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Authentic (originating from within) desire is like an unbearable itch that must be scratched. An intense itch, like the one from deep under a tightly laid wig that forces you into a frenzy of hair pats- I've been there. I think the things we wish to achieve are unique to each of us, but I dare say the intensity of the desire to achieve them is the same. For me, that specific thing was to write a book and it took me by surprise. It wasn't premeditated as I would have thought such an undertaking should be, it just happened. I was always good at writing, words have always come naturally to me and so, naturally, I thought nothing of it. It's not something I had ever considered, that I could make a living being a writer, that writing was a career that could be pursued. In all the nine schools that I went to, not a single career expo ever featured a writer.
It sounds silly now, but I couldn't fathom that anyone would ever pay me to write things. That would be much too easy and I was fully convinced that I had to suffer and do difficult things in order to succeed. So when it came time to pick a course of study for university, I pushed the writing that came so easily to the background and chose to move in the complete opposite direction. My thought process was as follows: "I'm smart, great at math, good at science. Every career fair has at least one engineer and 'engineering' is just so nice to say, so impressive. Also, my mom is an engineer so obviously it's a great choice for me too. Only thing is, she's a mechanical engineer so I have to do something different. Ooooh I know, I'll do civil engineering. That's the one with the roads and the bridges. What could go wrong?"
As I was suffering through my second year of an engineering degree I had no business being in, I was forced to find a coping mechanism. This, of course, is hindsight clarity. At the time, it seemed that words just quietly slipped back into my life and I found myself writing again. In a moment of frustration over an assignment I didn't want to do, I felt called to write instead. A small, internal whisper that said, "just write something, anything, and then you can get back to that assignment." I obeyed and the first fertile seed was planted. I began to write as a means of staying sane and feeding my soul all the things that engineering was sucking out of it. I began to craft a story, just one day in my dorm room, I opened a new document and started to type. No planning, no expectation, just a deep need to see the ideas in my head sprawled in front of me in word form. This was the blossoming of my seed. Writing that first book felt so right, like doing something I was always meant to but hadn't gotten around to. For something I was doing for the very first time, it felt surprisingly familiar. You know that 'I swear I've done this before' feeling? It felt like that. Looking back now, I'm moved by the purity of the desire and grateful for the ease with which my passion seemingly revealed itself to me. I wrote and wrote, riding on the excitement of the unexpected joy I was getting from the exercise. I wrote as a reward for completing my soul-crushing homework, or as a way to hype myself up to start what would be a soul-crushing assignment. What started out as a meaningless project quickly turned into my most engaging, I started to write every day. And then I had to write every day.
I wrote with the confidence that can only belong to a complete novice, no idea was bad, every impulse was yielded to. I got acquainted and then familiar with my characters, surprising myself with the things I wrote them into. I gave myself freedom on the page, and I think perhaps that was the greatest discovery. Suddenly, in the space that existed between the speed of my fingers and the speed of my thoughts- I was a creator. Of worlds, of people, situations, emotions, and outcomes. I was also an instrument, feeling myself swept up in the very story that I was writing to such an extent that often it felt like I was merely the one called to capture it, more than I was creating it; as though the story had its own life and existed outside of me while also within me. It's a difficult thing to explain, being in flow, but it is for me the very essence of the creative process. Being in flow feels like you and inspiration, which is this otherworldly force outside of you, are simultaneously breathing life into this new idea and watching it take shape. It also breathes new life into you, the artist, and it's how I explain non-stop hours of blissful concentration where I could (and still can) just write and write.
And write and write I did, for two months, until I had completed a full manuscript. I remember the feeling of completion, both awe-inspiring and anticlimactic. I remember reading it again and thinking, "just needs a quick edit but other than that it's perfect." I now know of course that it was, in fact, very bad, but that is not the point of this particular blog post (but I will explore that later because so much can be learned from that first scrapped book) so I'll chalk it up to blissful, novice pride and move on. I suppose what that experience was about wasn't the book that I wrote, it was about that I wrote a book. And I loved it. It was about both identifying and then satisfying that deep urge to do so. It was about awakening to the sounds of my own desires, my true desires that I had never even known to explore. Since that first book, I have never looked back and I have never stopped writing. I've continued to water that seed, watched it take root and sprout. That first book shifted the universe for me, clicked it into place. Suddenly, I knew that everything else was to exist around this form of writing. This exhausting, time consuming, and utterly exposing form of writing. It's my sincerest offering to the world and sincere is all I ever want it to be. It's the whisper of a call I listened to that I can now recognize as a profound turning point in my life. I wonder what your own gnawing call was..or is?
If it happens to be 'to write a book' like it was for me, you may be feeling a little overwhelmed about where and how to start. Worry not, I have something that might help and I'm excited to share it with you. I created a Free 7 Day Workbook to help new and aspiring authors move their book idea from their head to the page by guiding them through the plotting process. In a detailed and thoughtful way, I guide you through avoiding some of the mistakes that I had learn and grow through the hard way, as well as provide methodologies for developing your plot. While I can't promise you perfection, I can tell you that in the end, you'll have a fleshed out book idea and a detailed plot, both of which will prepare you to confidently start drafting. You can sign up for the Free Workbook here.
Sending you my best until we speak again,
Noni
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