The Courage to Write

I think writing makes me more sane. I'd go crazy if I couldn't write. It's a way of making sense out of life. Otherwise it would all be a jumbled up mess in my mind and I'd have to drink beer and martinis to shrink my brain, burn it out, kill it, or poison it. Like when I was a teenager and my friends and I tried to kill a spider by dousing it in Jack Daniels. It still gives me the creeps just thinking about it.

So I write instead. I actually get sane by delving into the depths of anything scary, crazy, or painful with total courage. Once I've done that, whatever it was that scared me or caused me pain loses its power over me. Though I can't say that it's easy. I actually see a lot of people in writers' workshops who desperately want to write, but are absolutely terrified to face what's lurking deep inside.

I'm starting a new email newsletter that I'll be sending out soon. If you’re reading this, you’re probably on my mailing list. If you have any ideas for things I could discuss in the newsletter, feel free to send them my way. I've also got several blogs now that I'm going to try and keep up with on a regular basis.

As far as my latest novel is concerned, all names will be changed to protect the innocent, and probably even more so, to protect the guilty. But the truth is, anyone who has lived is guilty of something. As the main character, Kate Robinson, says in the prologue:

"My latest novel, The Bohemian Life, is a story about a writer who travels to Paris to research and write about the bohemian life. I have always been fascinated by bohemians because they are so non-conformist and live such unconventional lives. They are artists, writers, musicians, performers, intellectuals, radicals, and anarchists. All of that intrigues me, but especially their interest and comfort with the darker side of the human soul....

"This novel is more than just an exploration of the bohemian life and the bohemians such as Henry Miller, Pablo Picasso, Jean-Paul Sartre, Earnest Hemingway, Anais Nin, Henri Matisse, and others; it is also a confession of every single wicked, evil, dirty, nasty, naughty, vile thing I’ve ever done in my life. I feel driven to confess all of my sins to the world. It’s become an obsession for me...."

Does it make you want to read more? I hope so, 'cause that's the whole point.