Destination?

I’m starting this blog because I want to write.

I want to write, and I want to write well.  I want to serve up something that is worthy of the reader’s time and attention.   I want to imbue my work with enough truth and insight for it to resonate with the reader.  More than just narration, I’m interested in connection.  And I want to do that skilfully.  And I’m aware that to get from here to there, there are many kilometres of writing to travel, across page after page, and year after year.

I have started out on this path before, and pulled off to the side to attend to other things.  But the dusty road keeps calling me back.  There is a certain invigoration that writing brings to my life that nothing else provides.  So, here I am again, possibly a little more care worn, but hopefully wiser too. 

I recently re-read some work from that earlier time.  I was finally able to identify what it was that derailed me back then.  Some of my writing was good, but a lot of it was, well… ordinary.  And I have high standards.  And the ordinariness was too excruciating to bear.  Fortunately I am not alone, and there is a way through this, just like Ira Glass said (bless his American cotton socks).  In order to improve I need to persevere, and push on through the humiliation of being imperfect, until my skills finally match my creative sensibilities.

Getting to that point may require a longer road than I can foresee, if one does ever actually “arrive” at all.  Perhaps the destination is really the progress you make, each small achievement along the way, each resolution, each denouement. 

So, I present Destination: denouement.  I intend it to be a tool for my own progression as a writer, and maybe for yours too.  I hope that it will be packed with interesting and inspiring tidbits about the writing life, the craft and community of writing, and a celebration of achievements along the way.  And because I’m all about authenticity on the page, and because I need a constant stream of self-administered encouragement, no doubt some of my psyche will leak through too.


Epilogo by Astragony @ flickr