After I submitted my anthology essay, “The Rainiest Season”, to the publisher, I literally did not write a single sentence for a year-and-a-half. I thought I might never write again. Had I run out of words? I honestly didn’t know. Rather than worry about it, I picked up my camera and threw myself into photography. I traveled a lot. I spent time in Africa, Bali, India, northern Canada and New Zealand — but did not write a journal. I stopped writing lists of daily chores and appointments and rarely posted on Facebook. My voice was gone. I was creatively mute. I was blocked — and afraid. Would I ever find my voice again?

In late April of this year I felt the first stirrings of words. The words were mine, but not quite mine — as though they were coming from some other place in my mind than where the usual words come from. I was surprised and didn’t entirely welcome them. By now I was lazy and didn’t care to sit down for hours with pen and paper and my laptop. But the stirrings turned into whispers and then an eager voice which wouldn’t leave me alone — and then there was no choice. My voice was back, just like that.

And the stories are coming, so fast now that I need to travel with a pen at all times. I write everything down because the words may stop as suddenly as they started. In six weeks, I’ve written one third of the first draft of a full-length creative nonfiction manuscript. I don’t dare slow down, in case the words stop…

India