Writing Again
It happened this weekend.
In the aftermath of turning in the final manuscript for Leading Generously, I promised myself that I would not start working on a new writing project until I had some idea that absolutely would not leave me alone, that I'd instead spend at least a year reading as omnivorously as I could through the ideas of others and see whether anything worth saying surfaced. Almost exactly a year later, I was still delighting in the reading, but feeling the first glimmerings of an urge to write, if not with the focus of a project.
Right after the second blog post linked above, though, I ended up in my new position and my program of intensive reading and diffuse writing got utterly derailed. I figured it would be at least another year before things started to coalesce into a project.
But it happened this weekend. I'm not at all sure that the way I'm framing the idea is right, whether the idea itself will have legs, but I'm starting to do some noodling in a more purposeful fashion.
And I'm excited about the possibilities, for the first time in quite a while. The whole thing may yet fizzle, of course, but in a conversation yesterday I jokingly said something about quitting my day job and there was this immediate thought bubble that popped up saying "and then you would have time to work on That New Project!" And I felt a rush of excitement in the wake.
On the one hand, I take this as an encouraging sign: I really do want to work on this thing!
On the other, I recognize the temptations posed by the alluring project you don't have time for, and the ways that turning that project into your primary point of focus can take a lot of the shine off.
But right here, right now, I long for a writing project to really wrestle with. And so I'm looking forward to carving out the moments here and there to work on it, even if I don't quit my day job to do it.
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