I was asked the other day what inspires me to write and, like most (maybe all) emergent writers, I faked my way through an answer I thought my audience wanted to hear. It was some drivel about the human desire to exceed the corporeal whatever, and maybe a little about my need to record the essence and not just the facts of my existence. Yada yada.

As I reflect on the same question now, free from third-party pressure for immediate and profound insight, I believe I write for the same reasons, to the same ends, and applying the same principles that drove and guided me in my years as a geologist.