There was a time when I wrote 200 words a day, every day.

There were musings, drunk rants, sleepy stories, and even a few quality pieces that jumped out and slapped me, once I read back through them. 

There were also oceans of text that meant…nothing.

There were just little soldiers in a row holding up an idea that being a writer was about putting as much ink onto the page, or text into a Word doc, as possible.

I simultaneously agree and disagree with this statement. 

The act of creation is always beget with a ton of work in some manner or other. But intentionality is the key to making something worthwhile. 

Any person with fingers and a dictionary can write.

But writers create stories that people want to read. 

And that’s the difference. 

Maybe. 

I haven’t decided yet. 

In any case, we’re back to writing a bit more, but possibly doing something a little more intentioned than slamming text onto the page. 

Here we go with round 2. 

***

The thing about dragons:

I read a story once. It was long, complicated, and had a lot of big important things happening, none of which I really remember being particularly interesting. But the cool thing was this story had DRAGONS. 

And it was Dragons in new ways. There were indeed a few of the earth-pounding, firebreathing thunder lizards of yore. And even some of the shape-changing wyvern of the now. But there was the one that REALLY stuck with me. 

It was the dragon that had no form. It existed in minds and thoughts, it soared through the air and was somehow related to computers (that part was always a little muzzy). 

This was the dragon that made me…

…uncomfortable. 

Because the whole thing about monsters is you’re supposed to be able to see them. They’re supposed to be big and scary and loud, and so apparent that there is no other option than to look directly at them with a type of horrid fascination. 

After all, what’s the point of having something big and scary if it isn’t also somehow beautiful?

Just a little bit. 

But this air dragon got to me, in the story it ended up being good. Or at least something that wasn’t bad. Which, depending on who you talk to, is essentially the same thing.

But the idea of an invisible monster hung with me.

It was a sort of mental Kraken – not to mix my monsters – tentacles arrowing through dark water to wrap around the hull of my dreams and suddenly yank with the dramatic and expected results that I, nevertheless, am consistently surprised by.  

But that’s really how it goes, isn’t it? We all have the one monster that stays with us. Always. And we all learn how to move on, figure it out, and sail despite the danger. 

But that doesn’t stop any of us from watching the water.