"Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers."
~T.S. Eliot

We went back to my hometown for Thanksgiving. My siblings and I took to discussing writing at our favorite coffee house - not our own writing, but writing in general, and the process of writing well. Our youngest brother is planning his senior thesis and the rest of us gave abundant advice. It's a conversation we repeat yearly, whenever we are all together, with a few variations: writing, advice, encouragement, and enthusiasm, but the conversation is always fresh. There is always some new bit of information to be examined, encouraged, or rejected.

Because I have been especially focused on the question of what does make writing, or a writer Good, I took special interest in a recommendation of my sisters: to put together a Poetics, an examination of my thoughts, feelings, and reactions to the things I read, the things I write, and my relationship to writing itself. The exercise is amazing. I've only just begun but I feel in it the ability to grasp my own purpose in writing in a deep and personal way. A way that not only enables growth, but insists on it.

Blessed Advent to all, enjoy the richness of new beginnings.