Write what you know.

Write what you know—I’m the one who cited this, in my last blog post, as the first rule of writing. And the one who’s been overlooking it, I realized last night as I meant to be heading to bed but had my eye caught by an email from Hillary, which I couldn’t help but sit right down and read.

Hillary and I have been sharing our writing with each other for—I don’t know how long. Long. Hillary’s the real reason I’m out here right now, having inspired me first to apply for the same writing residency she did in New Mexico (to which I was not accepted, but the prospect of it gave me the idea to come out here to write—and to relax and revive—on my own) and then to join one of her writing teacher’s classes—thus earning the title of key force in the reinvigoration of my writing habit! So you can believe that I couldn’t wait until morning to read her comments on the newest version of the first half of this little novella I’ve been working on.

I was nervous as I opened them. Hillary had read a lot of these scenes before, so one would hope they’d improved since the last time she’d seen them; but I’d been struggling with the story, feeling a bit stuck with it while feeling a bit stuck with my real life. So I was nervous as I opened them—and totally relieved once I had. Because Hillary suggested some things that should have been pretty obvious to me—but it can be easy to miss your own two feet when your head’s a blur.

What her comments boiled down to is that in the story, I’ve got a character trying to be in a successful romantic relationship—something I haven’t been too lucky with myself. And I’ve got her attempting to be clear-headed in the face of a life crisis—something I know all too well lately isn’t the way things go. So instead of trying to capture what’s not familiar to me, my dear friend highlighted, I could capture what I do know: what it feels like to love someone unhesitatingly and still let them go; to find yourself in a foggy place and figure out how to navigate through. Write what you know. Now that I can do. 

(And did this afternoon—adding a completely new twist to the early part of the story! WOOHOO, Hillary!)