To begin the writing process I have been doing a little writing and a lot of reading and listening to audio mp3s and the like.  For me, the labor of writing is not so much in how to say something as it is in knowing what I am trying to say.  What makes me a writer is in part how I knit together words into prose but the majority of it is in how I see the world and interpret what I see.  For me it is about communicating a message.  Words, I believe, are very powerful and so I love writing because it is a patient process that allows me to mull (and mull and mull) over an idea before finally naming it.  Verbal communication is much less forbearing because we as people have a hard time with dead air; the silence that happens while waiting to hear what someone has to say.  We want to know every thought inside a person's head, forgetting that it is best that people not hear every thought inside our own heads, knowing all too well how cruel or stupid we ourselves can be above our shoulders sometimes.  Then when we say something the words are out there, representing us and what we think, available to be used by anyone who hears them in any way they wish.  (Ask any celebrity or politician about that.)  This reality can terrify me if I think about it too much because I know I cannot stand by every word I say or write and yet I cannot take it back.  This is why I have felt strongly that I need to get my head straight before I just. start. writing. 

People who know about my current quest have been asking a lot, "so, have you been writing?"  A good and obvious question.  The answer, as I started out saying, is that I have been reading mostly, trying to figure out exactly what I want to say, even what I believe.  Then the writing will come.  In the meantime this is all part of the process. 


"Writing comes more easily if you have something to say."  Sholem Asch