My greatest victory as a writer will, at first glance,
seem simplistic and lacking imagination. Why? Because my star achievement is
that I'm able to write. I was a
prolific writer between 1987-1997. During this time, a traditional publishing
house helped me to birth three novels, five short story collections and a
variety of articles and stories in anthologies and magazines.

My muse was alive and well. The burning passion to write
glowed continually. Did I take this for granted? You betcha! I'd simply sit
down, put my fingers on the keyboard and whoosh, words streamed onto the page. 
Day after day. Book after book.

Then, in 1997, the unthinkable happened. My twenty-one-year-old
son died. He was at a fraternity party, they were drinking, he passed out and
asphyxiated on his vomit. Unexpected and horrific, this news slammed me against
a wall, reached into my soul and robbed me of all passion. This included my
ability to write.

Pinned under a boulder of devastation, I felt
immobilized. I was able to scratch out a few poems about the dreadful loss and
then nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. 
My son was one breath away. Was it
that difficult to bring him back? One breath, one blink of the eye. When he
left, my heart and passion were stuffed deep in his death-filled backpack.

As my grieving meandered through dark nights and muddied
days, I sat under a large oak tree and watched muscular hawks soar across the
sky. A message from my son? Every white feather, every heads-up penny—messages?
I searched for him in my dreams, I sat by his grave and waited. Every day, the
same thing. No thoughts. Just empty waiting.

I covered his grave in rose petals. I searched for his
face wherever I went. I knew he was gone but the 'forever-ness' of it suffocated
me, drowned my ability to think beyond one question, "How can this
be?"
It seemed as though that one moment, when I first heard
that he died, blurred and slowly stretched until I looked up to realize that
two years, one relationship and all of my inspiration had disappeared. The
vacancy in my heart hungered for that creative flame that had promised to burn
forever. Like everything else, it had extinguished.

Some days, I'd pass my computer and stop long enough to
remember how it felt to write. The joy of stepping into a story and following
characters into the unknown had always appealed to me on a variety of levels. 
The act of writing took me away from my "self" and whatever the angst
of the week was, leaving me to wander in a world where consequence was simply a
matter of words.

Another year passed. An overwhelming numbness had
replaced my grief, making it clear that I no longer had any reason to step into
my computer room. I was emotionally anesthetized. On one hand, this was good.
Peaceful. Yet, the negative was that my imagination was behind a locked door.
The key had disappeared with everything else.

Every year, I had a small line tattooed on my wrist. Each
line represented 360 days without my son. It was hard to keep track, one second
becoming a minute. One hour becoming a day. Two lines and I closed the door to
my computer room. Three lines. Four. Numbness peeled into misery. I wanted to
write, but couldn't. Five lines. Six. 
 It's not that I didn't try. I have at least twenty first
lines of poems and the beginning sentence of six short stories. Soon, I
realized that I was completely blocked. Seven lines. Eight lines. I did
nothing. My computer room was loaded with underlying anxiety. It was better to
distance myself from the idea of writing.

 "I used to be
a writer," I would say, shaking my head. "But now, there's nothing
left." 

When friends would tell me to just sit down and write, a
fireball of unease would ricochet through me. The cycle of sitting in a chair,
writing one sentence, deleting it, writing another until I finally walked away
with nothing, sickened me. I understood, all too clearly, that the writer's
block consuming me could exile my muse forever. Every time I sat down to write,
I seemed to push her further away.

I was on the brink of the thirteenth year when it
happened. 
Deep within me, a faint glow from a tiny flame cast a thin light
across my spirit. Without thought, I opened the door of my office, sat down in
front of my computer and peeked at a manuscript that I had started fourteen
years before. I immediately saw a sentence that begged to be edited. Writers
know how this is. No matter how many times we edit our manuscript, we always see
more to change. 
 "The Beautiful Evil" was the first work
published after my thirteen-year writer's block. So far, it's won three
literary awards and has been number one in suspense on Amazon. My spirit
soared. To represent the newfound freedom, I had a bird in flight tattooed over
the thirteen lines. 
My newest work, "Dream," published, October
2012, has won its first award, 1st runner up in The LA Book Festival
Genre Category. I'm thrilled. I still have anxiety when I sit in front of my
computer, nevertheless, I overcome it by believing I can. 


When I write, "my greatest victory as a writer is
that I'm able to write," I'm dead serious. My tremendous struggle with
"forever-ness" albeit the loss of my son or the longing for my lost
muse fostered a depth in my writing that I hadn't thought possible. I endured.
I survived. I no longer take my creativity for granted. Each word I write is a
blessing; each sentence, a joy.