I sat at my desk this morning and wrote an absolute shit chapter in my emerging, titleless novel. It was far off the mark, disjointed, and aimless. I knew the quality of what I was writing as I was writing it, but I kept my eyes on the wide windows of my upstairs loft and typed anyway (thanks to Mavis Beacon, and my father who once paid 10-year-old me $15 to practice, practice, practice typing with my eyes closed, I can do this pretty successfully).
I didn’t look at the screen or stop to criticize the dumpster fire of my writing this morning. I didn’t shrink into a creator’s despair. Not this time, at least (it’s clearly a go-to). Today I let myself just have the moment. I made room for eye-rolling-dumb first drafts. I remembered all the horrible lines I’ve started with in the past and the fertile ground they’ve often led me to. “I can do this,” I thought. And so, in a moment of sheer curiosity about what might spill off the edges of the trash can, I let myself run with the most dogshit chapter.
Today didn’t end up as one of those success stories about morning writing portals starting off crappy but then leading somewhere breathless and stunning. I did not sit down to write this to you thinking I would end it with, “See! Just stick with it and something flawless will emerge!” That’s not what we’re doing here, baby. It’s better than that.
As you’ve probably gathered, I didn’t end up producing a chapter I would ever tenderly offer to anyone. In fact, we can all assume I’ll likely use very little of what flew from my fingers today.
BUT.
I did get to know a character much more intimately this morning. She bloomed in the heat of a desert highway, turned her face towards mine, and let me see what lives inside her. She knelt into the swirling current of her past and present and lifted just one glowing agate of truth for me to see.
It was enough.
I’ve been thinking about something Holly Ringland wrote in The House That Joy Built:
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