Getting there...

I love writing.

For all the words I weave, the heat of completion and coldness of imperfections, and the multiple tearing down and reconstructions of the process, I love it. I am an eternal student, a slave of what I shall never master. I live for my need, my passion. A poet, a dreamer, trapped by my imagination for no other reason than my love for it.

But I am learning. Not just from the study and practice, but from seeing my own flaws in the works of others and being able to identify them. From the brilliance displayed in the most flawed manuscript. The compulsion to write, to express our thoughts and dreams and fears, to dig deep into the realms governed by our fickle minds, is a wide-spread disease. Be careful, you just may catch it too. Or maybe you already have.

The bad news is: There is no cure. You've got it for life. Whether or not you press on to publication has little to do with that compulsion. Oh, there are some that say you have a choice, but they're wrong. That choice was swept away the moment you first typed The End--and the decision sealed when you started to rewrite that same story. It's like crack or heroin, only a straightjacket and a all-expenses-paid state-ordered vacation will keep you away. Oh, you can try to quit--to walk away--but that typewriter or keyboard will thump-thump...thump in the back of your mind like that infamous secret beneath the floorboards. Does anyone really walk away? Can anyone? Or is it just them prolonging (perhaps indefinitely) the perfection of their craft.

The Good news is: We're getting there. Every time we learn from a critique, or those we would deign try and teach, we're inching closer to our goal. Every time we recognize a common mistake in our prose, or the appearance of a cliche, and work it fluidly back out...we are getting there. For every rejection, brutal critique given and taken, or hard-earned bit of praise we better our skills that much more. And that is all we can hope for. Because the better we get, the harder it will be for an editor or publisher to reject us.

Keep on writing.