It has been a very long time in coming—so long that the simple act of writing again feels unexpectedly sweet. Not just writing this blog (which I make no grand promises to maintain regularly; we all know how those vows tend to end), but writing fiction.
New story ideas drift into my head now, and for the first time in years, I want to catch them before they vanish. I jot them down. I imagine what they could become. Old ideas, long neglected, are being pulled apart and reassembled—rewritten from Chapter One to the final page, only to be torn down and rebuilt again.
This month alone, I completed one full pass of a story I began more than a decade ago, and I am already deep into a second. I genuinely thought I was finished after the first rewrite. I leaned back in my chair, thoroughly pleased with myself—until I sat down and read it cover to cover.
That’s the hazard of revising chapter by chapter. Each piece may shine on its own, but once stitched together, the whole can feel disjointed, its flow rougher than a porcupine.
Somewhere along the way, I also wrote a children’s story for my grandchildren. Is it good? Probably not. It’s my first one. But I wrote it. I illustrated it. Simply because I could.
For more than ten years, I would sit with pen and paper and find myself unable to begin. I would think and rethink, circle ideas endlessly, never quite knowing what to say. Eventually, I stopped trying at all.
Every once in a while, a faint urge would surface—the whisper of wanting to write—but it rarely led anywhere. Most times, not even a full page.
This writer’s block didn’t lift with any grand revelation. I was in a dark emotional place and needed something—anything—to pull me out. One day, I noticed my old story sitting quietly in a folder I hadn’t opened in years. On a whim, I opened it.
I started reading. Then editing. A sentence here. A grammatical fix there. Before I realized what I was doing, I had unearthed the entire project for what I told myself would be a “quick update.”
The difference this time—the thing that keeps me returning to it—is simple and profound: I am not thinking about publishing. I don’t even know if I will ever share it. This writing is purely for me.
As I told my sister, I want a book where everything happens exactly the way I want it to—not the way another author decides. A story I can read or listen to again and again, knowing every outcome, every turn, every moment exists because I chose it. My world. My rules.
There is no outline demanding obedience. No invisible reader to appease. No pressure to fulfill expectations. If I want a character to survive impossible odds, they survive. If I want another to meet a slow, terrible end, so be it. I don’t owe explanations. I don’t fear disappointment. No one else needs to approve.
That freedom has been everything.
My creativity rushed back in, uninvited and unstoppable. I’ve worked on the story every day for a week now, and it doesn’t feel forced. It feels natural—necessary, even. New ideas are already forming, some just for me, others for young readers, for my grandchildren.
Stories for us.
And us alone.
It's A Jungle Out There... 