Probably one of my favorite parts about being a writer is the journey I get to go on with the characters.  I love the idea that if I trust my imagination enough, it will take me places nobody else has ever been with people no one else will ever meet unless I share my world.  When  you look at writing that way, it really makes a difference in how you feel about the power of it.

One of the reasons I love both The Hobbit and The Last Unicorn is that there is a magical journey involved, and by the time I have finished reading and re-reading the novels, I feel like I have been somewhere amazing and the person who has returned to this world is different, changed.  Transformed by words.  Wow.  Isn't that what all writers seek to do?  Yet so much of who we are is tempered by the mundane and worn away by to-do lists that it becomes hard to remain that magician we so wanted to be.  But I think the key to maintaining the magic is faith.  Faith in what you dream about, faith in what you write, faith that you never owned the magic in the first place, but when you need it, it will come because it knows you intimately.

I've been disappointed by many things, but my writing journey isn't one of them.  Then again, it's never been about destination.  It's all in the journey.