Why I am quitting my book
Why I am quitting my book
I've been wanting to write a book since 2008. Ever since I had a short convo with a well-established author in a coffee shop in Fort Collins, CO. I recognized her from a reading event. She then asked me what I wanted to do when I got out of college. I was only in my second semester.
I said, I want to write a book. I liked English class. I liked writing in a notebook. I liked talking and analyzing cultural artifacts: movies, paintings, books, TV shows, music. Writing a book just felt like the pinnacle — the coolest thing to do — if I was this type of person.
It also felt like a marker: proof I could make something. Proof a person like me could produce something of value. It felt like justification for my interests. It felt like a corner to turn so I didn't have to say "I don't know." When really "I don't know" was the real answer.
But I also wanted to write a book because I wanted to create an outlet. I wanted to create an object for people to connect with. Books, and all those cultural artifacts, were often a place for me to connect and help me understand the world. They were objects to help me pass through the world. Sometimes to escape it and pass the time. The quest to write a book became my own version of that, but having a justification for liking writing — like saying I am writing a book — also became a motivation. That justification, which covered up shame and guilt, rotted away the joy of writing.
Back in 2008, the well-established author in the coffee shop replied with, "That's amazing. It is an adventure! I wish you luck." She wore a tank top, long black hair, sun brushed white skin and sandals. She was on the other side of a canyon I wanted to cross. She was genuine and honest and walked out of my life while leaving barrels of fuel for me to write a book and wade through the canyon.
I never got out of the canyon. I found a waiting room instead. While in there, I realized I was writing for the wrong reasons.
Like most folks, waiting rooms bother me, but they are a part of life. I know. I've spent much of my life in one — literally and metaphorically. It felt like I can't get this book out of the waiting room.
I have written something like 5 or 6 books since 2008. Books that have never had an editor or agent or really seen much beyond my computer files and notebooks.
Three of those books are the same book, but three different versions. I started a fourth version earlier this year. This is the book I am quitting. Mostly, I wrote the three in graduate school as a memoir about growing up with crooked bones and a mother who died of complications of type 1 diabetes.
After years of thinking about this book, wanting to tell this story, I've decided that it doesn't really work as a memoir. Because it's more than my story. It's a story I can't truly access. It doesn't feel right to write in a truthful or journalistic way, which I kept trying to do.
I can't get the details. And even with some of the details I have, I don't feel comfortable writing them. A voice in my head tells me it isn't right.
So, that means I am blowing it up. I'm quitting that book. Instead of sitting in the waiting room, I am leaving the building all together.
I read somewhere that confidence in art is having the ability to create something again, or making something new despite the work you've put into something that didn't get publicly published. It's taken me a lot of time to create this confidence, but I now have it.
One way to reach something new, to open up a possibility, is to give away, or leave the the project that has kept you in a waiting room. This is true of a wardrobe, a job, a piece of art, a relationship. Sometimes you need to leave something to get a brand new thing.
Everything I did since 2008 isn't a waste. It's only been a form of practice. So I'm restarting this story into fiction. I am taking the core memoir sections — my own experience and not others — and putting them into a long essay.
Since making this choice, I've written thousands of words. The words have come faster than before.
I'll be syndicating bits of these writings on this newsletter/blog soon. Later, I'll make it into a book that I'll offer for purchasing, or perhaps something I’ll be trying to publish. Along the way, I'll offer creativity lessons and letters about cultural artifacts I have experienced. Lessons I might have learned and curiosities.
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At this moment, this is the fiction book's thesis:
No matter how much you try to change your body, you must accept the parts you can’t change — for that acceptance will lead to true transformation
We will see if I can make such a story that reflects that thesis.