Reflections on Book Writing

In the final editing stages of Career Wounds

Currently writing from this cozy cafe in the Pacific Northwest…

Of course, I’m figuring out how to use my voice, and how to write, and how to have an opinion. That’s one of the major benefits of writing a novel for the first time. But I think one of the best skills that I’m acquiring is the capacity that I’m building. The capacity to build a work that spans over 50,000 words, that has chapters and chapters and a narrative arc that makes sense. It’s like I’ve built all of these twin-sized quilts but now I’m trying to make a blanket that can wrap the entire house. It’s just an entirely different skillset.

Writing is a verb, it is in action. Isn’t it weird, then, that we usually write in silence? I felt like I was typing out the words and there was a giant spool on the floor, typed once and then forgotten. What I had to do was weave the elements together. For example, how does Chapter One flow logically into Chapter Two? What is the connective tissue? So, I started this new pr…