Pearl Cleage, a favored and much respected author responded to a question often asked of writers: "When did she know that she was ready to write full-time?"
The time came, she responded, when she realized that she could could no longer create because all day long, someone else's voice had been inside her head.
I realize that the "voice" I hear drones on about "curriculum, best practices, data" leading me to the realization that I must respond to the other "voices" inside my head--those of the patient characters, waiting to be developed, the stories waiting to be told that surface, emerge and push past the din only to be quieted and silenced so that I can continue my "work."
