A Fresh Start

It was a blustery day yesterday and we flew kites! I thought of SCBWI, and how this organization has helped me grow as a writer and a person over the years. It gave me a wonderfully critical and supportive critique group. The camaraderie alone is worth the membership fee, the friendships are priceless.

In honor of kites (and, well, because the kite pictures turned out so well), I start a new chapter of this blog. One in which I begin the work of becoming a school teacher, a better writer and always a freer thinker. Look for more interviews, book reviews and stories about process.

Below is an article I wrote for an SCBWI newsletter a few years ago. I'd forgotten about it until yesterday, as I fought at times to keep my kite from taking a nose dive. . . .

Keep Your Kite Flying

In the alternate whirlwind and stillness that is a writer’s inspiration there are plenty of opportunities to ponder one’s motives. Am I concentrating on publication too much? Am I even any good at this? Do I really like to write after all?

Inevitably I wonder, when the wind of inspiration is gone, how do I keep my own kite flying? The answer should be simple. If one truly loves to do something, they do it. Period. In times of ordinary frustration, I resort to this answer to get through the day’s work. But the truth is, as an artist, I need something a little more poetic for the long haul.

So I think of my breath catching in response to a beautiful sentence, or ponder the deep satisfaction that comes from choosing the right expression. I think about a character that vibrates with life on the page and makes my own heart beat. Before long, a whisper stirs and my pen is ready. I am a writer after all.

This is the breeze keeping my own kite in the air. Sure, writing a beautiful story worthy of publication would send me over the moon. But I will still be a person who has to ask myself again and again, “Why do I do this?” The answer is what keeps any writer’s kite flying. Even on a still, windless day.