“Writing is the superpower of humankind. It is our truest form of magic.”
I agree with James Clear. Writing transforms us and allows space when there is no wiggle room anywhere else. I often think of writing as a port to a new place that is exactly perfect for what I need at this specific moment, whether it is fiction or nonfiction.
I visualize a lot about what I think my reader will hear when she reads my words. Do they hit right? Are they positive? Can they uplift someone who needs it at this moment? Do they refrain from judgment? Do they support? Are they funny or exciting?
But I have to confess: this week, writing did not feel like a superpower. It felt like a cloud that hovered.
I thought to myself, “Why did I make this ridiculous schedule for myself? Why did I have to make it public?”
I wanted to tuck writing away and completely ignore it until things calmed down. My husband left for Park City this week, very blessed to be working on Taylor Sheridan’s Marshals for CBS, busy bringing someone else’s story to life.
Stories matter, I reminded myself. They either reflect a life we want or help us escape a life that feels hard. That reminder pulled me back to the page.
I have a Q2 goal of writing my first draft of On Fridays, We Write, and I am determined to keep my schedule. So I used two specific tools to get through it.
The first was leaning heavily into my outline, which I had spent a long time on the week before. I opened a new document, titled it “Week One,” copy-pasted the outline content in, and just started writing in narrative form. I gave myself two hours (my other writing tool) and it worked. “Week One” now has 3,744 words. “Week Two” was easier. Two hours on the timer, and 2,221 words later, I have something to edit when I finish the full rough draft.
One of my greatest parenting joys is that my daughters share their school essays with me. Dyslexia is part of both of their lives, and reading their work together has always been our thing. My older daughter still sends me her essays from Boston College asking, ”Here are the instructions, did I do this correctly?”
We are way past me correcting anything she writes. She has become a beautiful writer, her depth surpassing mine. She has an intellectual and elegant writing style.
Last week she had to imitate a poem and recreate it in her own imagination. The original poem was about a girl observing a fish she had caught. My daughter’s reimagined poem was the fish observing the girl and his acceptance of certain death.
Tears streamed down my face. I felt like I was on that pond, in that boat, seeing the world through the eyes of an ugly brown fish. And when he was let go at the end of the poem, I felt myself breathe a sigh of relief.
I am quite certain the professor had no intent of moving the parents who still read their children’s college work. But I was deeply moved. And then I thought this is the superpower of writing. The feeling I was having was real, because the words hit me just right. I was the ideal reader at the ideal moment: someone in transition, someone uncertain about areas of life that don’t feel perfectly set.
That’s the magic James Clear was talking about. And it’s what got me back to my own pages.
Let writing be your superpower. Even in the weeks when it fights you.
WEEK 3 UPDATE
What’s working: My schedule is holding, even when I fight against it.
What got done: Chapters 1 and 2.
What felt hard: Everything. I didn’t want to write at all and completely procrastinated. Then I allowed myself to write badly and I love what I got out of it. Isn’t that always the way it goes?
What surprised me: When I trusted the methods I teach my clients, it was easy to get words on the page.
On Fridays, We Write. Join us!