I’m writing a book. Again.

Here is how I start. Kind of. Roughly.

Generally I am angry about something. I have a lot of anger, bubbling away in my belly, and if I let it sit there for too long it starts to erode me from the inside out. Anger is important and useful and nothing to be ashamed of, but, like any emotion, too much of it is going to make you feel sick.

Here is a question I ask myself: What am I angry about right now?

I struggle with accepting reality as it is. The line between acceptance and approval feels so spider-silk thin that I don’t like to get anywhere near it. I rage against reality, and in truth it causes me more suffering that way. The ideal is that I accept things as they are right now, acknowledge the reality for what it is, and then move forward with change. Hopefully I will get there one day.

For now, though, I make a new reality via writing. What am I angry about? How that person treated me when I was a teenager. That I wasn’t represented in the books I read growing up. Social attitudes towards “scary” mental illnesses. 

That’s my hook. That’s how I start a concept.

Don’t get me wrong - the stuff I write doesn’t often actually feel angry. I don’t think you’ll sense the heat of my fury rising off the page. Sometimes I am angry and so I write something full of hope and whimsy. 

That shouldn’t have happened. I am going to write a world where it didn’t. I am going to write a world where the aftermath was handled differently.

It’s cathartic to write, and hopefully cathartic to read. My anger has somewhere to go. I make it into art and I hope that art reaches people and I hope that it can change things for the better, even in the smallest ways. 

I am angry. I disagree with reality as it is. I create something that can affect reality (however miniscule that effect might be).

You do not have to be fueled by anger. Maybe you’re fueled by something else. Maybe one day I will be too. This is how I do things right now. It is my answer but not the answer. 

If you are here for writing advice, take what works for you and dump the rest. Seriously. Even if I’m like, “This is an essential part of my process!!!!!!” If it doesn’t work for you, toss it in the bin. Or recycling. Or compost. 

Anyway. More will come. I will not promise a timeline. It will only lead to disappointment and despair.