sometimes, when I hear people talk like this, I feel like I ’ megabyte heed to the cool kids ’ table roll their eyes and groan about something that I, the overeager child in the corner, am truly excited about. Because while all of those writing struggles are real and true for me, excessively, at times ( specially the part about publish ), the accuracy is that writing can—and much does—bring me great rejoice .
When I first started writing, it was merely to see if I ’ d like it. I didn ’ thymine like my job at the clock, and I knew I needed some sort of creative outlet—something new to learn, something to engage my mind and my resource. So I leaped right into writing a book, and found that I loved it. It was hard, certain ; it was much torment ; I had no estimate what I was doing most of the time. But I looked ahead to my write fourth dimension every day .
As I worked on The Wedding Date, my beginning published novel, sometimes when I was aside from it during the day I would get that feeling I ’ ve had then frequently in my life, when I ’ thousand in the middle of reading a good reserve and can ’ metric ton delay to get home and dive back into it. then I would realize that I was experiencing this feel about a bible I was writing, not one I was reading.
When a book I ’ molarity writing feels right, I feel this lapp burst of excitement—to leap back into the narrative, to see what happens adjacent, to figure out who these characters very are and what surprises they have in memory. It gives me a bang every meter .
I started and finished my sixth book, While We Were Dating, during the pandemic, and I know the alone reason I was able to work on it at all was the rejoice I get from writing. At first, I couldn ’ thymine write anything—I warned my agentive role that there was no way I ’ five hundred be able to turn in the reserve I was contracted to deliver in 2020. My heed felt freeze, anxious, panicky. But then I decided that I was going to write something good for me ; something I loved ; something to keep me ship’s company during the hard, lonely months of 2020, as the seasons rolled by and I continued to miss my sleep together ones.
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For a long time, I didn ’ thyroxine even call what I was writing a book—it was fair a thing in a notebook that no matchless but me knew about. It reminded me of those very early days of writing my first novel, when I was writing barely for the exhilaration and gladden of it.
Notebooks containing the first draft of While We Were Dating / Photograph courtesy of the author And this book brought me so much joy—most of the gladden I experienced in those long, difficult months, as a matter of fact. A lot of truly hard things happened during that clock time, and when they did, I would retreat into the world of this book—a earth where hard things besides happen, but where I got to control them. This international relations and security network ’ triiodothyronine to say writing it was slowly ; I cried over it, many times, equitable as I cry over all of my books. But it besides made me laugh, smile from ear to ear, and precisely be restfully happy : a spirit I had therefore short of death class .
There were multiple days during the pandemic when the promise of getting to write some more was the merely thing that got me up in the dawn. And there was one glorious evening when I wrote a scene that I loved, that made my soul sing, and that I knew, immediately, was the core of the ledger. I texted some writer friends right subsequently, and they celebrated with me, because they besides know how great that kind of moment feels .
I can still feel the high of that nox deep in my bones. In the midst of so much fear, disappointment, and loss, it ’ s the joy I experience when writing that got me through this latest book—and through the final class. So, writers, if you hear people talking about how intolerable writing is and think there might be something wrong with you because you seriously enjoy it, come over hera and sit with me .
