3:23
Something I'm realizing tonight as I write, here at 3:23 in the morning on a random Tuesday, while Michael sleeps in another city:
There's something about 3:23am, something quiet and still that lets your brain work, and you start to see that sometimes what you're writing about ends up not being what you're writing about at all. You've heard people say that before but it's never actually happened to you, until now. And you're still so, so far away from what you're writing being a finished product, and you're still worried people will hate it or hate you for writing it, but you also start to realize it doesn't matter. Right now, in the moments before you get too sleepy to make any more sense, you don't even care about it being published or that anyone ever reads it. That's not even the point. The point is that you're bringing it into being and in the process you're unearthing pieces of yourself that start to make sense.
And now you start to want to apologize for letting 3:23 make you overly romantic, but what the fuck.
I'm at 45,122 words, and I've got 7 days left. No problem. But this is just the first step. A good first step, but I'm hesitant to even congratulate myself because there's still a lot left to do. Right now my "manuscript" (I don't know why I put that in quotes. It is a legit manuscript. Why do I still feel like a fake?) is like a pile of dirt and stones I lugged into the backyard with my wheelbarrow, and now I'm going to have to turn it in a beautiful garden.
But right now: sleep. Then waking up and a long list of to dos, then dinner with my parents, then more writing. Always more writing, and that's starting to feel like an awesome thing.
There's something about 3:23am, something quiet and still that lets your brain work, and you start to see that sometimes what you're writing about ends up not being what you're writing about at all. You've heard people say that before but it's never actually happened to you, until now. And you're still so, so far away from what you're writing being a finished product, and you're still worried people will hate it or hate you for writing it, but you also start to realize it doesn't matter. Right now, in the moments before you get too sleepy to make any more sense, you don't even care about it being published or that anyone ever reads it. That's not even the point. The point is that you're bringing it into being and in the process you're unearthing pieces of yourself that start to make sense.
And now you start to want to apologize for letting 3:23 make you overly romantic, but what the fuck.
I'm at 45,122 words, and I've got 7 days left. No problem. But this is just the first step. A good first step, but I'm hesitant to even congratulate myself because there's still a lot left to do. Right now my "manuscript" (I don't know why I put that in quotes. It is a legit manuscript. Why do I still feel like a fake?) is like a pile of dirt and stones I lugged into the backyard with my wheelbarrow, and now I'm going to have to turn it in a beautiful garden.
But right now: sleep. Then waking up and a long list of to dos, then dinner with my parents, then more writing. Always more writing, and that's starting to feel like an awesome thing.