I started writing books again. I wrote a book back in 2020 and then its sequel the same year. It was a really prolific time for me. I was incredibly lonely. There was also nothing to do. I had a one year old who didn’t take naps and tortured me all day with screaming. I stayed up all night writing because I was just so addicted to the silence. The only time it was truly quiet and I was truly alone. I love late nights when everyone else is asleep and the world is quiet.
Anyway. Life got crazy. I moved several times. Tried several different living situations. Got a real job with health insurance. My daughter started going to school. All that time I was just sitting on a draft of that book. The first draft was rough, as they usually are. It never sat quite right and I just never felt like I had the time or space to concentrate enough to figure out what wasn’t working. I couldn’t get into a writing flow state with just snippets of attention. I need dedicated hours where time slips away and I forget to eat. That’s the thing I love about writing—getting into that place where you can fully embody your story or characters or the emotions you’re trying to convey and find just those right words that will allow someone else to feel it too. The past couple weeks I’ve cried actual tears writing because I felt what I was writing so deeply and I had that concentrated time to be in that place. It was cathartic. It was self-connecting, being able to put that pure feeling into words. There’s nothing like it.
All that to say, I finally picked up that draft again. I put in a lot of work in it over the past week and it’s looking really good. I’ve been saying for years now that this book is close to finish, because it is. It just needs time and attention. It felt good to be able to do that and for writing not to feel like suffering (that bad kind where you can’t concentrate and the words don’t flow, not the good kind where you feel deeply.) I’m actually excited about this book again. It only took several years to get here. And three (going on four) months of being laid off to be able to find that joy and space to be able to write again.