When a grain of sand disturbs the oyster’s inner sanctum, this extraordinary mollusk coats it with substance called nacre. Over time it secretes new layers of nacre, one over the other, thus transforming a grain of sand into a pearl.
The process of writing is similar. Something enters the writer’s world and provokes thought. Thoughts become ideas expressed in words, strung into sentences, then paragraphs and so on. Over time, layer upon layer, beginning with a thought, a piece is written.
Just as one oyster can create many pearls, not all of them perfectly round or of equal luster, I have journals, boxes and computer files full of ideas. Some are just scribbles, but others are more polished. Those have become poems, essays, and stories I want to share.
A sixteen-inch strand of pearls requires the harvesting of more than ten thousand pearls. I am beginning here with my first blog. I am not quite sure what I am going to blog about tomorrow or the next day. I haven’t identified a target audience. I am not even sure why I decided to do this, but I am encouraged because I know oysters create pearls from grains of sand.