Preface

WRITING IS ... W

riting is caring. It is private and personal and utterly true. It is a path to your heart and from your heart to the world. It is a sacrament and a privilege and a pain in the ass. It cleanses and heals. It provokes and frustrates. It makes you gasp when you get it just right. It is blind juggling with knives. It is a walk through your own front door. Writing is listening in the quiet. Do it. Listen hard. Writing is talking to god. It is playing god. It is being god. It is shovelling the sidewalk one square at a time. It makes you sigh when you get it wrong which you usually do. It is your mom and your dad and all the dogs you ever knew running up to greet you. It is losing track of time. It is failure. It is failure. It is failure. It is riding a skeleton down a vertical slope with no brakes. It is day after day after day after day after day. Did I mention that it is listening? Writing is fun. It is not fun. It is fun again.

Is writing a choice? I don’t know. Laughing with a friend or eating peanuts or playing Crazy Eights or kissing someone – these are all easier than writing, maybe better than writing. But there is something about the act of stringing words together to make a story that I find totally compelling, even though it is also scary and boring and all the other things. I’m lucky enough to get paid to write, but I’d do it for free.

I can understand if you don’t all feel this way. But I hope some of you do.

http://www.scrimger.ca/

— Richard Scrimger 2012 InCITE Judge