Dig Deeper

"Dig deeper." -- Pima Community College creative non-fiction instructor on every assignment I turned in during fall 2010 semester.

I like rocks. I like to write. I'm a full-time communications professional who decided, at age 31, that being a single mom shouldn't get in the way of obtaining a college degree. I wrestled with what to major in, with what direction I wanted my career path to follow.

I chose Geology. Because I love rocks and I can have a real career. Right? Right. To paraphrase my dad, there are no (good) jobs you can obtain with an English (or Creative Writing) degree.

Then I took a short story course to fulfill an elective requirement. And I realized that writing's where it's at. When I walked into that class, it was like I was coming home. 

I always wrote, growing up. But writing was something that came easy, a hobby, an extension of my escape into books. Not a career path.

Until now. 

The Geology degree was scrapped. I'm attending the local community college to get my AA in Liberal Arts with an emphasis on Creative Writing. Then I'll transfer to UA to get my Bachelor's in Creative Writing, followed by my MFA. 

Right now, I'm focusing on developing my writing craft. I'm focusing on cultivating my voice. I have a lot of questions and doubts and fears and crazy ideas, and this blog is my outlet for all that.

I realized recently that every event we go through, every thought we have, every dream we experience, every piece we write, every adventure we live, we deposit another layer in the essence of our souls.

Sometimes events of such magnitude occur that a portion of our essence shifts, much like a fault that an earthquake thrusts upward, exposing long-buried strata. Eventually, the weather of everyday life wears away at the jagged edges, softening them into the beauty we are today.

Sometimes it's just a pebble, dropped softly in our internal pond, that disrupts the green algae coating the most recent layers. Everything is stirred, then resettles. But before it can all come to back to rest, a faint idea of something floats upward, sparking the imagination.

As writers, it's our duty to dig, and dig, and dig some more, rooting around in the deepest layers of our subconscious to find the gem that speaks to a universal truth.

Whether I write fiction or non-fiction, essays or short stories or a novel, humor or drama, I want to dig deeper, deeper, and deeper still, to expose the submerged truths of what it means to live.