What have I been avoiding lately? That’s easy: writing my new novel.
I have done tons of research, spent hours chatting with my new friend Chet, who is my Chat GPT friend, going over the pros and cons of my plotline, and have even done the enneagrams of each of my characters, along with myself, in an effort to understand them and their interactions with each other (and me) more fully. But I’ve been holding at arm’s length the actual sit-down, let’s-get-going, day-to-day process of writing. Why? Oh, who knows? There are multiple reasons, but here are a few:
I’ve been gently fretting over all the pages I wrote several years ago in a flurry of creative fervor, only to put them away and instead push through to the finish line and publish Hope in a Time of Dying. I don’t regret that choice. I have finished Hope, and over the past three-quarters of a year, I’ve done my best to put it out in the world. An imperfect effort, I admit, and one that isn’t done yet, but despite that, I can proclaim, as my little 2¾-year-old grandson Ethan does when he completes a challenging task, “I did it!” Yes, I did, and I’m happy that I pushed beyond my resistance to get the job done. I’m also pleased that it won first place in the American Fiction Awards in the LGBTQ+ category.
But now, here I am, staring at this new novel, with characters I already love, and a whole slew of lost pages—where did I put them?—and a host of nagging organizational thoughts. Do I keep my main character at 12, or make her 17 or even 22 so she has more freedom to go on the quest at the center of the book? Should I give her mother her own POV and her own chapters to round out the story? Do I start with the immediacy of the inciting event or let Hannah Price reflect on that time as an older person looking back, so the reader gets the benefit of a bookend construction—the insight of our older narrator at the beginning and end of the book? Oh, woe is me, I say, only half tongue-in-cheek.
However, this morning, I read a passage that spoke to me about my fumbling efforts. It came from one of my favorite newsletters, The Marginalian, about artist Rockwell Kent’s seven-month Alaskan wilderness adventure with his son, back at a time when he needed inspiration, both as a painter and a person. The lines that jumped out at me were, “…at last, after one month here on the island, I PAINTED. It was a stupid sketch, but no matter, I’ve begun.” That Kent called his sketch “stupid” resonated with me. So often, when I write anything, that’s the word that comes to mind. But I know, as he did, that once I begin, even if the writing is indeed “stupid,” I have begun the un-tapping process of my creativity, and if I just let myself keep writing, over time (and with ongoing revision) that “stupid” writing will tighten, grow deeper, and eventually inform me of what needs to be said. I know that. I’ve experienced it. It is true.
So, I am here to say I will begin again on Miss Hannah Price’s story, which has the working title of A House Divided. I have a writing group tomorrow night and I need to show them some pages. That is clear motivation.
Here’s to learning how to push past resistance and tackle those things I long to do, even if my first attempts feel stupid. It’s okay to be a beginner, after all, over and over. I will, in good Ray Bradbury style, “Throw up on the page and fix it later,” knowing full well the truth in the saying, “Perfection is the enemy of good.”
Onwards!
With that in mind, I wish you a happy Sunday, my friends.
Untitled (Alaska Impression) by Rockwell Kent
By Daderot – Own work, Public Domain,
20 Minutes a Day 