(#14) Remember Who You Are: smoke signals from First Draft Woods
Where I find focus and motivation to stay open-hearted and write.
Dear readers,
In this issue of The Joy Rise, I’m sharing an essay I’ve written on what’s fuelling my focus and motivation right now, as I write my way further into the First Draft Woods of my next novel.
There is so much that is always asking for our attention - thanks for sharing your time with my writing, and for supporting my work by being one of my subscribers.
Did you know?
While this essay is for paying supporters of my writing, every month I also write for all of my subscribers. You can find all of my free-to-read issues of The Joy Rise here.
Over the last eight years, I’ve written and published three books. Which, I’ve come to realise and understand with more and more clarity lately, were all written in states of awe, wonder, joy, elation and beauty. And also, equally, were written in varying superstorm states of chaos.
Writing The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart was reckoning with trauma, post traumatic stress, violence, love, grief, beauty and courage in my life.
I wrote The Seven Skins of Esther Wilding throughout the pandemic and all lockdowns, which displaced me from my house in England for five years (though very gratefully grounded me at home in Australia with my family).
The House That Joy Built was written in nine weeks to deadline, which coincided with the publicity lead up to the global streaming launch of Lost Flowers on Prime Video.
Please read chaos between the lines, if you will.
Last year, when it came time to start giving focus to my next, new novel, The World Beneath Her Feet, I started exploring a different way or working, and writing. (By which I mean brainstorming, daydreaming, developing ideas, and hitching them together to form story.)
I was desperate to feel more pleasure, presence and a capacity for exploring my ideas through the process of writing a new novel for publication -vs- feeling sick from adrenaline, anxiety and stress through the process writing a new novel for publication.
After developing and using this new process for nearly twelve months now, I’m currently well and truly in the First Draft Woods.
*whispering as I send up this smoke signal to the sky*
DEAR READER, IT’S WORKING.
*end whispering*
Writing a book, specifically, a novel, has not felt the way this feels before. This is not an exaggeration.
I don’t dare break it down too much, I’m just in it. Going with it, with everything I’ve got. And loving it.
I’ve noticed that experiencing a new way of writing a novel is prompting many reflections on who I am and am becoming as a full-time writer, how I'm meeting the honour and responsibility of being in this privileged position, and what I will allow (and forbid*) to fuel my focus and motivation at my writing desk. (*I will not let the inner critic, self-doubt, or fear dictate what I write.)
As I strive to write this novel as clearly as I can about things that matter most - family, nature, love, memory, courage, grief, joy - much of what I’m reflecting on and reminding myself of are age-old truths. As Ru Paul says: REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE.
Part of how I’ve been doing this, remembering who I am amidst *gesturing in every direction* all of this - the crushing overwhelm of the global and the personal - has been recalling one of the strongest forces of motivation in my life that drove me to my writing desk eleven years ago.