One Thousand Words.

Here I am. Back to the old blog. I've had this thing now for a decade. One would normally open a bottle of wine to celebrate the success of encapsulating stories and ponderings for perhaps a 10th of my life, but my love/hate, all-in/all-out relationship with writing doesn't feel like something worth celebrating. I literally repaid the subscription to open my domain just minutes before starting this post. Like dusting off the old Bible, it's a story I haven't engaged with in a while. Why? I dare not ask myself. My head sinks into my shoulders every time another person asks me if I am writing. "Don't ask if I've been writing, you know if I'd been writing, I wouldn't be here talking to you," the words of singer, John Craigle penetrate like robbed thoughts from my mind. ​

But like I said, and like my debit card just acknowledged... I am back. For how long, I don't know. It's the start of a new year, and as much as I hate the "new year, new you" rhetoric, an NPR 1A episode played on the radio yesterday with a topic that galvanized change within, "How to actually sit down and write a book." Jen White interviewed writer, Jami Attenburg about her book "1,000 Words: A Writers Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round." White interviewed two other writers who had completed novels and memoirs. 

When it first came on, I felt that cowering head-in-shoulders instinct stir within. I almost turned the channel to avoid staring into my own failures at writing a book. But I stayed tuned instead. The last time I put down the manuscript I had been writing, I told myself I wouldn't pick it up again until I was sincerely inspired. I’m talking about the kind of inspiration that jitters inside of you like way too much coffee and forces you off the couch and curled up over a computer like a hunched maniac typing into wee hours of the night. I haven't felt that kind of buzz since December of 2022, when I left a publishing conference, manuscript in hand, with offers from two publishers to send over a sample and book proposal. I also left with one lingering critique that my book would never sell. The critique received the prize, first place in taking over my psyche and controlling the narrative that three years of sweat, labor and computer-hunching back problems was all for nothing. But instead of letting my words go up in smoke, I decided to let it simmer. I was going to wait until something hit me hard enough to either reimagine the unsellable story or reignite the fire of the story I once believed in.

1000 words is not only a book, it's an online community of writers who convene and challenge one another to write 1,000 words a day. Callers voiced in with the same concerns I have faced, how to remain steady even when you don't want to write, what to do with critique, when to let others read it, when to be willing to let go of the story to be molded for publication. Suddenly, I wasn't alone. Isaac Fitzgerald wrote a memoir, just like me, though his is out in the world, published. His mom read it and asked where all the camping trips and childhood vacations were in his book, that wasn’t the childhood she remembered. This is one item on the lofty list of paralyzing fears I have about publishing my book, what will others think? Clearly, this fear has halted me into over a year-long freeze after one publisher at a NYC publishing conference told me my story was unsellable. Isaac responded to his mom with something along the lines of, if each of us were given a block of wood to sculpt the story of our lives, we would all sculpt something different based on our own perspectives. Yes! that is encouraging, I thought, my story is my own. I was starting to feel that punch I needed to put pen to paper again. Or, should I say, fingers to keypad.

The other writer in the interview Deesha Philyaw, wrote a short story collection about the secret lives of church ladies, which side note, sounds like a juicy read. Deesha responded to discouraged callers when struggling to get the attention of a publisher. They went from manuscript draft straight to pitching to publishers. She said, there is something missing here, the community. Then, Deesha pointed out the somewhat obviously blaring need for something written behind closed doors meant to be consumed by an audience, to actually make its way to an audience first. If the goal is for your book to be read, it needs to be read, critiqued, molded, edited, encouraged, discouraged, and everything in-between. How else would you know if your book is even readable? No matter how much I love the art piece I am sculpting, if I want an audience, I have to allow for what comes with creating an audience: critique. 


So why would this publisher, who said my book wouldn't sell, have the last word? He's one word, and honestly, he's probably right. There is so many edits ahead of me. But, that's what it takes to write and publish a book. Growing thicker skin is forever a lesson the school of life is teaching me. And I guess, to be a writer, it's necessary. Maybe I need to channel my inner Hemingway, his rough-around-the-edges persona makes me think he gave no shits about critique. Look how many books he published.

The NPR show punched me in the gut just enough to write this blog. I was starting to get those jittery feelings again and that obsessive compulsion... I have to get home and write. I fantasized about it even. It sounded better than anything. Better than a good movie, a cold beer, a hot bath, a good workout. The writers in the show were talking about how they would print out their manuscript and go to a cafe, bar, library, favorite outdoor spot and read it aloud, using a red pen to cross out jumbly phrases. This revved me up like anticipation of a hot date, taking myself out, sitting alone with my book, getting lost in the weeds of words, how romantic.

There, I did it, I wrote 1,000 words. That's worth cracking open a beer. Though I am doing dry- January, so the satisfying feeling of writing again will have to be my dessert. That's what I have decided, I will ride the wave of this romantic buzz towards writing until it flows so naturally that it only makes sense to revisit my book. I will do it here, on my old stomping ground. This blog is what I created shortly after college when I was burning with urgency to write anything and put my poems and questions out into the big wide confusing world. I think the first thing I wrote on here was an essay called "Skin Buds." I was convinced our skin had similar sensations to the taste buds in our mouth, based on my favorite, all- quenching feeling of jumping in cold water on a hot day. No science behind this, just Katie, "Wondering through." 

Wondering Through is also where I pretended to be a journalist so I could convince myself I was a journalist. It was a public place for me to show the world not only that I was here, but that I was here to tell about it. It's what I did because I couldn't get a writing job out of college and an editor said "Start a blog, get your work out there, then come back to me and I'll consider you for a job." I did, and I came back to him, but he didn't hire me. Others did though, magazines, newspapers, journals hired me to do what I was doing on my blog, yet on their publications, for money. And I was proud of myself, for doing what I loved to do until someone paid me to do what I loved to do. This blog started it all. And though sometimes I look back at it and cringe at the words I used to write and the small perspectives I used to have, I am grateful for this space, this domain, that is my own piece of wood to sculpt. 

I have a lot more to say on the effort of writing, and its way of enmeshing with my identity like a life-sized leech. But I will save it for my next one-thousand words, so as not to ride this wave out too soon.