This is the first of what I hope to make a regular column for musing about writing. Why do I think I have anything of value to say to you? I don�t know that I do. Ultimately that would be for you to decide. But I do know that I have found the musings of other writers helpful if only as voices echoing in the cave to let me know I�m not alone. And one of the things that struck me over and over was that no mater how different the writers were, no matter how dissimilar their genre or style or subject, they shared all the essentials of the act and process of their art in common. So I am taking a chance that even though my only by-line is a single poem in my hometown paper, my twenty odd years of experience with the act and process of my art has given me not only the right but the responsibility to call out to the others in the cave. Hey you guys, you�re not alone!

Besides the act and process of their art, many writers hold in common an insidious angst. My dictionary defines angst as anxiety, remorse. I�m not sure if that comma is supposed to imply either or both. But I know I experience both. The role of anxiety is easy to recognize. It is a fear and fretting over everything from the minutia of format, word choice, tools of the trade and marketing to the monsters of vision, inspiration, creativity and voice. But what of remorse? Well for me it taints all the areas of my life which compete for time and attention with my writing. Relationships and responsibilities demand much but the art demands all. And remorse Is involved too when the best you can do falls so far short of the vision you feel as though you are trying to pass a hair ribbon off as a rainbow.

You might be wondering now why the author of the Joywriter�s Manifesto is babbling on about anxiety and remorse. How could the one who said �anyone who does not know how to write for the simple joy of it has lost their soul� now be moaning about anxiety and remorse? Well it is simple. Ideals entice but reality bites. And you can�t have one without the other nor try to pretend that one is the other. Both the numinous ideal you stand on tippy-toes to reach for and the nitty-gritty reality nipping at your heals can be perceived as impediment or motivation. Learning to be motivated by both the pleasure and the pain, by both the fear and the love, is the only way to transcend reality�s petty snares and idealism�s illusive lures and create a whole thing out of the pieces of yourself broken and buffed by the rocks in this dark cave we share.