Starting somewhere
On going through it and getting on with writing and life | Fledgling newsletter #85
TW: pregnancy loss
Since I saw Giant in May I’ve wanted to write a newsletter about the complicated literary hero that is Roald Dahl and his role in my life. But over the last month my life became far more complicated in a far less nuanced way. There is no nuance to dangerous diagnoses, pregnancy loss, surgery, and illness.
Happy and hopeful—albeit extremely nauseous and fatigued—at six weeks pregnant, I found out my pregnancy was a rare type of ectopic called cornual. A life threatening condition, the pregnancy went from the completing puzzle piece of my family to a ticking time bomb that was growing rapidly and needed to be removed immediately.
Between the wounds to my mind, body, and spirit and the complications including a painful case of esophagitis caused by a chemical burn from my antibiotics, my healing has not been linear. Still, I spent the last two weeks pitching two of the most vulnerable pieces I’ve ever written, working on final edits of this also incredibly vulnerable essay for Slate, and rewriting my memoir proposal.
My response to difficulty has always been action. When I had a miscarriage at the end of last summer I started the Artist’s Way. When my dog died I started trail running, then writing 2,000 words of a novel every day. I love not just a goal, but a challenge.
But some things can’t be solved by effort, and after I pitched those essays yesterday and sent off my proposal to a press I really admire, there it all still was—the chest pain, scars, grief, and disappointment.
Here and there I’ve found moments to write more of the novel, and I look forward to when my motivation picks up again, but right now life is too challenging for a challenge. Historically, I’m not the best at recognizing that, but now I think I should honor it.
I’m still not able to swim or exercise normally or eat certain foods or have a glass of wine or even be in the sun because of an intense medication. I’m still in it. I don’t have some grand insight about resilience. But today I wanted to write to you and touch base with my community, and I’m going to let that be enough. It may not be in pursuit of an impressive goal, or to maintain a streak, or to hit a deadline. Just because I wanted to. After a couple of months of surviving, that pressureless kind of creation feels like a step toward healing. Life does not stop happening, but writing doesn’t have to either. I hope I can learn to accept what it looks like now, knowing that it isn’t forever.
Prompts:
Turn your phone on airplane mode. Choose a prompt. Write to it freely and without judgement for 10 minutes. If you want to keep going, keep going. If you like what you write, reply it back to me and maybe see it in the newsletter next month...
In the spirit of starting somewhere, here’s a couple of prompts to help you break into a new project…
Take the first 6-10 lines of a chapter, story, or essay that you admire and write down the first part of the sentence down your page. Then play a literary Mad Libs, filling in the sentences to get your own story or poem started. Here’s an example of how your page would look if you borrowed from the first chapter of Percival Everett’s Walk Me to the Distance.
It wasn’t that…
He didn’t have…
He spent his time…
Finally…
He did have…
He did have…
But while he was gone…
In five minutes, write down everything you did today from the moment you woke up until now. It doesn’t have to be beautiful and it might seem very mundane. When five minutes is up circle ten of the most interesting words (choose objects, verbs, or two words together that form a description). Now take ten minutes to write a poem or start to a scene using what you circled that has absolutely nothing to do with your day.
And lastly, something to read:
I’m sending you to a different Substack this time to read more from, well, me! How annoying, I know, but this piece is so important to me. Thank you to Jane Pratt for believing in it.
I'm grateful for all I've learned with you. I adore you. You are a gem!