Happy New Year!
Here in Lausanne, there’s a tradition to greet people with Happy New Year, or Bonne année! when you see them for the first time after the new year. Even the marquee on the public buses wish us bonne année!
So, how's your book going?
My book has a mind of its own. I alluded to that when I shared Minnie’s passing, and it’s still true. I havne’t quite dug into it yet because most of my energy is going into:
Being apprehensive about diving back in, and
Not wanting to rip apart the first half of the third draft of the manuscript that I’ve been working on for the past year.
What I would like to do is keep going. Keep what I’ve written as it is and figure out what my book wants to become as I write it.
But you know what’s hard? Doing that.
You know what’s easy? Revising chapter outlines and sketching a whole new book. Because it’s just shifting words around in cells and tables, like a collage. A collage of my life.
While I’m avoiding cracking the whip on myself and forcing creativity, I am working with the material differently.
Last week, I submitted a chapter to a nonfiction writing contest. I have no idea what my chances are, but I did it! And that’s what matters the most.
The deadline gave me a reason to look at Chapter 1 through the new “what’s my book about” lens.
See, I wrote this version of Chapter 1 in July 2022. Then did a full edit in June 2023 while trying not to get seasick on a ferry from Athens to Paros, so I could get feedback during the Write Flow retreat. Then, I edited it again in September 2023 when I submitted it as a sample writing for a writing residency (which I did not get) and another edit this past week (technically December 2023).
I’ve lost track of how many edits it’s gone through, but that’s not the point. The point is that each time I play with Chapter 1, it gets better.
And that feels really good.
(It’s important to note, dear reader who might not be a writer, that no first-time author thinks that they are writing will get better in subsequent rewrites; we all believe that it’s going to be perfect the first time we spit it out.)
After being too hard on myself and not feeling worthy of writing a memoir about my divorce and all the really hard, critical talk that goes with it, it’s nice to work with what I wrote and see how I’m making it better.
Instead of feeling like I’ve been “working on this” project for three years now, I feel like I’ve been learning how to write this project for the past three years.
It feels so good to have this mindset shift.
Friends, it feels good. Really good. Even if I feel like I’m not making linear progress, I am.