And in the beginning...

Although you would have no way of knowing it from where you sit, I've already lost count of how many opening sentences I've typed and erased. Ridiculous, right? Pronounced myself a writer, then promptly lost the ability to compose a sentence. Maybe it's because it is fiction that opens my mind and leads my thoughts into the realms of inspiration and imagination, it's the challenge of honesty that finds me blank and struggling. Really though, I think it's the editing. I can't stop editing. I rewrite and edit everything that happens to leave my fingertips. Did I say everything? Because I really do mean everything: emails, notes to teachers, letters to Mom, my own signature because sometimes it just doesn't look right. I've even found myself editing telephone conversations in my head, hours after hanging up the receiver, and questioned whether I'm a total nut or maybe just a Writer.

I am one of those authors who loftily trace their designs to write novels all the way back to grade school. (Aka, a very long time ago.) Fourth grade to be exact, when I secretly went to work composing a shameless knockoff of Tom Sawyer, a book I'd just read and fallen madly in love with. I won't embarrass myself by revealing the completely ridiculous title I'd penned for my literary tour de force, just know that it was just as dreadful as you're right now thinking. Regardless, it was a pivotal moment when I gave up my long held dream to be an archaeologist. Traded pick-ax for pen and never looked back.

Okay, so now right there, that is a lie - the part about never looking back. Because if God is my witness, I've looked back. A bazillion times. Nearly broken my neck looking back and wondering what was wrong with my original dream to excavate Egyptian mummy tombs and chip ancient soil from dinosaur bones. Wondering, wondering, wondering why any sane person would willfully choose the wild white water rafting ride otherwise known as the writing life. Because as any scribe can tell you, "it's not just about the writing" as many of us optimistically, dreamily, and passionately believed at first glance. Writing, we soon discover isn't as uncomplicated as working diligently to get the words aligned, polished, and perfect. Not at all like the dedicated picture we envisioned when we first plucked a blank sheet from the pile and rolled it carefully between the rollers of our ancient manual typewriters (no longer chronicling our scribblings on yellow tablets tucked under the mattress, but now using the prestigious equipment of true authors). Because the truth of the matter is right there poised, ready to pounce, exposed from the moment we type THE END and confidently send our darlings out into the world. The truth that writing isn't simply about the writing, it's about strength, stamina, perseverance, and the ability to dodge bullets. And yet we do it. We hang on, determined to see it through because we must. Because there is no road heading back to the place we lived before we chose to write.