On my way to where I sit, I saw the image of a woman retrieving a loaf of bread from an oven. She looked delighted and the bread artisanal. She pulled me to the ancient act of baking bread, its rhythms, traditions and attachments to kin and community, the memories of the delicious scent and taste that can linger a lifetime, and its fundamental utility and purpose. The act of creating stories, on the other hand, especially to an audience unseen, can feel remote, abstract, solitary and sometimes unhinging, and certainly not as practical and tangible and real as the act of serving your beloved freshly baked bread.
And so I ask the lurking question... what am I doing, what am I trying to contribute with the novel I am writing? Does it justify this time I could be spending on the concrete?
There are currents in this world, the essence of which I seek to reveal. Day after day reaching half-blind into the stream, I pull out the next step of a story that may uplift and inspire the reader. If I can achieve that, then I will learn how to bake bread.