On synchronicity, and fish for breakfast

At the beach this morning, I watched a heron fishing for its breakfast. I watched for quite some time, amazed at the heron’s patience. He stood motionless, waiting… waiting…. Several times ducks and gulls disturbed the water near the heron, and I imagined him wanting to shush them – “be still! you’re scaring away the fish! – but he didn’t move. Even when a breakfast-sized fish jumped about six feet behind him, he didn’t flinch a feather. Occasionally he’d arch his neck forward to peer more closely into the water, then straighten up again and wait some more. Waiting, until the perfect moment, the moment that brought the right fish into the right place, and then… strike! (I expect the fish’s perspective would be that this was entirely the wrong place at the wrong time.)

All this reminded me of two things: first, a brief chat I recently had with a writing friend about synchronicity, about things coming together at the right time. We thought that perhaps this applies to stories, and I wonder if when it’s the right time for us to tell a certain story – and not before – the pieces will fall into place. (Depending on where you’re coming from spiritually, I imagine this idea of synchronicity may be interpreted as coincidence, luck, God’s timing, one’s stars aligning, et cetera.)

For me, forcing a story that’s not ready to be told – or that I’m not ready to tell – isn’t likely to meet with good results. I’ve been stuck at a point in one particular story that I really want to tell, and I’ve berated myself over my lack of progress on it. But I decided to cut myself some slack. Maybe it’s just not the right time for me to write this. Instead, I’m outlining a new project and spending time “refilling the creative well”, nurturing my spirit so that when the story demands to be written, I’ll be ready.

The second thing the heron brought to mind this morning was how painfully slow the publishing process can be, lol. So much waiting! And as we wait to hear back on critiques, queries, revisions, contracts, edits, and so on, it can be tempting to grow impatient or discouraged and give up before our breakfast swims by (if you’ll excuse the silly analogy), or to be jealous when someone else gets a bigger fish, or gets one more quickly, or to be frustrated when those blasted ducks splash about, disturbing the water and delaying, yet again, us getting what we want.

Maybe we should keep the whole synchronicity idea in mind during all the waiting, too. Things happen at the right time, and our job is to be ready to seize the opportunities when they come. Nurture our creativity; hone our craft; polish the stories we’ve already written so when we get a request, we can send it confidently; and when the pieces come together and the time is right for a new story, thank God / the universe / your lucky stars, open a Word document, and write!

What do you think about synchronicity as it applies to writing and waiting?