culmination

I spent most of 2020 waiting for today.

That moment when I broke my almost two-year streak of not-publishing. When I finally went from sitting on the sidelines to being back in the game. When I shared my art.

I think back on last year and so much time spent in front of a laptop or with a pen in hand, brainstorming, revising, rewriting, and then rewriting again. And then finding a continuity error and rewriting one more time.

But that time has come when Boy on a Train, a little novella I wrote, is out for the world to receive it. I’m filled with all sorts of emotions. There are two basic ones: satisfaction that it’s done and I’ve completed a project, and also that publishing’s still scary.

I guess it’s scary in part because people can read my writing and read through the lines and see the real me. Even though these are characters, and I didn’t lead their lives and I don’t necessarily agree with them. Still, in there, somewhere, is me. It’s in the things I find funny or sexy, the things that make me swoon, the choices I made of what to include and what not to. I can be scared of people judging me for anything—from the characters’ names to writing explicit sex scenes—which incidentally, I believe are absolutely necessary to telling this particular story—and whether someone will not like something about it.

Or I can be scared that the reverse will happen—that a reader can read it and get it all wrong. That they read something in the book that I didn’t intend, but because we bring our own experiences to reading, which affects the way we experience a book, that something in there will trigger then, which is the last thing I meant.

But still. Regardless. I feel this deep sense of satisfaction of completing a project. And I’ve moved on to the next. Actually, I have the next book done (it’s in editing), so I’m onto the next. And that’s kind of the creative process, really. To keep going. To never stop. To just stay open to what happens and to keep going.

I was listening to James Clear talk about falling in love with boredom, which is a funny way of saying, spend the time you need to in front of the computer with nothing to show for it, like I spent all of last year. Because by showing up every day and doing repetitive things, that’s the way to see some changes.

As you can see, showing up every day last year to write has brought some changes. Several books’ worth of changes. If you like them, then wonderful. If you don’t, I appreciate you taking a look at them. And either way, I hope this post inspires you to remember to take the time to do whatever it is that you truly want to do. Because for me it’s writing, always has been, and I believe it always will be.

P.S. Happy Birthday, Tom.