Sitting upon the ridge behind where I live the moon sits, its Cheshire cat grin a notice that life isn’t supposed to be fun all the time, neither is writing. If you’ve ever spent a night staring into a white screen, blank pages or miles of edits, you’re aware of the not so fun parts of being a writer.

Yesterday was my birthday, and with every year, I look back at where my writing’s gone and where it hasn’t.

I started this blog last year to help writers who’ve gotten lost in the delusions of what writing is and isn’t.

Initially I talked about the little things, but it became clear (through my own writing) that I something else was needed.

Moons come and go, followed by the sunrise, but in between the two is a pleasant darkness. It’s not the death throes of depression that I’ve been dealing with the past six months, it’s a darkness where things just are.

The animals scurry across the desert landscape, their bodies oblivious to the knowledge that their lives are short. Because they’re not cognizant to realize this, they don’t care about crossing that street or running through the field where coyotes reside.

They don’t care, they just live.

As humans we care about crossing that street. We know where the coyotes roam, and we steer clear of that area, but if we’d only let go for just a little while of how uncomfortable we are in thinking about that street or those coyotes, we’d do something great.

The Grin on the moon’s surface is only a reminder that its part of its cycle, that in a few weeks there will be no cat staring down, it will be the man himself staring, his face aglow with the sun’s rays.

Stepping into the Cheshire Cat sky I look up at the cat staring down and wonder if this will be the year, then I quickly forget it, walk back inside, sit down and finish my word count, because regardless of what pays the bills, I’m a writer and finishing word counts or page counts are what get me to the next birthday.