I try to write things with meaning and weight, but tonight as I have to start planning the next steps of this adventure, I need to simply offer some records. I have been writing, i have been making progress. I have no measures to know if any of it is enough. I have heard of authors spending nine months without interruption to write their next novel, or books that were in the incubation stage for nine years. I get encouraging feedback, but without sufficient criticism for me to trust it. The universe has been testing my resolve with roadblocks, distractions, unforeseen disasters, selfish needs, emotional memory, monetary needs, flirty distractions, and self-sabotaging negativity. Each time I emerge with the clarity that anyone and everyone has the ideas to make something, but it is in the making, the drudgery of taking each small step while gravity drags you back, that it takes white knuckling determination to bring a piece of art into the world.

I am used to work that has an exterior pressure. As a teacher my world was a hexagon of other peoples’ needs, demands, expectations, requirement, deadlines, hopes and dreams. Now it is all on me, I can fail if I want to. I can prove the haters correct and fail. I can be another frustrated artist. Unfortunately I give me all to any endeavor,   my romantic relationships offer evidence enough, I don’t become discouraged or disenchanted easily. And unlike other people, my work is unlikely to disappoint me. Even when I can’t make sense of it by the traditional metrics, and scramble to find any exterior affirmation that this path leads anywhere, I still have to own this drive leading me forward.