She Writes

(A writer-friend did this assignment to get her creative juices flowing. I am supposed to write, in third person, my writing process or how one particular piece was written. What the heck, I'll give it a shot!)

She rushes into the church compound, silently cursing bus no. 153 and its driver halfway to hell and back, if only so it would scorch his backside and make him drive faster.

She is sweating buckets in the tropical humidity, the shirt under her suit jacket clinging to her back like a second skin. She grimaces as she removes the biting strap of the heavy laptop bag and takes off the jacket. Quickly and efficiently she checks her appearance in the mirror in the ladies, tidies up her hair and trots briskly to the main hall.

Already she is insanely late for prayer meeting, and she wants to avoid any disturbance. Thus she strategises to enter when the speaker starts to pray after the first hymn.

She slides into place with a sigh of relief, ignoring the nudge her 2nd Sister gives her. She pokes back and a mini poke-war is carried out furtively while the prayer drones on and on.

Bored, her mind wanders on and on, looking for diversion. This is not the best place or time to be thinking of things other than God and prayer, but she cannot help herself. The muses are no respecter of persons. They prey on her mind, randomly forcing words and phrases onto her subconscious and making her so antsy that another poke-war ensues.

Finally, she gives it up as a lost cause and surrenders to the demands of the muses. She bends over, carefully extracting her notebook and pen. She winces as the ballpoint pen seems to make its customary click sound like a gunshot.

Hurriedly, furtively, lest she forgets her flow of thought or the words floating around her head, she scribbles madly, all the while scanning the surrounding from the corner of her eyes.

The first 4 verses are completed before the speaker officially opens the meeting to public congregational prayer.

The next 5 verses are completed as the praying goes on.

All 9 verses are completed under 10 minutes. After the meeting, she is in the car, chewing on the cap of the pen and flexing her tired fingers.

The muses are merciless. They drive her to polish and re-polish, never mind that her eyes are half-closing in exhaustion and her fingers numb and sore from an entire day at the keyboard and now, the pen.

But she would have it no other way. Without her muses, her writing would be dull and lifeless. Without them, she would not even be a writer.

(I hope you've enjoyed this description of my writing process. And yes, I still do engage in poke-wars with my siblings in church. That is not the worst thing we've done, though.)