Mountains

My mom has one of those "quote-a-day" calendars and the page for November 16th was this:

Mountains cannot be surmounted except by winding paths.
~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I absconded with the page and have stuck it up beside my computer, because I felt it was a very apt thought for the writing life. It's anything but a straight road. Sometimes some of those winding paths turn out to be dead ends and we make our way back to the beginning. Sometimes they take us to unexpected places and we end up further up the mountain than we expected.

Most of the time we can't see where the path might take us at all. If we look ahead, over the treetops, we can see the mountain rising there in the distance. It's difficult to judge how far away it is, impossible to say what path will get us there the fastest. What's important is to keep walking. One foot in front of the other. One word at a time.

Thanks to Jusben at morguefile.com for the lovely photo.