“My heart overflows with a good theme;
I address my verses to the King;
My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.” -Psalm 45:1

I just love Psalm 45.

I can’t begin to number the scraps I’ve collected — notebooks and sticky notes and faded receipts — with cryptic thoughts scrawled across them. I’ve done this for most of my life. Creative people know what I’m talking about: what-ifs that prompt universes, clever words to put in some character’s mouth, vibrant images so poignant in life that they must be translated into verses.

Such a few of these scraps ever went anywhere. By the time opportunity arrived, the urgency wore away. The excitement left; the fire died. Digging only seemed good for finding more dirt. Sometimes the words I captured weren’t even enough to remind me what was so ingenious. As much as they’d thrilled me, few of those thoughts sustained enough power to fuel the work.

It only stands to reason that when I did follow through on an inspiration, I struggled against revisions, always certain I’d said it right the first time. In high school creative writing, the teacher finally had to lay down the law, pointing out that I could have multiple versions of a piece if that made me happy, but for the sake of my grade I needed to workshop my stuff. (When I recently found the specific piece that I defended so staunchly, I cringed. Revise, people. It’s the right thing to do.)

In contrast, on Saturday I reworked an eight year old poem. It felt good to tackle something that has been tucked away in a folder for so long. I thought of this particular piece as one of the best to come out of a torrent of words from that period, most of it overwrought emotion with a scarce few lines worth culling. I suppose if eight years didn’t give me the distance to see my own work clearly, then I never would. Happily, I hacked away extra lines and played with the order of the stanzas.  I read it aloud to make sure the twists of language worked. With motivation I lacked on the first pass, I sharpened the theme. I watched with some delight as my gelatinous free verse submitted to imposed form.

I can’t remember what gave me the idea to write this poem in the first place, but it hardly matters as that moment, like the stubbly scraps, will burn up in the fire someday (see 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 for reference). The thrill of writing doesn’t have to be confined to the moment of inspiration so long ago. It was fresh again when I saw the poem’s form and purpose taking shape, because the real excitement and power and the privilege lies in its purpose: “I will cause Your name to be remembered in all generations; Therefore the peoples will give you thanks forever and ever.” -Psalms 45:17