Tag: drive

Thoughts on the Road (about writing)

We decided to stay in Des Moines overnight to break the trip back into a couple of days. Des Moines is a comfortable big city; I could live here. Richard, on the other hand, is worried about the snowy weather, which we are not having right now. It’s 46 degrees out and perpetually rainy. We’re waiting out the dense fog advisory south of us, so we’re at a Starbucks so I can write.

I’m bouncing ideas off Richard for a future novel in the Hidden in Plain Sight series. Apparently six is not enough. I like the characters in the series too much to quit writing. Right now, it involves the desert commune, Hearts are Mountains, and threats to the Archetypes there. If you’re preternatural beings with lots of power, this shouldn’t be much of a problem, right? But there’s the part where you don’t want to reveal your true, near-immortal identity. And the part where you used to be guardians of the humans, charged with keeping their ancestral memories, but as guardians you also can’t allow yourselves to be killed. The threat extends to the first child born in the commune, and the collective is immoderately protected of him… The story needs much more thought, but leave it to say there are problems with just killing the aggressors, and problems in not killing them. This is just an idea. There are other ideas, and we have another 2.5-hour drive to come up with them.

It would be nice if this story idea would break my writers’ block. I have been taking a break from writing because it’s not coming easily for me. I’m fighting the usual misgivings that come with being a writer. I have heard I would have these misgivings even if I were a writer on a contract like few lucky writers are.

Does the world need to hear my stories? Probably not as much as I need to tell them. But I always keep hope.

Day 14 Reflection: Hunger

Hunger, the gnawing in our stomach and uncanny fear in our bones, disconcerts us. Wired in our most primitive brain, hunger presses us to seek sustenance so we don’t die.

We have borrowed the word ‘hunger’ to describe other forms of sustenance, usually in a spiritual sense. We hunger for love, for truth, for justice, for a right relationship with the earth or with our conception of God.  The word is fitting, as our desire for these needs can grow uncomfortable and urgent in our souls.

 Hunger drives us, no matter what its source. Hunger doesn’t take us on a gentle walk through the orchard after dinner, but sends us in pursuit of what would make us satiated and whole. We walk with hunger on a rocky path, but we barely note the stones because we are in pursuit of our sustenance. 

Hunger reminds us that we are akin to the other creatures of the world, who need, who toil, who search. We may hunger for more than basic sustenance, but we do hunger.