Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the one who hated, and this was an immutable law. . .

The last time I wrote in this space, I talked about poetic images in picture-book texts.

I’m a great admirer of poetry (and poets), but I am not a poet.  I can occasionally stumble upon a truly fresh image when I’m writing, but mostly I have to turn to other devises to give my picture-book texts resonance.

If you can only be tall because someone is on their knees,

I once had a friend, a poet, who taught me important lessons about poetry.

The most memorable one—and she was emphatic about this lest I miss the point—was that I am not a poet.

The period of time after I have finished one writing project and before I have found my way to the next is always a fraught one.  I pack a manuscript off to my editor after many months, sometimes years, of immersion and wake the next morning to a vacuum.  A vacuum filled with questions.

I, like every other writer I know—at least every other publishing writer, spend far more time revising than I do writing the original draft.  I even prefer revising to the initial process of filling a blank page.

I have always believed in story.  I believe in it still.

But I am learning something in these late days of my career.  Stories don’t have to be inventions.  They can come from the world of very solid facts.