A look behind the process of writing one of the most difficult pieces I’ve ever put on paper.

Most pieces on Ash to Aim don’t start at a keyboard.

They begin as a sentence that won’t leave me alone, a memory that resurfaces at an inconvenient time, or a note scribbled in my phone before I forget it.

Some ideas sit unfinished for days. Others sit for weeks or months.

I revisit old journals. I stare at half-written paragraphs. I replay conversations and moments in my head, trying to remember not just what happened, but what it felt like to live through it.

Some pieces are harder than others.

The Dirt Parking Lot has required me to revisit one of the darkest nights of my life. More than once, I’ve had to stop writing and step away. Parts of it have brought me to tears. Parts of it I’ve wanted to skip entirely.

But if this blog is going to be honest, then the writing process has to be honest too.

These stories aren’t manufactured content. They’re memories, questions, and experiences being put back together one paragraph at a time.

Sometimes the writing feels less like creating something new and more like sitting with an old version of myself long enough to finally understand him.

-G. Hudkins