The Practice Will Get You Through

I’ve been mainlining Natalie Goldberg books, lately, which is weird, because they all pretty much say the same thing (except the novel). She applies Zen concepts to writing. I’ve been practicing Zen for about twenty-five years, mostly daily, I guess. I started yoga about 25 years ago, too, which I do less frequently, but still regularly. I already did my daily meditation today, and I think I’ll probably do yoga in a bit.

It’s the repetitive practice that I like. That’s why I did karate and ballet for so long, too. You get to do the same thing every day, but be just a little bit better.

I got some comments back for my memoir that I sent out to people. I’m doing a weird double-sharing thing. I send 20 pages to one group about once a month, and they give that section a deep look. It’s a long process. However, I also sent the entire thing to another group, who I assume, are going to look at it as a whole, but in a less detailed way.

Years ago, I got my memoir to a place where I knew I couldn’t make it any better. I needed help. I wanted feedback. I just couldn’t find anyone willing to give me any. Everyone I asked declined, saying they just didn’t have the time. They were people in my previous writer’s group, and I knew they had the time for each other’s books. I thought that meant that my writing wasn’t even good enough to be improved upon. I was too much of a burden on my readers, so I stopped asking.

That’s why the feedback I’m getting now is miraculous. I’m so grateful, but I still have a scarcity mindset. What will happen after I’ve used up all my current feedback and still need more? What will I do then? I try not to think about it.

Someone actually tried to publish my book a few years ago. Like, a real professional who ran a small press and had published several books already.

I don’t want to go into all the details of what transpired there. I think it came down to was this: I, personally, didn’t think my book was ready. I knew it needed revision, and I was worried that it wouldn’t get the revision it needed before it went to print. I didn’t think I was there, yet, as a writer. It’s the old thing that Ira Glass always talks about—my abilities did not match my tastes.

I’m much less worried about my book being published than I am about the quality of the finished product. However, Natalie Goldberg is helping with my perspective on that. Well, it’s more like she’s helping me get through this revision. Maybe it’s more like she’s helping me with the uncertainty of it all.

Anyway, some of my recent feedback was that some sections were “flat,” and I’ve been thinking a lot about that since then. I’ve been working on this book for a long time, and when I originally wrote those sections, I was much closer to the actual experiences. They took place around 2012, and I started writing in 2016. Everything was much fresher in my mind then.

Now, I’m not exactly sure where my head was back then. But, aha! I have something up my sleeve. I have journals. I have journals stretching back to the 1980s. I started looking through them this morning, and I found the one from that year. I’m not sure if that’s the direction I want to take. Am I going to find something in there that I’ll feel is absolutely necessary to include? Maybe that’ll complicate everything. I think it’s much more likely that I’ll find it tedious to read, and there won’t be much usable in there, as has usually been the case when I’ve read my old journals.

A note on the actual physical notebooks: Natalie Goldberg says to buy cheap notebooks, so you don’t get too precious about your writing. My teenage journals were cheap notebooks because that’s what I could afford back then, but now, they’re falling apart. So, if you’re planning on keeping them for decades, maybe it makes sense to either get something that’s going to stand the test of time or do a better job of storing them than I did.

I guess it’s yoga time now.