Let yourself suck at writing and embrace being a beginner

Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.

– Winston Churchill

 I remind myself that I need to let myself suck at writing every time I hear some writer (usually on twitter #amwriting) say, "I just wrote 35 thousand words and I've got another 2 thousand planned out for this evening" and because I am not made of  Italian marble that lets everything roll of it, I think "Jeebus, I've never written that much in a day. How did I ever think that I could possibly do this. I suck!!" 

This is part of the reason I hate word counts. They make me feel like there must be something completely wrong with me because I can't do that. I then have to remind myself, yes, I can't do that now. I'm a beginner. If I continue to write maybe some day I will be able to do that. Maybe, but maybe not.

I'm working on my first book which will probably suck and that's okay, because I am a beginner. If it is only ever read by my wife because she loves me and I get to torture her consequently, that is okay. Because the next book or short story will be better from what I learned writing the first book.

We writers are often perfectionists, I certainly am. I want the exact right words to flow out of me like water, I want to always know where this story is going, I want pats on the back and permission to feel complete because I did it perfectly. I wrote the perfect sentence, short story, or book and everyone loves it because I am awesome. I've been working on the idea of giving myself permission to feel complete even if I don't get the exact right words, even if the story doesn't make sense in the first draft (the number of writers who do not write a shitty first draft is infinitesimally low according to my non-scientific survey of authors who have written about their writing processes) and I rewrite it ten times and although it's better it still isn't perfect. I have to consciously tell myself, "that's okay, next time will be better". I encourage you to do give this to yourself as well, whether it comes up for you while writing or trying to learn to play the guitar or at work. There is this toxic concept in our society that being perfect is healthy, it's not. What's healthy is to let yourself screw up and learn from it without judgement. Do this for yourself, do this for your family, do this for your coworkers and we'd all get along better and be more at peace with what we do.

There is a concept in Zen buddhism called shoshin which basically means beginner's mind. It's the idea that as a beginner we are open to the possibilities, we are untainted by experience and can try any old damn thing we please without preconceived ideas of how it will or will not work. I recommend for the new year that regardless of your level of writing experience you aim for shoshin - be a beginner. Being a beginner is actually a good thing.

Holidazed

I've fallen in love with the world again.
It's so fucking beautiful and so wrong, how can it can contain itself?

The soggy gray light is dripping on the incarcerated aluminum holiday bows. They are dying together in the cold winter air of San Francisco.

An origami man is folding into himself on the corner. He can't retain his shape as he rocks slowly, back and forth. The haphazard clumps of his brown hair match the desperation in his eyes - they are flying in all directions, together.

Coming Soon!

I'm working on some book reviews that I'll be putting up in the next few days as well as some short fiction. Stay tuned!

Simplified

My broken list is long - bones, feelings and insight. 

I live for the damages,  in breaking wrongness, sometimes we make right. 

Negative space defines just as much as the positive.

Love your dark and your light and treat yourself with kindness. 

The Angels are Singing

I knew a man once who called me Angel but only while I was sleeping on the couch that had lost its color before I had lost my virginity more than a decade ago.

I would pretend to be asleep to listen to his nonsense.

"Angel", I'd hear him tell our coworkers, "worked hard today, let her sleep. She looks so innocent don't she, when she's asleep? Soon as she wakes up though. Lord that mouth. But she's cute ain't she, like a baby tiger. Never know it's gonna claw you or purr."

Our coworkers would laugh and nod, "Uh-uh, Uh-huh".

"She's strong", his voice full of approval, "Lord knows, this world you need to be strong."

The coworkers would all nod, "Uh-huh, Uh-huh".

He had seizures. They would hit him and his body would drop to the ground and his eyes would roll in his head like a cheap carnival doll. They got progressively worse, lasting longer, happening more frequently - his own personal earthquakes that were gradually shaking his brain into smaller and smaller pieces. There was nothing the doctors could do.

I asked him what it was like to have a seizure, he told me that the heavenly choir was pouring over him like the flood, all he could do was try to swim cause all there was, was the singing of angels surrounding him as far as he could see, and all he could do was try not to slide under it because it held him like water, and tossed him around like a thought and he knew he could drown in it and there was nothing he could do but try to swim.

"Every time I get thrown farther. Sometime, it's gonna happen. I won't come back." I could hear the fear in his voice and all I could think was, what do you say when someone knows they're gonna die?

I asked him once for fun, what color is heaven? He threw his head back, his eyebrows rose, his face squeezed shut like a slammed door, and he nodded his head as if he was agreeing with some voice. "Heaven is the color of God's love".

I couldn't laugh at the thoughts of a dying man.

I figured if angels existed he would know.

Fucking Mother Nature

You bitch!

You didn't tell me that when you came the dinosaurs would die - the world tilted on its axis. We froze our asses off for an eon!

I liked the dinosaurs. They had majesty before the lost tombs of the pharoahs even existed. The giants of the earth were beholden to none.

Do you know what the inheritors of the earth are beholden to?

One day they came to me and told me that I owed them money. I asked them what for?
"You are living on our land, you owe us rent", they said.

"How can you own the land", I asked.
"I watched as this land was created and you didn't make it".
They yelled at me, "Here is the paper saying we own it. It is ours from there to here and if you want to step on it you have to pay us".

I walked away but they chased me, they hunted me down til I had nowhere to go but this cave, where I sit in the cold and the dark and ask myself why you did this to me.

Last, but not fucking least, you gave me an STD and I can't get rid of it. I took three rounds of antibiotics but this thing, the doctor called it "hatred", just won't go away.

I loved you, why did you break my heart?
- The Goddess

Distraction

I'm sorry.

Sometimes, there is only space for my thoughts.

I'm wrapped up in them, tied with beautifully impossible bondage knots.

I am safely contained and free to jerk and twist in a pre-orgasm fight.

They won't let me go until I come and then, and then.. you can tell me what you need at the grocery store.

I will offer to buy you everything that I am not.