Reader,
I have a bad habit of killing my writing projects before they ever start.
Just this morning, an idea popped into my mind as I was completing my morning pages. Something made me think about bosses. The next thing I knew, I was reliving teenage memories from three dreadful summers I spent working for my dad's painting company.
It wasn't my dad's fault that those summers were dreadful. The truth is, it sucks to be the boss's kid when you're not working for him directly. In my case, I worked for three different foremen whose unifying trait – in my mind, at least – was a perennial disappointment in my performance. Each of them wanted to fire me. However, instead of taking the matter up with me, they went and complained to my father. Though I survived each job until the start of school, I still have scars from those experiences.
Anyhow, as I sat and pondered these stories, I realized that they were great fodder for writing. Not all of the memories are painful. Some are hilarious. I worked alongside a cast of colorful characters who are just begging to show up on the page.
But then I killed the idea.
I didn't mean to. I simply let myself get carried away. One moment I was thinking of the people and places that filled those summers, and the next I was thinking, What format will this writing? Will it be an essay? A book? Is it too long for one and too short for the other? Can I actually be able to capture things the want I want to? No, probably not. And so I sighed and moved on, all without writing a single word.
My mistake here – a mistake I make quite often, inside and outside of writing – is refusing to pursue an idea until I'm certain I can do it to perfection. It's not that I question the quality of my sentences. I simply have a vague ideal in my head of what a "perfect" piece of my writing should be, and I'd decided that in this case, I probably couldn't meet that ideal.
You could unpack a lot of faulty beliefs there. I want to start, though, with a foundational premise.
Writing isn't about capturing our ideas perfectly. It's about giving our presence to our ideas and seeing what happens.
In The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control, Katherine Morgan Schafler defines "presence" as "one's ability to consciously bring their whole self to the present moment." I love this definition, and I love how she describes what's possible when we "achieve presence":
There's an odd irreverence that accompanies being present. You don't need anything to happen. You don't need anyone to like you. You're fully relieved of the small-mindedness of your thoughts, detached from the strain of trying to bend the future towards you and make everything happen now.
When you're present, your life now is not dictated by that of your past; it's dictated by possibility. You're encased in your own wholeness and at the same time, you are utterly free.
This is precisely our calling as writers. When we have an idea, our first question should be, "How can I give it my presence?" It's awfully similar to being present in the rest of our lives because when we write, we're almost always encountering people. Perhaps we need to be present to the characters in our stories. Perhaps we need to be present to the readers who will encounter our prose. Perhaps we need to be present to ourselves, which is often the hardest presence of all.
Remembering this, I've decided that maybe, just maybe, I'll write about those teenage years. Not with the pressure of "I must write something perfect" or even "I must write something publishable." Merely to say, "Let me give my presence to those diverse characters and especially that awkward teenager." Because in the end, what else do I have to give?
Keep your stick on the ice.
Frank.