Sarah's writing journal

I had an Emily Dickinson moment yesterday -

As if I asked a common alms
And in my wandering hand,
A stranger pressed a Kingdom
And, I, bewildered, stand.

- when I went for a swim and found the pool completely empty, so I could just go up and down revelling in being in the water on my own. I find doing anything repetitive - walking, swimming, even ironing - good for my creative thinking, but this had a special quality. I managed to sort out a number of plot problems I just hadn't had the space to even begin to cope with before. And it got me thinking about space - how it's not just about taking a month off for writer's retreat, but finding time and aloneness in the day. Somewhere where you can go without others people's chatter breaking through, or to-do lists crowding up your brain. And how I haven't had much of that recently but how much I needed it. So part of my plan is to build in a time in every day when I can be by myself to think, away from mobile phones, computers, other people. Here's a photo of my beautiful swimmming pool to show just how lucky I was.
And my writing prompt for today is ... the sound of silence.