Tabula Rasa

It's been almost a year since I've written any fiction at all. Looking back at bits and pieces, I find it hard to insert myself back into those ideas. More than that, my internal editor's voice has grown exceptionally strong in the past year...jabbing me with doubts and fears and criticism. And yet, I yearn to write. I do. I find that my teaching position marshals all my intellectual effort during the academic year...and I love my work. But writing fiction offers unique challenge and satisfaction.

So what's a fledgling writer...okay, THIS fledgling writer...to do but try to re-establish the conditions that helped free her mind, her voice, and her fingers to have the audacity to write fiction in the first place.

In all honesty, I don't know what this blog will be. Perhaps it will house my "Morning Pages" (see Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way), if I choose to do them. Perhaps it will be as random and rambling as its previous "Writer at Work" incarnation.

It won't gaze at my navel. I can't guarantee it will be of any interest to anyone but me (and even my interest isn't a certainty), but I'm not interested in narcissism. I want to get back to writing...find a way to write things that matter...and blogging was one of of the tools I found helpful. I know the blogging community I encountered years ago has changed; evolution is inevitable. I know blogging is no longer cache; I don't care. Writing begets writing, or so "they" say.

And so...to a fresh start...embracing the blank page with all its terrifying potential.