2% Better, and a Reminder of What I Want to Write
I’m writing to you at 5:30 a.m. in a liquid-induced haze as I prep for my colonoscopy later today. Too much information? Perhaps. But this is my second colonoscopy in 8 years (first one at age 37 due to Crohn’s disease), and if you’re 45 years old (or older), maybe you need the reminder. Go get a colonoscopy. It’s not fun, but tiny little polyps caught early can help you avoid colorectal cancer.
There’s your public service announcement for the day.
Besides drinking 1,324 oz of laxative-laced fluids in the last 12 hours, I’ve been continuing to think a lot about my writing life. As I wrote last week, I’m at a crossroads. What do you do as a writer when the desire to write is hard to find, when all the things seem too overwhelming, when you’re not sure what direction you want to go?
I’ve come to a few conclusions in the last ten days, since the end of the fairs. I know I want to read more books like This is Happiness. I know Maile and I are going to continue podcasting (new episode released yesterday). I know we want to continue and deepen our online writing community, also called “The Stories Between Us.” I know I need to rearrange my creative and writing priorities. Which brings me to this Substack page.
I loved journaling my way through the first draft of the story; I’ve done that before, and I’ve always found it helpful and life-giving. But this year, when I started journaling my way through the revision, it felt like walking through mud. I found myself avoiding the revision because I didn’t relish writing about it—I just wanted to do it.
I also realized that so much of creating a novel happens in private…and that’s okay. Maybe even good. There’s a steam that gathers and builds, a kind of momentum that occurs when the creating is done in solitude. And every day, when I would talk about what I was doing in the revision, well, it felt like I was releasing all that steam, that I couldn’t build momentum.
So I’m pulling the curtains on my writing again, at least for a time. I’m pressing pause on the revision posts. I’ll still be blogging here once a week or so. But I need to take my fiction-writing back into a more private space. Goodness, first I need to figure out what I even want to work on.
(Maybe this is a great time for you to catch up on reading all of my other novels?)
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This week, Maile and I picked up the podcast microphone and talked about this prioritizing of our creative lives. That’s right…our podcast is back! Episode 154: Getting 2% Better.
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I feel like I’d like to change the name of this Substack page, now that I won’t be doing as many videos. Give me a hand, will you? Suggest a name in the comments?