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Friday, May 6, 2016

Writing: when it rains, it drizzles pathetically

In my continuing commitment to blogging more, I am blogging today! Observe. They’re gonna be short for a while, while I get back into the swing of posting.

Yesterday, though I seemed to be trying my hardest to avoid it, I actually managed to write over 1,700 words. It sorta feels like, even when I’m writing, I’m not making any progress. I am, though. Right now, it feels like the book is going to be incredibly short. I have no sense of pacing with this version. That’s okay. It truly is a new “first” draft. I’m in no hurry (obviously).

That being said, yesterday I was thinking about my book and was suddenly overcome with a realization. It’s an obvious thing, nothing I didn’t know intellectually, but it sorta came home to me emotionally: This book doesn’t exist. It’s not out there, leaking through me onto the page. It has no rights. I’m not violating it by not writing it. It will never exist if I don’t write it. It felt both liberating and terrifying. It’s a big responsibility… a bigger responsibility than caring for plants, but probably a smaller responsibility than caring for animals.

But yeah. Your book doesn’t exist if you don’t write it. No one’s going to write it after you decide you don’t want to; it’s just going to never exist. Is that okay with you? Or would you rather just write the damn thing and be done with it? I know which side I come down on.

2 comments:

beckymunyon.blogspot.com said...

Write write write write write write. Yay! You're doing so good. You are. See? You haven't blogged in like six weeks or something and now you have like 4 posts in a week. You're doing awesome. (Puts Pom poms down.)

Elly said...

=) You're so dang sweet I can't even deal.