Last time I posted here I was trying to get comfortable with writing, trying to get back to work on the manuscript of my new book idea. I was in the place of weighing old material, beckoning new material, struggling to find a way to tell a story that would bring together my life and the journey my parents took in 1951 across Europe.
And then all went silent here. I disappeared.
Sometimes no news is excellent news.
I simply slid down into the land of creativity, that place of sublime flow where each day acceptance yields more gifts, yields more production, yields unexpected connections. And so I have been writing for weeks, the story growing around me in ways I could not have have planned or forced.
I am in a space of opening to what comes. I like what is happening on the page. I trust it.
What I can say to you as a memorist is I didn’t get here with a well drawn outline. I didn’t get here by watching the clock and planning when I would complete and deliver a draft for celebratory publication. I got here by simply letting go, following a fuzzy idea, and knowing that everything I write could be crap—yet being really pleased when the stuff that has come out seems quite cogent and laced with insight.
So every day I have trusted that—that I may throw it out, even while I let myself like a lot of it.
And hence, I go forward, dear reader, sculpting the words that are given to me.
Leap and trust. That’s my best advice.
Oh and don’t drink or watch TV. Those two are sure to rob you of clarity and inspiration. At least for me, the good stuff comes when the channel is clear.
