Today’s post will be short and sweet; a little celebratory bit (and a call for some accountability buddies).
I have never written fiction before. If anything, all my work—from blog posts to articles to short stories to poems—have been overtly non-fictional, so much so that I’m often criticized for oversharing. This is strange to me since I believe the greatest lessons, the realest lessons, come from these vulnerable, raw stories.
All that being said, I’ve been working on my novel for two years now—more like a lot of character development, research, and plot-lining, but not as much actual writing. I’m a perfectionist, and that mixed with everything else that’s kind of had me blocked, I procrastinated on bringing this novel to life. The biggest hang up was figuring out the right ending. The ending is everything to me.
When I was a kid, I never judged a book by its cover. Instead I decided whether or not to buy or check out the book from the library based on how the last page read. If it was well written, captivating, and seemingly intriguing, I’d go for it. So again, endings are everything to me, and that’s why I felt like I couldn’t actually start writing this novel without a clear view of how the story would wrap up.
But today, somewhere between yoga, cleaning my bathroom floor, giving my cat her loathed flea meds, and ruminating over the last two weeks of my “situationship” confusion, it came to me. I replayed it seven different times in my head, like a scene from a movie, and it felt so right. And it is possible that it only feels right, right now, and off paper, and in my mind. It’s possible that like all other attempts at fiction writing I’ve had, it will come out clunky and cheesy and absolutely terrible, but I told myself I had to let it be, let it live, let it get written once and for all.
So, here’s to cheesy clunky first (but necessary) times and a #FreePalestine!