FIRE

I've been to Andrew's site and it always gives me hope. Or rather I should say he gives me hope because he's got that raw longing to do great things that most people think is unhealthy after eighteen. Today Andrew's article is called "A Writer?" and now that it is official and I really will be going back to school in the fall and taking many courses which are centered around the repsonibilities writers have to be communicators and builders, there are a few things I'd like to say about what I am attempting to do.

A few days ago a dear friend of mine read my novel. This is saying a lot because anyone who is a writer knows that the last people to sit down and read your work are dear friends and family. And he wrote to say what it did to him, how it affected him, and I felt blessed because that's when I realized I had finally come to the stage I wanted to reach. Even though I didn't know I was going toward that place. Not until he told me. Before I wanted to be good. I wanted people to think I was good. But it wasn't until recently that I realized that I needed to be a bard and a bard ought to be a servant. When David said he laughed a little and cried and little and even felt like an ass a little, and I realized that this is what I was doing. I don't even say trying to do, but doing. Reaching into a very real part of myself to pull out something very real for people. Something so real and hot that you might burn your fingers on it. Any of you who has read Witch's Blood for some time knows that I would love to be very, very famous and make some money and I'd like all of you, my fellow bards, to do the same. But I don't have any prractical advice along those lines. The advice I have for you is: don't settle. Don't resort to silly how-to-be-a-writer formulas. There is a force out there and inside yourselves friendly to an artists who does not settle and who strives to honor his or her gift by honoring the people around them. There is a force that keeps and upholds those who walk with the fire.