New Phase

Let's keep this short and to the point, for there's no time to waste.

It's been five years since I touched this record of my thoughts on process. When collaboration failed, I turned to the self. Working a solo project, you're the only one who can let you down.

I did a lot of letting myself down in the intervening years, but that time produced triumph as well. No failed collaboration, I got myself to the end: a whole book, a novel, ready for sale.

I've tried to explain how it can be done - a little at a time, it must become a habit. Without the habit, there is no constancy, no plodding to the end of the race. And if you please, the race is against time, the most precious resource we have.

Don't work in isolation. They say a writer's life is solitary, but does it have to be that way? The first time I met with a whole group of writers, it astonished me the things that they said. The words on their lips were the words I had used, when I told my spouse of my troubles writing. Find others like you, seek encouragement, don't get lost nor despair.

In the end there is the dream and its decree, that we must go forward or die trying. That is the human spirit, and the end that can be served.