Second Thoughts...

She said you don't have to run the Boston Marathon to be a runner. It's a good reminder for all those times I trip up or get too ahead of myself.  Writing is first and foremost a process. A process of learning, honing the craft, finding a voice. Finishing a novel, getting it published, becoming a best-seller, winning the Nobel Peace Prize are all fair and good, but let's be honest, how likely is any of that to happen without first undertaking that long, developmental journey. And need those other things even follow? Does this journey demand a destination? Nobel Prize, really?
For me, the act of writing is a refuge for all those aspects of myself that do not fit so easily in the carefully boxed aspects of my life. It's where all the unanswered questions, insatiable thoughts, and unformed opinions can lift from their shadowy currents and coalesce into a new dimension that is wholly and uniquely me. At its purist it is a process of joy, liberation, exploration, and discovery.
Sounds good, huh? Isn't this enough then, these forays into introspection, masturbatory as they may seem? Is it necessary to go around calling myself a novelist, or more accurately that half-claim, aspiring novelist, with all the implication that it carries: that I am going to be published. Claiming to be a writer seems to state a goal more than a means, and carries with it the pressure of fulfilling that end. Hell, writing a novel is hard enough. The only thing harder, maybe, getting the damn thing published! And look at what comes with that process: toil, frustration, fear, judgement, rejection. Why tack on that extra burden?
Because between them, when thought is given form by careful expression, that passion is lifted into something far greater, far more rewarding. A transformation occurs, as alchemical as Jung professed, wherein both the material and the maker are made into something new, the sum from which has the power to transform others. I feel this myself, in those long sought-after moments when I am able to craft seemingly disparate ideas into something unexpected and profound, teaching me something about myself, before moving on to the reader to become something wholly and uniquely their own.
Effective writing becomes like double intercourse. That first lay between the writer and their work, the second between the work and the reader. Of course there is that third lay, desired no doubt by many aspiring writers, that lay between writer and reader. But that's another story.
Publication, recognition, financial gain, lays, all parts of that darned end. No wonder it's so hard to stay focused on just the act of writing. So what am I saying? There's enough distraction in life, in the undertaking of any long-term artistic endeavor. I like writing in the way some people like running. They don't run Marathons to run. They just run. If they run enough, they can join a Marathon. I'm just going to write. When I've written enough, when I'm ready, I'll probably find I've already run a Marathon.

Then I'll be tired.

Obligatory first post

Gotta start somewhere, or so they say. So why this writing blog? Selfish reasons really. To manufacture a small, select audience with whom I can expose my work more broadly, and with hope, temper my still delicate aspiring writer's ego. To create a safe environment for myself and fellow writers to share our work and process, support one another, offer objectivity, talk about books or movies, trade stories and experience, collaborate, brainstorm, rant, rave and just plain shoot the figurative shit.
For me, my hope is to use this form to journal my own process and struggles as a full-time working stiff, family man, part-time writer. I hope to post some short fiction, essays, exercises, anything so long as it is complete and self-contained, my long form fiction so long I am forced to find more immediate gratification elsewhere.
So there it is. Enough reason for a first post. Enough for a beginning. And now the hard part begins.

Or is it the first step that's the hardest?