"Your first draft doesn't need to be perfect."
I told this to a client last week.
Then I caught myself editing AS I wrote this post.
The irony wasn't lost on me.
I'm a recovering perfectionist who still self-edits every sentence.
Here's what I've learned:
Write badly first.
Fix it later.
The magic happens in revision, not creation.
Your blank page doesn't need perfection.
It needs existence.
Everyone has a story. Yours just needs to be told.
I suppose this is a confession of sorts, to tell you that I’ve been away from Writer Ramblings for a while. Life gets in the way of so much, especially in the current news cycle.
I spent a year in therapy, untangling years of stories I told myself.
They were stories about myself and others, about who I was as a 22 year old motherless child, about managing anxiety (spoiler alert: I needed different meds + therapy to feel more like myself), and about becoming middle aged but still feeling younger than my 52 years.
There’s the story about how my dad became a Catholic priest after my mother died.
Every time the pope dies, I text my dad to let him know there’s a job opening in his field. He texts me pictures of his grandchildren, my nephew and niece, baseball stats, memes, and college basketball stories (Go Uconn!). It’s a complicated relationship that we make work as best we can, as many of us do with loved ones.
A few years after my mom died, I moved to Arizona for 25 years and sight unseen, moved to Charlotte, NC in May 2022 with my husband and oldest stepson.
Fits and Starts
It was a lot to unpack so I stopped writing here and started journaling and meditating.
Now I am finding my way back to myself and solidly putting roots in Charlotte. I feel grounded and focused. I am closing old projects and working on new ones, both personally and professionally.
I am ghostwriting books.
I am trying to journal daily.
And I am writing here again.
It feels like I am myself again. Grounded, focused, and writing.
I just had to get (re)started.
I plugged back into the neighborhood book club. We read a lot of books by local authors, some of whom have joined our meetings. They’ve shared the stories behind their book. It’s like being an insider to the writing process and I love it!
I’ve been taking a couple of walks a day which my dog Stanley, the world’s worst intern, loves. We’re both in better shape mentally and physically. I also feel more grounded when I am outside in the parks and paths in the neighborhood. If it ever stops raining, I will visit a new park and paths soon.
And I plan to take my camera out with me. I want to capture the beauty of my new home city.
In a world that is complicated and angry, my goal is to be the kind of person I’d want to meet.
That person smiles, says hello, and maybe even stops for a chat.
If each of us adds a small amount of happiness to the world, I am convinced we will be okay.
Ramblingly Yours.
Make Your Story Matter: 50 Writing Prompts for Non-Writers
Great one