Writing is like...

This is a blog meme, instigated by my friend and fellow writer, S.B. Poscente. You can hang out with her at her place and I highly recommend that you do.

Now, on to my little attempt at keeping this meme alive...

---

Writing is like...being cast away on an exotic island. You have beautiful things to eat but no cutlery. The fish, lobster and crab are the best you've ever seen and you just know they would be delicious...but there is no fire to cook them. The sunshine is intense and lasting but you have no sunglasses or UV protection. The ocean is warm but you have no towel after a swim.

You have matches but they're wet; you have a canteen but it's dry.

The rain is cool and refreshing, but you have no shelter and your skin wrinkles to that of a geriatric octogenarian. The nights are black and deep but you get cold with no blankets and so you begin to shiver after an hour or two. There's nothing on; the satellite dish you've crafted from palm fronds and bamboo stalks doesn't get the new OWN network.

You finally see another survivor drift towards your shore on a makeshift raft of plane parts and table trays but, alas, he is mute. And burly. And he takes your food when you sleep. You spend your days with him merely shuffling feet in the sand and looking at each other.

In a desperate search for something other than raw seafood, you find a can of fruit cocktail -- with extra cherries, even. You have no can opener but would risk great injury to yourself just for one lick of the artificial syrup. But the date tells you this fruit is expired. You ask yourself, "Should I go there?"

You see perfect waves in the distance but your surfboard wax wasn't in your carry-on; neither was your surfboard. You remember all your friends' numbers but all the coconut phones you've carved have no dial tone.

Finally, after months in virtual isolation, with nearly nothing to show for your time away, a wooden flat of bottled water floats in on the spring tide. You and your surly silent compadre force yourselves to become teammates for twenty minutes as you haul it in.

Your great mood subsides, though, and your shoulders shrug with a deflating realization:

The safety seal is broken on every one. And you're just not that sure.

---

So who am I asking to carry on this blog meme? Three great women, three impeccable writers, three superlative friends.

Eden Baylee. Darcia Helle. Maria Savva.