James Michener wrote, "If a man happens to find himself . . . he has a mansion which he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life." It is in writing that I learn about the me I never know until I write her. Each time I sit down to write the question I answer is "Who am I?" Answering this three word question is why so many non-writers never become writers. It takes courage to sit in front of a blank screen and self-discover. The fear is over-whelming when our writing calls us to dig within ourselves to create suffering characters with a problem to resolve.
The human condition
is man's greatest gift as well as man's greatest curse. It only takes the next experience to out-date the knowledge we think we have gained about ourselves. We gain self-knowledge through writing the secrets we commit to ourselves never to tell anyone. Non-writers remain non-writers because they write all that isn't close to them. They write of other people's lives they have not experienced. They write of another's dislikes, feelings and thoughts not their own. When we write what we think another person is thinking, feeling, experiencing we are not writing about who we are or about what we know. Writers who write about others don't become great writers 
simply because they never do the writing work required to end their own personal suffering.
Each day we sit down to write we honor our commitment to self to rediscover who we are. Every situation, circumstance, human interaction changes who we are. We search in others what has always been in ourselves. We search to end our fear for living. Editing is the helpful tool of writing that establishes trust between the writing self and the suffering self. The writer will never write more than the suffering self can handle. It is impossible because to do so would be to self-destruct.
When we edit as writers we listen to what we have honestly written about the “us” we are discovering. It is only in editing our self that we learn how to lessen our suffering. As a writer I write of experiences, thoughts, feelings
in the lives of characters I create that I identify with. It is only through writing what I know, what I feel and what I think that I gain insight into my own suffering self and find a way to relieve my human suffering.
Much of my writing life
has been non-writing because I only knew what I didn't want. I became a writer when I began writing about the suffering inside me I know, feel and experience. It was when I came to accept who I truly am that I began to accept and write what I want to be. To accept myself as I truly am is to become the writer I was truly meant to be.
The human condition
is man's greatest gift as well as man's greatest curse. It only takes the next experience to out-date the knowledge we think we have gained about ourselves. We gain self-knowledge through writing the secrets we commit to ourselves never to tell anyone. Non-writers remain non-writers because they write all that isn't close to them. They write of other people's lives they have not experienced. They write of another's dislikes, feelings and thoughts not their own. When we write what we think another person is thinking, feeling, experiencing we are not writing about who we are or about what we know. Writers who write about others don't become great writers simply because they never do the writing work required to end their own personal suffering.Each day we sit down to write we honor our commitment to self to rediscover who we are. Every situation, circumstance, human interaction changes who we are. We search in others what has always been in ourselves. We search to end our fear for living. Editing is the helpful tool of writing that establishes trust between the writing self and the suffering self. The writer will never write more than the suffering self can handle. It is impossible because to do so would be to self-destruct.
When we edit as writers we listen to what we have honestly written about the “us” we are discovering. It is only in editing our self that we learn how to lessen our suffering. As a writer I write of experiences, thoughts, feelings
in the lives of characters I create that I identify with. It is only through writing what I know, what I feel and what I think that I gain insight into my own suffering self and find a way to relieve my human suffering. Much of my writing life
has been non-writing because I only knew what I didn't want. I became a writer when I began writing about the suffering inside me I know, feel and experience. It was when I came to accept who I truly am that I began to accept and write what I want to be. To accept myself as I truly am is to become the writer I was truly meant to be. 
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