I will write a book.
I will begin in August.
I will start with an idea that kissed my imagination last autumn.
I will carry this idea of a book within me for almost a year. I will relish the gestation and the incubation of this creative spark of an idea. I will be in complete flow and in complete trust. I will trust that I am becoming the woman I need to become to write this book.
And I am her today.
I will begin writing in August.
I will write two hours a day in the swaying company of palm trees and during late afternoon and early evening tropical thunderstorms.
I will enjoy the process, and I will soften into the process.
I will let the characters emerge in their own authentic timing. I will let the plot unfold and I will let the writing surprise me. I will free myself from agenda. I will free myself from politics. I will write from the pulse of creativity, which is the pulse of being fully human.
In November, I will write seven pages in a downtown coffeeshop in a quaint, small town in Kentucky. I will choose this coffeeshop because it is beautiful. And I will nourish my essential need for beauty, for artistic resonance, for pleasant and friendly community while I create. I will situate myself on the sleek little bar, balancing on a wooden stool and take breaks by gazing out the window at the steady traffic bustling through the lone main street. I will stretch by strolling through the accompanying store – marveling at the dried floral arrangements, at the naturally scented candles named after classic literature (“Jane Eyre” and “A Christmas Carol” will be candles I buy for gifts), and scanning the display racks of vintage pale jeans, corduroy vests and sequined sweater dresses.
I will sip a prebiotic fizzy soda concocted of entirely organic ingredients that is a few more dollars than an Americano or a lavender-infused latte. I will happily chat with the locals and the team of baristas. (They will tell me their astrology charts as they paint homemade Christmas cards).
I will notice there’s a slower, muscled pace to this writing. I will notice that I am postponing, that I am stalling, that I am putting off the story, and that I’m halting the entrance of this one character. I will keep wanting to get to this one character, this one woman who appeared to me out on the Western plains, under the Marfa moon, with a blue-white speckled plate of freshly toasted sourdough bread. I will write for her. I will want to get to know her, this character who is not the protagonist or the antagonist, but who sparked the idea of the book. I will notice that I am putting off getting to know her. I will notice that putting those seven pages into a chapter are not what I want to be writing.
So I will begin again.
I will start the chapter again.
I will not delete the seven pages. Simply cut and paste them into another document.
Chapter 7 Possibility, I will entitle the document.
I will start chapter 7 and bring the action forward. I will introduce this character who beams with personality and purpose and easily floats into her destined place. And the writing will write itself. There will be joy, play, inspiration, the elusive and the charming energy of FLOW.
And today, I will write at a butterfly café. There will be green tea served in glass and a little boy in rainboots and a big grin, and he will eat his grilled cheese sandwich and burp so loudly and then sing, “Excuse me!” And I will muffle my giggles and wish him a fun day on his way out.
And here, I will write a few pages in chapter 7, or those few pages will write through me, and I will want to share this about the process of creativity …
Those first seven pages, the ones I will not be using, they matter. They are process. Writing them put me on track to the freshness that is available to me now today. Writing them in that downtown coffeeshop in a small town in Kentucky will be etched into my journey.
There is no such thing as waste. There is only meaning, and meaning available in all our actions and life steps and adventures.
I will notice where I am stalling, where I am postponing in my life. And the answer will be … Go where there is thrill, a leap, a heartbeat quickening. Start with the action. Write and create what you really want to write and create. Be that real, be that liberated, be that unfiltered in the unfolding.
And if/when, the first seven pages of Chapter 7 need to be released, do so with enthusiasm and buoyant trust.
There will be a reroute that flows, and the pivot will be part of the precious reroute, too.