On Writing Something New 🌱
5 commandments for starting new projects.
Last week, I handed my novel over to a friend from my MFA program. She’ll read it and send me notes in a month or two, but I’m taking a break from the story—for now. During this time without the book, I’ve been instructed to start something, anything. And just like that, the 70,000-word count became 0 once more. The cursor blinks. Something new begins.
My last manuscript was a happy accident. I set out to write a short story inspired by the Jordan Peele film Nope. Instead, I tripped and fell into a novel. This time will be different. Book 1 was a nearsighted story: I could only see the next page as it came flying at my face. Book 2, on the other hand, came to me in its complete form as we drove through the winding roads of Yosemite last fall. I’ve never received a story like that before, like a transmission.
Of course, an idea is not a story: Translating the narrative from your brain to the page changes it. Makes it better. Makes it you. There are a million different ways to coax your narrative out of your brain. Slowly but surely, I’ve been developing mine.
Today, I thought I would share some practices that have helped me. I’m still figuring my process out—and I have his hunch I will be for a long (long, long) time. So below, I present the 2024 Edition of “Commandments on Writing Something New”—written in sand, not stone.
Commandment 1: Hold Your Manuscript Close to You
This manuscript will technically be my third. I wrote my first novel in my MFA program. Every few weeks, I would receive heaps of feedback from my peers (some helpful, some—how to say this politely?—not).
I wasn’t a confident enough writer to handle this feedback yet. Instead of parsing through people’s notes and discerning which ones I should follow, I let everyone influence my work. And soon, it didn’t feel like mine anymore.
Receiving feedback is an essential part of writing fiction, but I’m learning that I don’t have to receive criticism from everyone. There are a sacred few who I trust with my words. When I’m writing a first draft, the only person who needs to like it is me.
A new book is sort of like a small fire in a storm. You have to huddle close to it. Prod it. Blow on it. There’s no time for roasting marshmallows with others—okay? It’s just you and your red-gold story.
Commandment 2: Finish the Damn Thing
We owe it to ourselves to finish. Finish the damn short story. The screenplay. The poem. The manuscript.
While working on my first book, I rewrote chapter one like ten times before I even wrote chapter two. For my second manuscript, I changed course. I let the story pour out of me over the course of six months. No micro-editing. No "chapter one, the redux.” The work itself was better as a result. It felt like one long train of thought rather than a million fragments and rewrites.
Commandment two is finish. Revise later.
Commandment 3: Do Your Best to Only Write When You Are Writing
This one’s a tall order in the attention economy. Writing is like many other art forms: It demands your full, unbridled focus.
Last year, my boyfriend and I (briefly) got into pottery. There’s no room for distraction when you’re trying to spin clay into a cup or a bowl. It spins off the wheel. It goes lopsided. It gets too watery or too dry.
Writing is the same way. You have to keep your eyes on the page, or you may sever the connection with what you are creating. Put the phone down. Block social media. Set a timer. Be fully in the story. You owe it to yourself.
Commandment 4: “Put Yourself in the Way of Beauty”
I’ll return to another writing cliché: “An output problem is an input problem.” In other words, writer’s block is often the result of not feeling inspired by what you’re reading, watching, and experiencing.
I’ve done my best writing when I’ve been reading juicy, heartfelt books and watching well-written movies and traveling and going to museums. Feeding your senses is a way to write better and to live better. So when the words on the page start to feel ashen, I will, as Cheryl Strayed phrased it, “put myself in the way of beauty.”
Commandment 5: Write a Story That Would Entertain Little Me
I’ve wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember. But recently, my therapist asked me what I thought “Little Kells” would make of all this hairpulling about becoming a “great” writer. (A classic therapy inquiry.)
The answer is that she would find it a bit silly. Little Kells just wanted to use her imagination to visit other worlds. She wouldn’t have stressed so much about finding the perfect adjective or dreaming up a surprising sentence structure. She cared about story. Characters doing things.
A pig befriends a purple horse.
A boy finds out he’s half-god.
Etc, etc.
My goal for this book is to write something that Little Kells would like to read. I will still polish my sentences. I’ll still stress about whether I’m using too many commas. But at the end of the day, when I summarize the story aloud, I want it to be something that would excite her. Something that she would want to illustrate with all the crayons in the box. Something that reaches through time from this me to past me.
Artists out there: What are your “commandments” for starting something new?
Reading: Chain-Gang All-Stars, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Mouth to Mouth, Antoine Wilson, Beautyland, Marie-Helene Bertino
Writing: Something new!
Watching: So much Top Chef all the time
Eating: Egg wraps
This newsletter is written and edited by me, so please excuse the occasional grammatical error or spelling gaffe. My Very Talented Mother, Caitilin McPhillips, designed my logo for me. Thanks, Mom.
Great tips + most of all: CONGRATULATIONS! This is huge!
Yes, Hockney! I looked at it for maybe 20 minutes 😂