Quantifying the Unmeasurable
Almost 250,000 words have flowed out of me since I gave myself permission to write.
Writing, not for a paycheck, not for someone’s website, not for the dreaded marketing thought leadership article. For me. The act of giving myself permission was no small feat when I consider that I spent most the first fifteen years of my adult life waiting (not yet), the next ten wishing (soon), and the last five hedging (I want to, but…).
Recognizing those 250,000 words was a revelation, considering I had all but neglected my writer-self once I embarked on my career. Something that came so naturally to me as a child hadn’t crossed my mind as a thing I could do for a living. Who was I to choose the life of an artist? My bratty inner-child berates myself for being so dense and leaving writing on the table so long ago. My adult self is just focused on giving myself permission to return to writing, to play with it, and to ask what if. Permission to continue putting words on the page.
It’s been 545 days since a good friend, who was also seeking her own brand of empowerment, challenged us to 500 words a day. We aptly named it The Quest. The overachiever in me twitches when I consider that I only met the challenge thirty percent of the time, when, what I should celebrate are the 140 times I made time to write something original. More than 150,000 words have propelled me far beyond that first blank page.
It’s been 391 days since my Quest-mate threw down another gauntlet.
“Let’s do NaNoWriMo!”
It was Halloween. Gulp. I took the bait. I only got a third of the month in, but I was 12,000 words richer.
During NaNoWriMo, I made an early New Year’s resolution. I’d wholeheartedly permit myself to aspire to a bigger writing life in 2019. I would make time to write. I would invest in developing my writing. I’d attend workshops, join the Writer’s League of Texas, and find fellow writers and accountability partners. I set out to build a small community of writer-friends around me sure to insulate me from my excuses and the stuff-of-life that would push back against my newfound, yet precarious focus.
It has been 323 days since I had a long overdue catch-up with a friend who told me about a local writing community in Austin, The Writing Barn. Four days later, and with the fruit of the NaNoWriMo challenge, I applied to a six-month seminar called Write.Submit.Support.
I dove in this year, determined that the universe would not confuse my intentions. I performed a giant cannonball into the deep end. What felt like an audacious scheme all those months ago now feels like a natural part of my identity.
By granting ourselves permission to write, to create, to make, we give ourselves permission to turn inward. To turn away from the daily grind. Put aside our day-to-day demands, responsibilities, and requirements of adulthood. It is permission to return to myself, the self that creates.
This permission can seem inherently selfish, particularly for women, mothers especially. I’m not a mother, but I can relate to that instinct that makes sure all the practicalities are figured out, and that everyone is settled before turning to yourself. I can relate to feeling frivolous in the act of devoting time away from clients and work that pays me towards something that may not earn me anything monetary, any time soon.
Since I gave myself permission to let my writing lead me where it may, I’ve become acquainted with a better me. I’m less anxious. I’m happier. I’m a better friend, a better partner, a better neighbor. Meeting my desire to create makes me better. It took me by surprise, this turn of self. But recently, I was listening to Episode One of Liz Gilbert‘s podcast, Magic Lessons. She was encouraging a mom who felt guilty devoting time away from her children to write her book. Liz read a quote from the author, A.S. Byatt, which I thought perfectly encapsulated why it’s not selfish to turn inward in this way.
“I think of my writing simply in terms of pleasure. It’s the most important thing in my life: making things. Much as I love my husband and children, I love them only because I am the person who has the project of making a thing. And because that person does that all the time, that person is able to love all those other people.”
In April, 209 days ago to be exact, I dropped “aspiring.” When someone asks me what I do now, I say that I’m a writer. I’ve always been a writer. I just hadn’t given myself permission to admit what I wanted, to give it a whirl, and to let it flourish. Who knows what will happen in this writing life, but I’m excited to find out. I’m also determined to give myself permission to celebrate the small victories along the way. Like the words I’ll have written for NaNoWriMo this month. I’m not going to reach the 50,000-word goal, but I’ll reach a respectable 30,000. Thirty-thousand little reasons to celebrate.
Add those to the quarter-of-a-million words(!!) I’ve amassed since I gave myself the go-ahead. They may be unpublished. Many of them are private. But all of them are mine. It has been useful to look back as I consider what to reach for in my writing life in 2020. Quantifying how far I’ve come is the fuel I need for granting myself permission going forward.
