We are in the midst of preparing to move.
I am going through paper. I have quite a lot of it—notebooks and statements and drafts that have settled in drifts around me. I'm accustomed to it after all these years, but now we have to move.
So I'm making decisions—discard, recycle, shred, or file. I'm remembering moments of my writer's life. I have notebooks where I told myself to write anything, just so that I could get in a habit of writing again. After that, I had notebooks where I planned projects. They're full of writing clusters, lists, outlines, scenes, and back again.
Rifling through these pages, I came across a letter that I had forgotten. When I tried to please everyone but me and tried to write the book that they thought I should write, I almost lost my project. Anyway, in going through these old papers, I found a letter I wrote to my book. This was when I really didn't think I could write it. I apologized to my book. I made a promise. I said that I would stay true to my book, that perhaps no one else in the world would understand, but that the deal was between me and my book. And then I wrote it. I thought I would share what I did with you because it was something that was critical for me in that process. I had to set things right between me and my book. I had to recognize the importance of our connection and honor it above all others.