Merriam Webster says of fickle: “marked by lack of steadfastness, constancy, or stability : given to erratic changeableness”.
It can be said of Inspiration, best approximated as a hesitant, sometime, flinching young thing: it appears, just before dissipating again, fleeing perhaps for fear of being seen naked.
As a struggling writer, on most days, I know that I shouldn’t flinch from trying and trying again. Indeed that lady – why can’t I imagine her as anything other than female – lacks constancy. There have been dawns when I woke up with some marvellous script in mind, and went glary-eyed to make coffee, the fuel of scribblers, then sat at the keyboard, now as dry as stone: she‘d gone…
Of course there have been others (dawns) when everything erupts, and I went straight into the business, and kept writing till I run out of steam – not often.
Flinch: “He didn’t even flinch when the nurse cleaned the wound.”
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