My pal Susan Bono owns and operates the delightful journal Tiny Lights, and asked me to contribute to Searchlights and Signal Flares, the zine’s online writers’ exchange, in March. I just emailed her my essay — you can read it next month — but the process made me do some out-loud thinking.

My question was “What has writing taught you?” and here’s the list I made:

What has writing taught me?

• that I can move people with my writing
• that being specific connects to the universal
• that writers are my posse
• that I like being a naturally curious person
• that I write better (more effectively) than I speak
• that the past can be healed — or at least mended — through writing
• that old technology serves me better than new
• that my ability to express myself is dynamically endless
• that ‘writing’ and ‘writing well’ are as different as ordering fast food and singing opera
• that people are hungry for human connection
• that getting published has nothing to do with the quality of writing
• that like any initiation or theraputic ceremony, there is no shortcut to writing well
• that good writing transcends all genres
• that a good actor looks bad with a badly-written script, and that even a bad actor can look pretty decent with a well-written one
• that writing, difficult as it is, is for me easier than not writing
• that having an MFA has less to do with being a good writer than regular practice
• that reading is utterly essential to being a good writer
• that revision is essential
• that revision can be the death of true inspiration
• that the best idea is often the first one
• that the freshest idea is often the most mundane one
• that only the truth is funny
• that recollection of moments perfect for stories tend to slip away like last night’s dreams
• that writing is my best key to a deep vault of memories
• that sometimes writing is lying
• that each person reacts unpredictably to something written about them
• that most of the world’s best writers are older than me
• that writing is like physical fitness
• that writing begins hours/days/months/years before any words appear on a page
• that the freelancer’s day is 75% mundane details and 25% actual writing
• that editing and writing are two entirely different skills
• that the Internet is the single most dangerous threat to productivity
• that a piece of writing is never truly finished
• that writing is lonely

Little of this has much to do with urban emigration, but I certainly came to many of these understandings — not to mention connecting with Susan and the Sonoma County writers’ community — by moving up here.

Anybody care to comment on this stuff? Take the question on yourself?