The Forward Path

There is only one path – the forward path.  Everything else just takes you in a big loop.

– me.

The Forward Path is a new section of the blog devoted to my thoughts, feelings, observations, and occurrences as I confront the realities of becoming a professional writer.  It is essentially a journal, meant to capture things as I notice them, designed to give me a chance to process what’s happening as well as create a historical record, and to provide a sort of travel guide to those who are following along.  It will have its own link, like the “Noman’s Land archive,”and I will probably not post everything I write on the main blog page, so check it as often as you wish to see what’s going inside this writer’s world. 

One of the claims I have made about the “thunderstrokes” blog is that it is meant to serve as the place where I chronicle my adventure into writing.  Well, it’s been a month now since starting the blog and I’ve done a lot of writing, but not much chronicling.  There are a few reasons, I believe, why I think I’ve been slow to start journaling about the journey itself.

·         As a teacher, I’m used to having summers off, and so what I’m doing right now doesn’t feel very different yet.  We’re still coasting along on the money left over from the end of the school year, the girls are home with me, and my days are largely filled with the everyday tasks of running the household and preventing my daughters from driving me, and each other, insane.  That will all change within the next few weeks, of course, as the challenges of a dwindling bank account and a new schedule take effect.

·         Starting the blog and writing for it have proven to be so much fun, I haven’t focused very well on the purpose I gave myself before I started.  I wanted this to be a place of deep introspection, a place to document my fears, doubts, and struggles as I finally climb into the ring, and wrestle the angel (beast?) I have been avoiding all my life (apologies for the mixed metaphors).  Those things still exist (oh yes they do!), and I’m sure that at some point I’ll be in over my head with them, but this first month has been an unexpected blast and a joy.  To me, the last month has been like opening a bottle of champagne that I’ve been shaking for 33 years and finally popped the cork:  it’s been all fizz and foam, and I’ve loved every minute of it.

·         Lastly, not much has happened to write about.  I thought I would struggle with getting up at 4 a.m. to guarantee a few precious hours of pure writing time each day, but I haven’t.  I thought I would struggle with finding small windows of writing time (or the will to even try), once the daily maelstrom is unleashed, but I haven’t.  I thought I would struggle to find topics to blog about, or figure out what I wanted to say, but right this very moment, I have a list of ten posts I want to write sticking to the side of my desk, and those are only the immediate ideas; I have a backlog of others that I have no idea when I’ll get to work on. Simply put, this adventure has not begun the way I anticipated, and let’s face it, me writing about how easily things are going right now in the writing department doesn’t make for the most interesting reading. 

So, these are the primary reasons for not journaling the reflective, self-analytical side of this adventure.  But, I do know the forward path is not going to be all sunshine and Skittles either.  Challenges will come, I can already feel them coming, so the only thing I can say at this point is that I will present things honestly as they happen.  It could get pretty ugly, so if you’re a big fan of car accidents, train wrecks, nuclear meltdowns, tsunamis and the like, stay tuned, I may be able to provide you soon with boundless entertainment.  Of course, I’ve been wrong before too.