How Not To Write

Where, in the shuffle of days and months, does a writer find their year? Do they find it in the stacks of pages they create? Or do they find it between the words left unsaid?

Yeah, I know... The hand-on-chin thing is pretentious, but so is running a site almost exclusively dedicated to my own ramblings, so what the hell.

It's so easy to look back on the year and see only failures. See only the things you didn't do or say... In many ways, it feels like 2008 was a rough draft, and my history with rough drafts is not so swell. If the past is any guide, I'll hide this year in a drawer. Perhaps I'll take it out once in awhile and wave it around as proof that I once lived.

But what a dreary and useless thought that is!

I began the year with a simple goal: I would stop hiding my work. By any measure, I achieved this. I moved forward:

I tried and failed to get into Clarion West.
I tried and finished NaNoWriMo.
I wrote poems for James and Dave.
I stopped hiding and became myself.
I discovered that even when I knew what I was doing, I could still damage myself in a profound way.
I wrote a series of posts about places where I almost started a life of writing.
I gave up my studio.
I wrote about being funny.
I wrote about the love I feel for my children.
I finished a story for my kids.
I waffled between finding my voice and creating one.
I learned to forgive myself for failing.

I chronicled so much of my personal and artistic life this year, it hardly seems that I could have left anything unsaid. Yet, there are many, many things I failed to say either because I did not devote the time or did not have the courage:

I haven't written the words of release, dedicated to my mother.
I haven't written the words of forgiveness, dedicated to my father.
I haven't written the words of apology, dedicated to my sister.
I haven't written the words of gratitude, dedicated to my friends.
I haven't written the words of wisdom, dedicated to my children.
I haven't written the words of love, dedicated to my wife.
I haven't written the words of hope, dedicated to myself.

If 2008 is a rough draft, it's because I've only touched upon the words that need to be said. There's so much yet to do.

Thank you for being readers of How Not to Write. I look forward to sharing with you next year.

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