Writing Again Part 1

I started writing again.

I am not going to say what it is. Not yet. Maybe not for a while. Some things need to stay unannounced until they are ready — or until you are sure you are not going to abandon them again.

Because I did abandon it. About eight months ago I put it down and told myself I needed distance, which was true, but distance has a way of becoming avoidance without you noticing the moment it crossed over. Eight months passed. I kept thinking about it. I kept not opening the file.

The thing about writing something personal — really personal, the kind where you are not inventing anything but arranging what actually happened — is that you have to be far enough from it to see it clearly, but close enough to still feel it. Too far and it becomes a report. Too close and you cannot write a single sentence without it becoming about the feeling instead of the thing itself.

I think I finally found the distance.

I opened the file last week. Read through everything I had. It was better than I remembered and worse in some places, which is exactly what you want — it means you grew enough to see the gaps. I made notes. I started a new chapter.

I do not know how long it will take. I do not know if it will ever be anything beyond a file on my laptop that I am proud of. But I am writing again, and for now that is the whole point.

More eventually. Maybe sooner than you think.