5:34 PM, Christmas Eve. Just in the nick of time, with no expectation of response for at least two weeks, I submitted the full manuscript of my second novel to my agents.
To be fair, the plan had been to submit it on Christmas Eve Eve to enjoy a full day of reading (Richard Powers’s Playground has sat eagerly at my bedside for weeks now) and granola-making and last-minute card-writing, but I’d wanted to re-read a few freshly edited sections just one. more. time.
About a month ago, I was wondering why I shouldn’t scrap the whole manuscript and start a brand new project still gleaming with the potential of perfection. Luckily, I have a writing partner who convinced me not to do that. Over our weekly call, she metaphorically stroked my hair and told me nice things until I begrudgingly backed up the file once more. Under my breath, I may have said something about not deleting it today but…, though the next morning, it didn’t feel so beyond the point of fixing after all.
Shortly after, when she hit the same breaking point in editing, I was both comforted and amused when I realized that what she and I had reached were actually milestones, not creative burnouts. It means you’re on track!!!!!!! I wrote to her, maybe with a few more exclamation marks than I’m letting on here. The days pass and words get shuffled around, some you find are actually in the right place and in the right order, and the general disgust with your work wanes. It is just another phase to move through.
Two days before submission, similarly on track, I felt like an open wound, raw to the world, crying at videos of dogs seemingly smiling amongst a group of people mingling at parties, overlayed with text that read “just happy to be included”. Creating something out of nothing demands a certain amount of vulnerability, and I often find that by the end I have been pushed to my limit, protective layers stripped by the journey into the deepest, darkest bits of myself. The work is exposing even if no one has seen it yet. And by that same token, the recompense for delving into those places, fear and all, is a newfound feeling of understanding something important and true. Writing to me is so often a slog, a difficult and unrewarding process, but the rare moments of flow and the sweet rewards of unlocking a meaningful teaching are enough fuel to keep going.
In those moments, I often think of Flannery O’Connor’s quote where she talks about writing as a means of discovering what she already knows. It’s not a particularly novel epiphany, but as I near the end of two chapters—book, year—I have been thinking about how the process of writing and living teach you more than you can realize within the fog of it. It’s only when you’re nearing the end of certain phases, with a better view, that you can spot the lesson posts you’ve subconsciously been hammering down.
The end and start of a year are relatively arbitrary and yet, the rituals we pair with them—round ups, resolutions—make them feel of great importance. Marcus and I write each other a letter for Christmas every year and each ends up being more about what we’ve learned throughout the year than about holiday wishes. They’re special time capsules, life lessons drawn from the peaks and valleys of the previous 12 months.
Writing that letter, too, I was reminded that when we take the time to step back, overwhelm can momentarily take over but filtered through time or art (the latter I find helps reduce the length of the former) the result is a deeper knowing, a truer calm.
In the liminal space that is this odd week between the holidays and the new year, and in the void between jobs and new creative projects, taking a moment to draw lessons as opposed to taking stock or compiling a highlight reel a list is the balm I need to start 2025 with openness. I hope you find yours, too, through whichever filter you like best.
See you next year.
Anna x
