I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about the role of writing in my life lately, because I’ve been under deadline. I don’t spend a lot of time ruminating when I am under the gun of the daily word count. Actually, I should be writing my next novella right now, but I wanted to stop for a moment and reflect on why I spend so many of my waking hours at this task, and why I love it so much.
I find that opening a blank page on my computer and asking my characters to tell me their story holds up a candle and a mirror to my own inner thoughts. I learn more about the things I value, like love and friendship and family, and I remember why those things are so important to me.
I remember why I like happy endings, and why joy is such a blessing and yet so hard to capture on the page.
I remember why I am in love with love, and how deep a part of me that love will always be. My love affair with love is something I came to accept about myself long ago, which is why I am still writing at all.
I remember the joy of discovery and how it happens on every page, in every scene. Characters I thought I knew surprise me, and I surprise myself. There is joy in that, too.
So as I swim down the river of yet another adventure, I want to thank the gods of inspiration and the gods of caffeine, all I have read and all I will read, all the things that go into the alchemy that is creation, and the ability to sit at the computer, day in and day out, and do it again.