Maybe You're Just Collecting Information

We put so much pressure on ourselves to know.

What do you want?

Where are you going?

What's the plan?

What's the right decision?

Sometimes the honest answer is, I don't fucking know yet.

I'm in the process of writing a novel, and the other day I was working on a scene that just would not fucking work.

I knew how I wanted it to feel. I knew how I wanted the reader to feel. But I couldn't explain exactly what I wanted.

So I kept trying things.

Nope.

Not that.

Try again.

Still not it.

And after enough rounds of this, I started getting frustrated because it felt like I was getting nowhere.

Except I wasn't.

Every time I said, "No, that's not it," I was actually learning a little more about what I wanted.

And it made me realize how often we think we need to know exactly what we want before we start.

But sometimes you don't know what you want until you see what you don't want.

And holy shit, isn't that true about so much more than writing?

Sometimes the relationship that wasn't right teaches you what you need in one that is.

Sometimes the job you hate shows you what actually matters to you in your work.

Sometimes the version of yourself that feels completely off helps you recognize the version that feels like you.

Sometimes you have to try something and say, "Nope. Not fucking that."

That doesn't mean it didn't work.

You don't have to have the whole thing figured out. Sometimes you find what fits by noticing what doesn't. That counts too.

Maybe you're not as lost as you think.

Maybe you're just collecting information.

Always, be real. ♥