Writing.

Something I have been doing a lot lately and thinking about a lot lately and reading about and researching, watching youtube videos, seeing how others attack it, listening to ideas and generating new ones.

A few weeks ago a character came to me, as some words floating around in my head and then a blurred face with a name, and another name and this is how my writing begins.  It is definitely not a straight process for me.  I don’t outline and plan nor do I write everyday, at least not on paper.  Writing, for me, is fluid.  It ebbs and flows, some days charging forward like a raging river and at other times, flowing along like a quiet stream.

I’ve sent my first novel out to 62 agents and from those had 12 official rejections.  More to come I am sure.

Creative endeavors require self confidence and that is something I have struggled with my entire life.

Who am I to think what I write is worthwhile…to anyone?  It is worthwhile to me and I know that is most important but I write to make a mark on the world, to allow people to experience life and nature in a way they may never have, had they not read my words.  I write to make the world a better place, a different place, a more observed place.

So many others do it so well already.  Terry Tempest Williams.  Kim Heacox.  Annie Dillard.  Michael Branch.  Barry Lopez. Aldo Leopold.  Henry David Thoreau.  I don’t want to be them.  I want to build on their foundations, take observations of nature and create fiction around that.  Not everyone will read these authors, not everyone loves non-fiction or nature.  My desire is to take that which is known in the heart, marry it to the observed world, and end up with stories worth telling, stories worth listening to, stories worth thinking about. That’s why I write.

But it doesn’t mean anyone will read it.  Or like it.

And so I have to accept that.  Which I do, reluctantly, but I do.

Write for writing’s sake, to quiet the words in my brain, to mark my place in the world for me, to know I tried.

I tried.  Am trying.  Will continue to try.

Always.