2024 09 22

Allison at the cabin in the Northwoods. St Germain, Wisconsin. July, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Writing is hard. I woke up this morning with a great story playing out in my head. Often, I’ll awake in the middle of the night, in the midst of a dream which seems like an amazing story, only to reassess the dream in the light of day as not very interesting after all. That said, today’s story was formed in my waking moments, while fully conscious of what I was crafting. Excitedly, I then rushed downstairs to my laptop and began to jot down my thoughts on the screen before immediately hitting a wall and losing all momentum. The sentences sounded fantastic in my head but proved impossible to get onto paper. Likely, my conscious brain began to over-think and harshly judge the words once they existed in the actual world, where other people might end up reading them.

All that said, I’m considering this a step in the right direction. Writing is not easy, art is not easy. I know this, but I’m optimistic that continued effort to translate these thoughts into real-life words will eventual pay off, much as my decades-long efforts into photography have given me a more comfortable approach to turning my ideas into photos.

-Clayton