The First Day Of The Rest Of My Life

When I started hitting the rocks, I had a strong feeling I should move. My life in California had come to a dead stop, and I had no tethers--work or kids in school--to hold me there. On an intuition, I drove to Boulder, Colo., where I knew no one. I was convinced I needed to search for a new vocation. I tried teaching at the University of Colorado, working with dying people in hospice, then tutoring orphans in India, but nothing gave me the sense I was running with the current, doing what I'm meant to do.

Clarity began to come when a high-school teacher, Barry Meyers Lewis, asked over dinner, "If you knew the world was going to end in two days, what would you do?"

"Take notes," I said, not hesitating.

Shortly after this, I spent two months writing a piece for a prestigious magazine, completing what I thought was strong work. My editor called and said the magazine was killing the piece. "I can't tell you exactly why," he said. "But I'm afraid it won't be fruitful for you to submit anything else here."

I went for a long walk on a trail I knew would be deserted. I felt humiliated. They were not just killing the piece, they were barring the door on me. Was I washed up? Then something snapped and I thought, I had a terrific time reporting and writing the piece and know I did it well. That's the real reason to continue writing now: for the periods when your mind is humming and the narrative is unspooling. You lose the sense of time as you're carried to the place John Fowles describes as "the sacred wood," where characters you're inventing start to say things you hadn't expected, and sentences will roll out that startle you with their rightness.

Creative work has always been what makes me feel alive, that I'm using my most potent skills to contribute. The imperative was to shift from creating for a purpose to creating for the joy and challenge of the undertaking. I began to accept--and it's a daily struggle--that whether I'm writing for my blog or a national magazine, volunteering at a community radio station or being paid by a network, the creative work itself is what I need, as I need air.