All Glory Comes from Daring to Begin – Eugene F. Ware

Sir Corithius of Crystal Court, Sir Cock of the Walk, and I were discussing the other night why more people don’t write on the Knights blog.

“Why don’t you write?” I inquired.

“I really wouldn’t know start,” replied Sir Corithius.

I know the feeling. I haven’t known where to start for, well, forever. In many cases I didn't know where to start because I didn't know the end (hang with me here).

“For me,” Robert Frost wrote, “the initial delight is the surprise of remembering something I didn’t know I knew… I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is a discovery.”

Is that a Moleskine?

A discovery. I like that.

On the way to work the next morning -- on my usual and predictable route -- I ran into roadblock due to a water main break, forcing us to detour into unfamiliar territory. The new route took me past more than a few Wow, I didn’t know that was there places.

Writing is like that. If you feel that your route must be mapped out exactly before you begin, you’ll never begin. And if you do begin, you’ll often be so frustrated with the detours that you’ll just abandon the journey. Robert Frost is not only giving us permission to start the journey without of map, he’s encouraging it. Most writing works best when the ordinary goes askew, forcing us to wander off course.

My Freshman 101 English professor was fond of saying “Writing is mind traveling, destination unknown” (actually, he stole that from our text book Writers Inc.). He demanded that we keep journals and start writing everyday; encouraging us to enjoy the detours (hell, even take some on your own), and realize that in the journey a “destination” will appear, perhaps faintly at first (a spark, a nudge, a broken water main), but eventually a clearer focus and form will emerge.

So, what’s the lesson of the broken water main? Do some mind traveling, destination unknown, and start writing. Allow your mind to travel freely and you’re sure to discover something new and amazing -- something worth writing about.

And then, of course, share it at a place where you’re free to create without judgment; your "discovery" bursting out and overflowing across its pages.

That place would be here!

Sir Bowie “this post has finally reached a dead-end (not that roundabouts are dead-ends)…

Sir Bowie "Recalculating. Reclaculating.” of Greenbriar

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference