Mystery Meets Formula
A glimpse into my writing process
Yesterday morning, I sat down to write. Dream tendrils clung to me as I sipped my coffee on the sun porch. I needed to get something, anything, on the page for my Tuesday Ebb & Flow group. I knew it didn't have to be good, and I knew it didn't have to be done, only that it had to be a start. And a start it was. I scratched out a few paragraphs. I read it (my inner critic hissed at me) and received some encouraging reflections.
Later, I asked M.J. to read it, eager as usual when I've written something new. They read it, observed that it had merit, and kindly suggested I put it down and come back to it after a little time away. I felt grumpy, not at them but because I knew they were right, and I am admittedly impatient. I had the seeds of something, but it wasn't there yet.
Tonight, I returned to the original draft after dinner and a generous serving of peanut butter cup Ben & Jerry's. I swiftly deleted the initial first two paragraphs along with a few others that distanced me from the thing I knew I needed to get closer to, not further away from. And then? I kept going. Sitting alone with a soundtrack of backyard birdsong, the rest of the essay found its way to me, or I to it.
The writing process is mostly a mystery to me, even now in my 50s. All I know is that you really do have to start, be patient, keep going, listen closely to your soul, to the ancestors, to your dream nudges, to the birds, to prayer and history and pain and love and something that we call, ever so vaguely, "your voice."
Trust this process and do it over and over and over again. The words will come – they might weep and wail, they might sing, they might soothe. You cannot rush them, nor can you ignore them.
Show up, show up, show up, and show up some more. The world needs your stories, your keen ways of understanding, your questions, your wisdom, and your heart.
As always, at least a couple of valuable insights