I’ve spent most of my career writing for other people. From speeches and strategies to brochures and blog posts, I’ve been the voice behind the curtain for my clients.

Then, in 2022, my father’s medically assisted death did what death does. It reminded me that life is short, none of us gets out alive, and if I was really going to write that book I’d been talking about since forever, I better start now. So, I returned to school after a 30-year hiatus, earned an MFA in creative writing and vowed to pen my own stories.

But here’s my confession: it’s really, really hard work. For me, writing is like the mysterious, brilliant boy I crushed on in high school. So very attractive, and oh-so elusive.

Rare — okay, never — are the days I effortlessly translate my thoughts and experiences onto my glowing laptop screen with precise, artful truth and specificity, and without even so much as a peek at the online thesaurus. More often, I type a few clunky sentences, backspace them all away, type a few more and then spend untold minutes staring vacantly out the window contemplating my weedy garden and clinging to the hope that some brilliant nugget of truth will emerge fully formed from the clutter that is my brain.

In every other facet of life, I am extremely efficient. Friends marvel at how much I accomplish in a day. These friends, however, are not privy to the measly paragraph or two that are often my reward for three soul-sucking hours at my desk. I have yet to master the shitty first draft.

Nope, when it comes to writing, I’m what economist David Galenson calls an “experimental innovator.” It’s a charitable euphemism for creatives like me who obsess, agonize, and are rarely, if ever, satisfied with their work. I take small comfort from the fact I’m in the company of greats like Paul Cezanne and Leonard Cohen (it took the broody Canadian poet/songwriter fifteen years to write his masterpiece Hallelujah). Like me, these artists were “pantsers” — approaching their projects with only the vaguest notion of what they were trying to create. Unlike me, those guys were geniuses.

And yet, genius or not, I am compelled to the page day after day because the teensiest potential to experience the delectable sweetness of getting the words just right and making sense of this crazy world is more intoxicating than, well, even that Dayton-boot-wearing, pot smoking high school boy.

When I’m not at my desk rewriting a single sentence for the twenty-seventh time, you’ll find me on skis in the backcountry, playing fierce but friendly games of Scrabble, jarring jam or patching quilts, and volunteering in palliative care.

Thanks for joining me on this journey!