Each night before I come to sit here and write the thought passes through my mind; what the heck am I going to write about? I mean this is the 46th day of Boot Camp and I'm sitting down to write another entry. Surely there are only so many things one person can say on writing.

But as I sit I know the very challenge of writing about writing for some 14 weeks, that's right I hope, is where I will find myself digging down within myself to find what it is I really feel about writing. I'll rediscover what I know about writing. I'll write and grow just by challenging myself to do this task.

I've always found when you first start writing there's a kind of skimming off the surface you go through, all that stuff that's just floating up to the top. It doesn't really matter what it is you're writing about, the action is the same. You begin and you can amass a certain amount of material just from what comes to mind reasonably immediately. That's pretty much the easy part.

After a few weeks, or perhaps longer, you find you're going to have to dig deeper, get a bit of a sweat up, and work harder to get something down on the page, or the screen. This is where regular journal writing is a good habit. There are times when what I write is dreadfully mundane. But it's the act of going over the same old ground that inspires me to seek further into myself for more interesting material for those pages that breaks me away from the same old, same old. Before you know it I've hit a rich vein of gold that keeps me mining for weeks.

This is where you come into the real resources inside yourself. The top layer of anything is usually pretty good and it could be easy to be satisfied with just that, but we are intensely spiritual beings. Our souls are capable of absorbing so much in life. This can only compute out in various ways, but filtered through you own perspective, touched with the tastes of bitterness and sweetness from your own experience, your words will meet someone, somewhere in a way that no one else can ever do. You can only find that view-point or attitude if you work at it.

I know that's a word most people don't really like these days. It's a four letter word, but one writers should embrace. I heard it say you have to write one million words of junk before you start writing anything worthwhile. There could be something to this. But it's not just a flat one million and you're into the cream. In my opinion it's on just about any subject you start to write about. The best work is often the work you produce later. That is if you're committed to finding what it is you really have to say. It may take a million words to discover just what it is you are trying to convey. I feel that's okay. A committed writer will give their writing that time.

I don't believe there's any such thing as an overnight success. If people try to tell you they are, then I believe they're lying. I don't think anyone ever just sat down and produced a really great piece of art, not before they prepared themselves in some way for it.

It also makes me think of the wells the shepherds in bible times used to water their sheep. Those wells could fall into disuse. Sometimes years went by before they revisited those same wells, especially when there'd been drought in the area. The shepherds had to go down and dig to re-establish the flow of water. That is what writing is like.

It might be each day or each week, but we need to roll our sleeves back and open up that flow again. Hope this helps someone. I'm done for today.