The Wistful versus the Genius

"...We come now to the book.  It has been planned a long time.  I planned it when I didn't know what it was about.  I developed a language for it that I will never use.  This seems such a waste of the few years a man has to write in.  And still I do not think I could have written it before now.  Of course it would have been a book - but not this book.  I remember when you gave me this thick - black - expensive book to write in.  See how well I have kept it for this book.  Only six pages are out of it.  A puppy gnawed the corners of the front cover.  And it is clean and fresh and open.  I hope I can fill it as you would like it filled..."
-January 29th, 1951 Monday - John Steinbeck "The East of Eden Letters"

I woke up this morning with no intention of writing in this blog.  I showered, made coffee, was harangued by my children, went to work and like watching a marathon of Bravo Housewives I have nothing creative to show for it.  My back aches and it is cold in my core, and my wife told me I needed to take a bath which I haven't done in as many years as my oldest son has been alive.  So I did it.

As I lay in the hot water, I submerged my head all the way below the surface and listened for my heart beating.  I didn't hear it, but instead a different message came up from below.

I started a novel in 2007, and then I started it again in 2008, and then I workshopped it in 2009, and then I pitched it to an agent in 2010...

My novel spoke to me under the water.  It was a matter of a few seconds, but the vision was there.  Whether it was the silence or the change in my routine, whatever the reason it returned to me. A couple of hours later I went downstairs and looked for my notes.  I couldn't find them, but instead my eyes focused like a camera lens upon this book by John Steinbeck - Journal Of A Novel The East of Eden Letters.  I hadn't read it nor had any idea of what the second paragraph read.

The message is clear.  These are the kind of messages from the unconscious that if listened to and acted upon separate the wistful from the genius. 
Here I go...