I'm new enough at writing to still get a small, secret thrill out of telling people "I'm a writer." The kind of thrill you get from feeling like you're getting away with something.

Oh sure, I knew back in grade school I was destined to be a writer, and even made a dedicated attempt at it all the way up through college (in between my dalliances with being a photographer, actor, musician, etc. etc.) But sometime during my undistinguished-in-every-way junior year I decided that this writing business wasn't for me and let my skills languish for 16 years afterwards.

So even though I started writing again 5 years ago in 1996, I often feel like a counterfeit calling myself a writer. I don't know why. I certainly won't go so far as to call myself an author - no way, I don't have anything published, I often as not can't make myself finish the stories I've started and I find the revision process to be largely anathema - but since a writer is technically someone who just picks up the pen (or computer mouse) and uses it, well then I guess I am one after all. Dammit.

I write alone and with other people. I write according to various inspirations - starting points provided by Natalie Goldberg or Julia Cameron, my own travels and relationships, stuff I wish I'd done or might yet do. But the most important thing I do, after 16 years of silence, is to just let the words come out. (A lot of them also come out in my online journal.) Process is the lesson; results are secondary.