And then the show closed. Someone wise once told me that it is hard to hit a moving target, so keep moving. I will learn this time around what I couldn't the last time. I was younger, green around the edges. The tower of the previous work--a result of years of preparation and edits and workshops-- casts an intimidating shadow over the next blank page, one eager to be filled, and yet once filled, smacking of shameful stammers and half starts. But better to fill the page anyway, like the ones before, with the landslide of sludge the human heart rains down. Somewhere amid the debris an old man pans for gold, an old woman finds her ballet slippers, the steeple of a church inches above the surface saying, "dig here, and with your nails." I will mourn this one. I will grieve even as my ego takes an expenses-paid vacation, dining out on positive reviews, fattening from echoes of compliments. But I know that this crooked visitor is not welcome in the house of creativity. If anything the echoes of compliments will drown the New voice whispering forth, shot down for the sin of not arriving powerful, sure, complete, and ready. I can use a little guts now and then, a little guts and a little gamble. Just enough to get this little engine going, the one that spits out words like bricks. There are more empty pages than inches of road. I can fill them both with fear, and I probably will, but maybe a little less this go around.