Sometimes we have very little to do with the stories we choose.  They lie waiting for us and catch us when we are least expecting—a news story, an anecdote from the friend of a friend, a worked piece of stone lying in the dust.

     Then there it is, attached, whispering, demanding attention. Sometimes it's enough to sit and think, sometimes a scribbled note, and then finally, a full writing session.

     That's how Clovis found me. I was returning from a climbing trip in the mountains with the archeologist who would become my wife.  We stopped at a rundown ranch that my friends had bought. We walked down  a dusty two-track and there in the dust was the bottom half of a Clovis point.  

     It was not the elegant black obsidian of which I write, but green, speckled oolitic chert. It was stunning, and took my breath away.  We were standing in the beautiful steppes at the foot of the mountains. I saw the Clovis hunters out in the sage. I saw the successions that followed them. I saw the archeologists searching for them, and I knew that it was my story to write.

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Embrace your story,

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Jack