Writing is an exploration of the terrain of truth, and no one can anticipate its discoveries. It is a journey away from home, in search of home. Only those who travel the road know how lonely it can be.

Writing is both disrobing and dissembling. Above all, we seek to be known; and yet, our greatest fear is that people will see us as we really are.

Writing is a compulsion and a conviction entangled with the desire to have a voice that will not be silenced by death.

Writing is a setting out to sea. The sailor cuts loose the ropes and moves some small distance from the harbor, sails unfurled, only to find the winds have died down.

Writing is death. Long and protracted; blood, the only ink. Not writing is death. Quick but painful; the writer a mausoleum full of dead bones.

Writing is throwing stones across the lake. Some skip, some sink, but all cause a change, circle by circle, moving across the waters in the long, slow movement of thought.

Writing is a light that travels out into the darkness long after the flame is snuffed out.

Writing is the echo of the music after the last note is played.

Writing is a terrible struggle for affirmation. The writer is a small child who cries out, “Look at me!  Look at me!”  Sometimes no one looks or looks and says, “That? Anybody can do that, and I can do it better. Look at me!”

Writing is a willingness to lay down the desire for affirmation and serve the call to write. Even if this is foolish.