Dearest Reader,
The saying is as trite as it is old:
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Age and common usage do not make this lesson any less valid, however; it is reinforced each day if we are open to its lessons. Not only that, it is reinforced in virtually everything us humans try. I offer two examples: an athlete does not surpass himself if he does not pass what he once thought was his point of maximum endurance and a carpenter does not build something lasting without trying techniques he hasn’t tried before.
If we are going places we’ve never been, we have to take a route we’ve never used before.
It’s true for a writer, too. We are not bound by any earthly ties, our only obligation to use our hearts and our minds to write from our soul.
A really good example is my latest novel The Angel and The Captain. The two main characters are based on a relationship I have with a person I love dearly. We have been emotionally intimate off and on – our relationship ebbs and flows – and we are not sexually intimate. When I first set out to write the story it was merely me acting out some fantasies. Not only did that result in a lousy story, but writing it was unsatisfying, too. I wasn’t being fair to the characters I’d created, or to myself, really, so I stopped writing it. A year later I re-read it, merely to reaffirm how awful it was, frankly, and I found myself inspired to get back at it. The difference was between characters doing what I wanted them to do and the characters doing what they were meant to do.
The first rule of writing is to write what you know and you can’t write what you know unless you know yourself. I am taking that journey and I will continue to take it until it is time for me to call it a day.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I have things to say and I am vain enough to think you will want to read them. So welcome aboard. I have a lot to tell you and I’m glad you’re here. And I’m glad I’m here, too.
Cheers!
Kaitlyn