the writer's life is all here, in the making

Here, on my desk, the notes I have made for the final seven scenes in the Florence, Italy, novel.

Seven scenes is a large number and I refuse to write fast; there's too much pleasure to be found in writing slow—in taking the time to look around, in stopping to live in the thick stew of it all, in feeling deeply, in walking to the end of that alley.

I am a writer because I love to write, because—for my own psyche—I have to. This writing—this right now, this work that comes after a year of self doubt and tossed pages, certainty of failure, little cracks of light, a sudden knowing—this is the thing.

The writer's life is all here, in the making. It's what we teach ourselves about words, faith, perseverance, about the collisions that become story.