The Basics

I keep returning to a certain web space -- the writer's section at author Meg Waite Clayton's website. But I don't understand why. What draws me to a space for beginning writers? Haven't I internalized that material, and more, in these years of writing?

So I shrug it off ... and then visit again, and shrug.

And visit.

Until, finally, I pay real attention to the words in that first box on the screen. And I'm flooded with the sense of freedom and optimism I felt as a beginning writer: that writing can be simple ("Open a journal or your computer and start writing") and that writing can be fun ("What have you got to lose?").

Lesson (re)learned. And, periodically, reinforced through Meg's blog, 1st Books: Stories of How Writers Get Started (see blogroll).