Maurice Bentonville the second hitched up his overalls, adjusted his milk-can crown, and peered through his toilet-paper-roll binoculars. His perch? A cottonwood stump. His kingdom? The river streaming by. His subjects? Trout, catfish, carp, sharks, beluga whales, crabs, crawdads, worms, water striders, and hippopotamuses.
All I’ve got is muscles and rage. If you don’t believe me, ask my knuckles. They’ve tasted more jawbones than average, blued more eyeballs, cracked a dozen ribs, and busted more cheeks than I can count. There’s more teeth embedded in my fists than bone.
I’d woken up exhausted. My bed was a rumpled mass of sheets and popcorn crumbs and melted smarties. I hauled myself upright, stumbled against the dresser, and stared bleary-eyed at my reflection. The man who looked back at me was a stranger, cut, stitched, wrenched to life like some unholy Frankenstein. I laughed. The sound gurgled from my throat, bounced like a hyena over the walls, and died when it saw the wedding ring.
The life of a writer may seem dull on the surface (envision me standing at my keyboard in wool socks), but don’t be fooled. Writing is fraught with danger. I realized this while reflecting on my forays into amateur ceramics.
When I started my writing journey, I became an undercover agent. I didn’t give myself a code name, but I treated my manuscript like a Top Secret classified document. I didn’t let anyone read it. No one. Not a person, a dog, or a canary saw my work for three years, two months, and eighteen days.
The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day. Steven Pressfield There’s something about beginnings that freak me out. I stare at the blank page for a while, then I decide to go make some tea. I come back with my…