you can both go about your business during the day. You would knead the moonlight in the bread you eat and dissolve a few drops of it in your evening wine, and then lie freely under the stars. And then, just before dawn, you would wait for the sun to gently peel the stardust off your skin. You would live many lives, slow, promiscuous identities, until the day the book is done. And you'd never be the same person again. You need a lot to write a book. You need to be a book. You need to be opened, and you need to give.