writing into your writing superstitions
no, you (probably) don't need to read another book before you can write yours
Hello friends! This is Ursula Fan Club, where I write on a weekly-ish basis about what I’m writing and reading as I work on the first draft of my first book. If you’re interested in speculative fiction, climate, ancestral stuff, textiles, living in a human body, and balancing a creative practice with whatever this is *waves wildly around*, you’ll probably like it here.
Beth and Carolyn, my writing mentors/guides/therapists/cheerleaders of PARAKEET, encouraged us early in the program to identify a writing superstition we have. Maybe you can only write in the morning. Maybe you need to sit at a specific desk to write. Maybe you need a special pen. Maybe you need to light a certain beeswax candle. Maybe you can only write if you have at least an hour of uninterrupted, blissful silence to do so. If these rituals are not observed, you believe, the words will not flow. You didn’t make the rules!! It’s just how it is!!! (Right?)
And then, they encourage us to write into them. In other words, prove that your superstitions are (mostly) bullshit. They are barriers our minds throw up to keep ourselves from writing.
During my latest check-in with Carolyn, I threw out all my writing wins and my writing anxieties. The one she circled back to was my superstition, my belief, that I I have to do more research before I can write my book.
I am easily trapped in a vicious cycle of research that stops my writing in its tracks. Hell, I enrolled in a two-year graduate program in climate change just so I felt qualified to write about climate change. And during that time, I wrote a lot… of research papers. I wrote no—no—creative writing in direct service to my book. I do not, of course, think this was time poorly spent, but I know my patterns now, and I know I love to learn. I will gladly pick up another book and read as a delight, an escape, and an excuse to not write.
This same tendency is surfacing now, where I trust research as a more reliable tool to guide me through my story than my own imagination. This week, Carolyn reminded me that I am fully equipped to write this book. I have all the experience, creativity, and resources I need to weave this story.
So, for the next month, here’s my challenge to myself: write against this superstition and don’t research. At all. It’s the job of future drafts to tighten up with research, editors, and the input of early readers. The job of this draft is just to get written.
What I’m writing
I joined the Mini 1000 last weekend and got over 2000 words written! Not quite my goal of 3000 words, but I’m 2000 words richer than I was when I started.
What I’m reading
Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez, Sanaaq by Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk, and The Body is a Doorway by Sophie Strand. Excited to start Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052-2072 by Eman Abdelhadi and M. E. O'Brien for book club. We’re binging the Netflix show about an Inuk woman in the High Arctic, North of North, and I’m obsessed.
What I read
The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich. I’ve read about half a dozen of her books, and she gets funnier, wiser, and more experimental, more relevant, with every book she writes. I especially loved her short chapters with hilarious chapter titles in The Mighty Red. This book was funny as hell while also carrying very dark, grim, fatalist themes. I don’t know how she does it.
In other news
I have another breast surgery coming up next week. This is my third and hopefully my last. In all honestly, I’m looking forward to the results of the lipo and fat grafting bringing me even closer to my pre-surgery body and closing out this 3+ year cycle of screenings, biopsies, surgeries and recoveries. Grateful to my surgeons, my nurses, my parents, my sister and brother-in-law, my besties, my husband, my cats (those lumps of love!), and my broader community of friends and family, near and far, for holding me through some pretty rough times. L’chaim, to life!
If you’re going through a similar experience, you can read more about mine here:
And you, too—THANK YOU for reading and being here. I see you and I appreciate you, readers! Until next time.