It’s so late that I can’t really talk about this as much as I really want to, but I have had a breakthrough in my writing. A huge one.
I’m enjoying it again. It’s easy again.
And this time for real.
I was able to crank out a lot of words over the past couple years. I would sit down and write and shove the words onto the page and hit my word Count goals…
and I hated everything I wrote. I felt so detached from what I was writing, and I convinced myself that I had a process, and the my process wasn’t going to let me down. I could fix it in rewrites.
I found out that was bullshit. It wasn’t true. I still couldn’t connect with my words, even when they were done and I was looking at the story as a whole. It was still so far away from me. I couldn’t reach it.
I almost quit.
It’s the closest to giving up I’ve ever been. But…I didn’t. I didn’t because I remembered when it used to be good. And if it used to be good, I knew I could get back to that place. I’d been there. I knew it existed. I didn’t have to imagine something that may or may not exist, I just had to remember.
There are many reasons why I’m back in a place where the writing is good again. I’d like to detail them on another day/night, perhaps, but the upshot is this: I just sent off 60 pages of the beginning of my book to my editor, and I know they’re flawed and need a lot of work, but fuuuuuck me, I cannot wait to work on them. They excite me. I feel connected to them. Finally! I can finally, finally, finally see in my head what the story is supposed to look like and feel like. And that’s what was missing before. That’s what my process actually is. These writing sessions. Not the ones from before.
It’s odd, because I know this is seismic. I know this is a fundamental shift, the kind that will bring me back…but how it feels…is normal. It doesn’t feel like hallelujahs, or celebrations, or intensely emotional. It just feels like home. It feels like me.
It’s good to be myself again.