This is from my archives. March 7th, 2009. At the time, I was writing at least 300 words per day because I was reading Bird by Bird and Anne Lamott said it was a good idea.

I will try to make this the best three words I have ever written. I will write and not stop until I am finished for today. No backspaces. No edits. No rewrites. Only my fluid thoughts on paper. Digital paper. I will write about why I write. Last night, on the 10 freeway heading west, I imagined being in Anne Lamott's writing class. What I would say in answer to her question, “Why do you want to write, Shawna?” At first I told her and the class, who were all, by the way, very impressed with me by end of my speech, that I write because of the mystery that never grows old. When I write I feel like I am endlessly trying to solve an unsolveable mystery and it doesn't matter that it won't be solved because the joy is in the trying. The seeking. The peeling away of the layers. As long as the mystery remains unsolved, I have reason to write. Each time I have a go at it, I go further up and further in and yet there is always, always still further to go.

Then I got home and realized all that stuff about mystery is fluff and nonsense. I was looking through some old photo albums and I landed on the real reason why I sit here at my screen or with my pen and journal in hand. It is because here, I can look any way I want to look. Here, I can show a different face, a different look behind the eyes than the one I see in those pictures. That girl was stuck and she was lost, stumbling to find her way and failing to choose love time after time after time. These pages are true snapshots and they are the real heart of me, not the one with crooked teeth and unshaped eyebrows. These are a reflection of who I am with make-up off and a big sigh of release, trust, finally. I would fill photo albums with my three hundred words if I could.