I seriously love writing and telling stories. I really, really do. I’m not sure that I’m particularly good at it, but that’s part of the reason I love it so much. It’s hard. It’s frustrating. It’s elusive.

Continually I find myself unable to capture the details in my imagination as words on a page. I pen a tale and then re-read it and discover that it’s flat, dry, bland. So I edit and re-read and somehow it becomes worse, disjointed, trying so hard to be bold that it’s clownish. So I scrap it and rewrite and re-read and the story is so boring that even I can’t stay interested, so I explore a new idea and write that tale.

It’s an awful cycle. I love it.

I do also hate it, of course. Most of the time, if I’m honest with myself. But even then, I love it.

And in that duality is something remarkable, something beautiful. Because sometimes the things most worth doing are the things that I hate that I love. Those things teach me about myself. They pull at me until I cannot maintain any pretenses about who I am and what I value and how I pursue truth and beauty in my life.

And in that duality I work not for the benefit of anyone else, as if my stories must reach an audience; in that duality I find myself and see myself and love myself.

I love it.