One of the things I miss most about keeping a writing blog is the constant assessment of process. Because I was always writing about writing, I was more aware of my writing. More aware of what worked and what didn’t, why I did or did not do certain things. 

Of course, the reason I stopped writing about writing was because I tend to want to use my writing time, you know, writing, and the more I indulged in the writing (as opposed to the writing about writing), the more I realized I didn’t know shit about writing, and maybe I just needed to shut up.

But I seem to be learning the same things over and over again, and every time it happens, I’m like, “Oh, yeah, I remember that now. Wonder why that didn’t stick.”

The most recent of these moments is happening now, and it has to do with first drafting.

Or more specifically, that first drafts are shockingly shit, and the best way to combat the shit-shock is to always be drafting something.

I learned this in 2010, and then again in 2012, and then a year later in 2013, and then in July 2014. 

And now I’m learning it again in April 2015. 

It’s surprising how quickly one forgets just how incredibly hard it is to draft a book. To put words on the page even though you know they are the wrong words. Even though you know the words are absolute shit. 

When I finished my last book, I promptly started another. Because I hadn’t yet forgotten that the secret to drafting is to never stop drafting. 

But then there were holidays and revisions and setbacks at work. There was stress and anxiety and sick cats and stomach bugs. 

In the end, the book I had been working on got scrapped, needed to be entirely redrafted with a different focus. I took some time off. Finished revisions. Did a lot of not writing. 

And now I’m back, with a new book, and I’m sick with just how badly it sucks. Physically ill. I’m losing brain cells writing it. 

Thing is, this is normal. 

This is how it’s supposed to be. 

For me, at least.

This is how I feel with every book I’ve ever written–a truth to which three years of writing-blogging can attest. 

Memory is a funny, fickle little monster. I say this because I remember the books I’ve written, but I don’t really remember writing them. 

Even the last book, which I turned in not even a month ago, is a blur. A scroll through my text messages show that not thirty-six hours before I sent the book back to my agent, I was texting my friend Liz, telling her all about how I could not fix my book because it was an unfixable mess, and did she know how to break the news to the agent and editor waiting for me to figure my shit out?

From unfixable mess to polished and turned in. In a day in a half. And hell if I know how that happened. 

So realistically, based on past experience, I should not be sick over a shitty first draft. I should look at it as part of the process, and trust that no matter how shitty it is now, in a month, it will be less shitty. And in three, it probably won’t be shitty at all.

And instead of dreading the imperfect pages, I should embrace them, close my eyes and dive in, make as many mistakes as I can, while I can. Because if ever there was a time to make them, this is it.

This is my challenge for April. This is my challenge for always. 

Do the work.
Trust the process.
Let go of imperfection. 

Stop trying to write a book.
Just tell a story.