Writing is searching within yourself to draw on your feelings, dreams, and insecurities in the hopes that your readers will relate and feel what your characters are experiencing. Searching for the right combination of words to paint the picture each scene needs is a long and mentally exhausting process.

I often feel drained by this process and when I am mentally tired, I can’t force myself to sit down at the keyboard. Even now, as I try to show you what is in my head and heart, I feel anxious and weary.

Despite this, when I come to the end of each journey, there is a feeling of so much accomplishment. Everything my characters did and felt is in some way related to me and who I am, who I want to be, or who I wish I never had been. When I make it through, when I write the final words on the final draft before publication, I feel like I’ve shed an outer shell and renewed myself…until the process starts again.

Neil F. Wilson - 06 April 2024