As I sit at my computer, listening to Cheap Trick, it occurs to me that I have arrived. No, I’m not published yet, but I wrote a novel. I spent every spare minute writing and writing until it was all there. I did it.
Now, I’m at the hard part- revisions and editing. I’ve never made it to this stage before with any of my writing. Usually, when I finish a piece and go back and reread it, I just feel like crying.
Not this time.
I think it’s different this time because it’s so personal to me. I’ve had to take a multi-pronged Hemingway-esque approach to it.
1. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.
2. Write hard and clear about what hurts.
3. There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
It’s been so hard, and yet so easy to get it all out of my head. The words want to flow out of me like water. I just have to be near something to write with when it happens.
