On Saturday, I sat down to write something for this website, but nothing came. I also felt a tendonitis-like pain in my right wrist. The pain was probably due to weeding I’ve been doing in my yard. My husband kindly wrapped my wrist in bandaging, which had an immediate, beneficial effect. I don’t know what led to my blank mind. What a fool’s day.
In the evening, we went with my youngest daughter and her partner to a reading by the Swiss-German writer Sybil Schreiber. She delivered one of the best readings I’ve ever attended. Witty, charming, and clever, she worked without a moderator, discussing with ease the premise of her latest collection of short stories, Safranhimmel. She read sections from the collection and answered questions about the work and her writing life. Actually, in recognizing how slow a question session can take to get rolling, who awkward an audience can feel about asking her anything, she wrote out several questions on cards which she pinned to the undersides of random seats in the theater. My daughter got one, “Wieso heisst das Buch, Safranhimmel?” – but a woman behind us asked about her choice of title before my daughter had a chance to. Never mind.
We left, happy to have attended the reading and discovered a new voice to follow. Her trick with the question cards delighted us. How clever! Someone in the audience asked if Safranhimmel would be out in English, which got me thinking about trying my hand at translating fiction from German to English. I’m experienced with translating work-related copy. Wouldn’t it be fun to explore applying my creative-writing skills to translating creative copy?
Here, I’ll stop. My wrist demands I take a rest from typing, which is all right. Of course, all sorts of ideas about what to share today came flooding in as soon as I decided not to think about what to write—so here we are. I didn’t intended to muse this month, but I have. And I’m pleased. Creativity thrives on a clear running source of ideas. Although I may experience a few obstacles in the flow of my creativity, I’ve never stayed blocked for long.
Meredith Writes 