I'm In Love!

I’m in love.

With my writing. With myself when I am creating. With my characters, meeting them through my keyboard. I am SO despicably, gratuitously, and gloriously in love. I have been all summer. 

I’ve fallen in love with my characters and that means I’ve found new ways to fall in love with myself. I have dedicated most of my free time this summer to doing significant character work. I have been asking real questions of my characters, not just wondering what their zodiac signs would be and their relationships with various family members. I’ve been crafting histories that feel authentic and possible. I’ve felt their pain and their joy. I am their love.

If you’re not a writer, this must sound crazy. But I have not had the time or privilege to fully CHOOSE writing the way I have this summer. Sure, I have other obligations. But I’ve been sitting on this book for 5 years without the time to choose it–to choose myself. I am nothing if I cannot write. I write myself into infinity. 

For these past 5 years, I’ve been mourning the versions of myself that were continuously inspired. I used to see a story in every moment. I’d make characters out of every person I’ve ever met. I was once a girl who would write scenes in the margins of my homework, who traveled with a pocket notebook, who wrote on napkins at restaurants. I have missed that person so deeply, but this summer, I realized she is still inside of me. She just needed a safe space to show up again. 

I’ve been so obsessed with getting ahead and preemptively achieving something all the time. But the gift is the writing. I am an educator, community organizer, archivist, student, scholar–all of that second. Writing was my first love. It always will be. When I’m in school, I don’t have time for my multitudes. I have time for the work, and that’s it. But the real work is who I allow myself to be when I allow myself to be creative. I resent the capitalistic sentiment that you must choose one path to greatness and pour yourself into that. I am an author. I’m a poet. I am a creative person by nature and I’m a shell of myself when I don’t nurture it. 

My mother thinks I’m crazy because I don’t come out of my room. Sometimes, when I’m really in the zone, I have 5-8 hour writing sessions. I write first thing in the morning and it’s the last thing I do before I go to bed. My worst streak lasted until 4 A.M. (I know, I know). In December, I had eked out maybe two chapters, bumbling through it, second-guessing myself and whether or not it was still in me. But when I chose the writing, I’ve been able to write approximately 60k words just this summer. Most of it is stream of consciousness hallucinations that will need to be cut, trimmed, and revised, but I’ve been working muscles I’ve long forgotten were there. It’s invigorating.

I’ve also been learning new skills; I’ve picked up a couple of books on screenwriting craft. I’ve been making scripts. My protagonist is a screenwriter, so I’m method acting–or writing, I suppose. That’s devotion. All-consuming love. Mania? (maybe a little) but love nonetheless. I don’t just choose the writing, I get swept up in it and full of conviction. 

This book is saving my life, and I can’t wait for y’all to read it. I’ve shared it with a select few and the response is overwhelmingly positive and fills me with sheer ecstasy at what I know is coming. What I know is already mine. 

So this is a love letter. It’s short and sweet. It’s honest. I wish I could be this full of love all the time.