Writing is a solitary effort. People think of someone clicking away on a keyboard or scribbling frantically at all hours of the night with nothing but the tick of the clock on the mantel keeping her company.
I disagree. While writing isn't a team sport, it connects the writer to the world in a deeply personal way. Not one word is written without an instant assessment of that word against all others. What image will one word conjure over another? What could that phrase mean to a man? A woman? When an essay is written, it articulates a view of a small spec of the world. When a work of fiction is written, it creates a whole world. There is a connection through the process of writing that envelops the writer in every piece of knowledge, every experience, every assumption and every lie that ever sparked a brain cell.
I just released a new world I created -pause now for a brief pat on my back-and I have no grand illusions of what I've accomplished by writing a thriller. I haven't solved world hunger or made the Taliban reasonable. I've simply placed into the world a story that wanted to be heard.
By this one solitary act I have not changed the world. I merely created one of my choice.
Oh, wait. Do I see something ahead?
