Open Road Media

. That was the original flame. It was good enough, but along the way I mixed it all up. I thought it could heal the world; it could heal me; it could do everything, because I felt so good when I wrote. I took one step ahead of the ordinary good act of writing. I wanted to become successful, noticed, famous, so I could finally get the love and attention I didn’t get as a child.

I took writing outside writing. I took my life outside life. I wanted to throw it way ahead of me, thinking it would cure something way behind me. “If I get famous, then... ,” “If I get this book finished, then... ,” “If I win this grant, then... ,” “If I get published, then...”

We need to let writing be writing and let it give us what it gives us in the moment. If we connect with anything in the moment, it frees us of the past, present, and future. We are just there. If we are chopping wood, we are chopping wood; brushing our teeth, brushing our teeth; walking, walking.

This love is in the eyes, not yet in the heart’s range,

pustules on a battered, weakened body, trouble spots were erupting steadily.