The writing process promotes a strong sense of purpose. All journalists are well equipped with this frame of mind to convey to the reader a certain understanding. It is my intention, my aim to get you to see what I am seeing, the end view. When I am journalizing, the words that are “coming out of my mouth” are not accidental. They are formed by design through determination.

Back in my junior high school days as a Trojan from South Milwaukee, I had signed up for cross-country, not really knowing what to expect, other than that I was going to be doing a whole lot of running. Practice became an everyday affair. In the beginning it seemed like all I was doing was running around in circles, like a dog chasing its own tail. What I needed was a sense of purpose, a reason for running around in circles.

IT IS TRUE THAT, for the Native American journalist – an individual distinguished by culture and tradition – the process of writing promotes a profession replete with a powerful sense of accomplishment, direction, purpose, and satisfaction, honing one’s voice into a fine- tuned instrument of mass communication. Most Native journalists would prefer to do things like promote diversity and defend challenges to free press, not to mention to increase the representation of Native journalists in the mainstream media newsroom, and in doing so, attain the highest standards of professionalism, ethics, and responsibility. It is like that way for me also, however, and I must emphasize that this is just me now, it is more a deep-rooted need to feel a sense of immediate gratification that only comes with experiencing the tactile immediacy felt when pen glides across paper, a deep-rooted need that causes me to toil with the chore of writing and rewriting from sunrise to way past the point of burning midnight oil; a task that at times produces something  worthy of print. At the end of the day, when the last drop of oil has been burned, my heart embraces the awesome feeling of satisfaction that the direction and purpose of my intellectual work has turned out to be a major accomplishment, even if only for myself.