*Beginning in 2010, I started writing a bi-weekly column, “From Richard’s Oft Cluttered Desk” which appears every other Wednesday.

This is the fifth column I’ve penned officially for this blog. Each time I’ve sat down to write I’ve been concerned about the outcome. Heck, half the time I have not had an idea what I would actually write about. It is still scary. And as I thought about what I wanted to write about this time, I have been pulled in many directions.

I could write about the amazing weekend I had at the end of February. Everything has been a dream come true and some has just been really nice.

I could write about the painting I recently finished. I tried a new technique and I’m very pleased how it turned out.

I could write about Joe Mauer and baseball. I could write about my UNI Panther basketball team. I could write about politics or the pulled chicken I’m trying to make as I write this. The options are endless – and welcome to the world of the mind of a writer.

With the completion of my book, Anything is Possible, I’m awaiting my next project. I have a few ideas of what I’d like to write next, but I’m not sure where I will go. I would like to give fiction a go, but I’m debating whether I should do short stories for awhile first. I have a book that I try to use to keep the creative juices flowing, but I find I do one activity and then don’t touch it again for a month. That doesn’t really help keep the creative juices flowing. They just flow freely for five minutes and then dry up.

I have hopes that writing this column will get my mind off the non-fiction writing that I’ve spent the last 16 months perfecting and get me to write more freely. I’m not sure if it is happening. Of course, five columns in, I wasn’t expecting to be amazing. Just something. I wanted to feel like my writing and my passion was getting closer. Instead, I’m just writing about writing. I’m writing about the struggle I’m having within myself to find that one creative spark. I’ll be in the shower and just thinking about a story I’d like to tell, but then it goes away. I’ll be on the treadmill, sweating out the stress of the day and I”ll get a brilliant idea that would be certain to win me an Oscar, but then I still have two miles to run and by the end, the idea is gone.

Creativity is like that – fleeting – always waiting. I hope it jumps out at me soon. Come, I am waiting.