A Blind Man in a Textile Shop

Perhaps this is an illness of all creative writers. Perhaps it’s an illness with which I alone suffer. In either case, I am constantly seeking the perfect metaphor to describe the craft of making fiction––language to best describe the way it feels to write.

Today I believe I hit on one that comes very close to satisfying my search. It describes well the process, the act of writing, the work of finding your way as you place word after word, laying narrative onto paper, story onto screen.

Writing fiction is like being a blind man in a textile shop.

So often, I am guided by my gut, that invisible monitor and detector of aesthetic, rather than by the words my eyes read or the rationale divvied out by my conscious self. Today, while working on my current novel-in-progress I felt suddenly as if my sight had gone dark and I was reaching, feeling the text to see if it had the right hand––as those in the textile business call it. I felt that there was a sensor in my core that had taken over and was weighing the words, worrying them for accuracy. It was physical, yes, but ultimately intuition was judge. The text had to feel right, create a sensation when held.

Writing fiction is like being a blind man in a textile shop. 

Yes, at least for today this metaphor will do.