Day 77: Just Tell the Story

Still fighting a cold, so let myself sleep again this morning. Squeezed in a bit of writing in the middle of the day. And a bit more just now. It's interesting, but some days I feel wildly confident about my work-in-progress and other days I feel totally outmatched and overwhelmed. Truth be told, setting out to write a 300+ page story is an objectively intimidating thing to do and it's easy to feel small when trying to do it. I often feel this way. Small.

When I feel this way, I say something to myself: Just tell the story. That's it. That's all I have to do. I know my story so well at this point. I know who each of my characters is, what each of them hopes for and struggles with. I know each scene, what will happen. All I need to do is tell the story clearly, to get it down.

For some reason, this helps. When I forget about craft and cadence, when I stop fretting about metaphor and theme, when I just set out to write simple sentences, everything begins to line up, to click. We cannot aim to write important works of literature. We must just tell stories.

So. That's what I'm doing. I'm working on a story. A story I love. A story I think about day and night. A story I believe in. Whether morning, noon, or night, every minute I snag to sit down and do this is a step in the right direction. One day, it will be finished and I will have a fat stack of paper in my hand and I will let go. And shake a bit. And smile big.

Deep breaths. Baby steps.

Stories.

That's all.