Here's my personal creative credo, synthesized into 5 lines (it's all you need, really):

1. Keep it pointed to where you want it to go.
2. Pay close attention to your creative fantasies.
3. Keep it lean and keep it clean.
4. Art involves risk.
5. Form informs feeling.

I am staring at a blank page.

My daughter is sleeping. So is The Husband. And here I am. Finally able to sit down at the computer to let the thoughts I’ve been hoarding in my head spill on to the page.

This is a frequent occurrence in my home; this little moment of solitude one I steal from myself. After the dishes have been done, the laundry taken out of the dryer, and lunch packed for The Husband’s next work shift, I forgo sleep for a moment of creativity.

Wanting More

I am a writer. It’s hard for me to type that. I’m not sure I even fully believe it. But, people keep telling me that I’m a writer, and I figure that if I repeat it enough times, it will eventually sink in.

I’ve wanted to be a Writer since I was a small child. In second grade, my teacher sent me to the principal’s office to show off a poem I’d written in class. In fourth grade, I read a story about a woman who had pledged, as a young child, to be a writer when she grew up. She turned forty, and was unexplainably sad. She then remembered her pledge and started writing. I decided, at the age of nine, to make the pledge myself!

In fifth grade, my teacher was so impressed with the assigned short story that I’d written with my spelling words, that she told me I would be a great author some day. In middle school, I placed second in my state for an essay I wrote about being an American. I was sure my writing career was going to be successful.

As I sat down to write a post for OwningPink that’s been gestating in my mind for a couple of weeks, I decided that maybe I needed to do some laundry. Or make some more coffee. Maybe clean the litter box? Then I remembered a quote from Janet Burroway’s book, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, and decided that looking it up was the perfect thing for me to do at that moment.