Writers Write, Right? (Pencil)

This is in the vein of writers write.

There isn't much in regular everyday life to tell about these days. It's summer. We are doing summer things. We are taking time off and time out of the regular. We are gearing up for adoption day. 

Personally, I'm spending a large piece of my time in the dentist chair. I'm only mostly bitter about this.

We will go back to writers write. August can be a month of daily writing. It can be a month of drafts and stories and ideas. It can be a month of playing around with thoughts. August may be the time of planning and scheming which thought will become the November novel idea. September and October are already spoken for in the writer plan. 

Pencil

All the pieces were in place. Sitting on the table in the glow of the afternoon sun was a brand new journal and a sharp pencil. The pages were clean and crisp. None of the corners were softened yet by the constant brush of her arm as the words covered the pages.

She knew that by the end of the journal the pages would have a different feel. The clear blue lines would be gone under the scratches of words. The words would run across, page after page, slipping gently from crisp, sharp black lines to soft gray smudges.

Then she would sharpen her pencil again and the shock of black would assault the pages again for a while.

The slow fade from black to gray repeating over and over again in the pages of the journal would echo the ebb and flow of the stories she would tell.

Slowly she began.

A small gray etch 
On the side of the paper

More a smudge than a heart
And yet

There it is
A little smear of love

In truth 
The whole page is smeared

Smudged with

doubt

Thoughts thought 
Then erased

Feelings felt
And then rubbed out

All the sharp lines
Of words defined

Gone

Smoothed out
Blurred and softened

The lines
The words

From freshly sharp tip 
To worn nub

Black to gray

She stopped for a moment. Sat, pencil in hand, stared into the sun and realized the thought was gone. She put her pencil down, closed her journal and knew it was done.