Souffle #1

Well, here goes.

My name is Alicia and I am a writer.

That’s how affirmations work, right? We state what we are and then work towards becoming it, or at least believing in our own potential? I don’t have a lot of practice with this, being a gifted self-doubter. Whoops, that’s telling, not showing. Off to a great start.

I have spent the past five years doing, I suspect, what many others do: Googling every (free) writing course, possibly even doing one or two of them, reading every blog post, every Reddit thread on How To Be A Writer or, more specifically, How To Write A Novel (That Is So Good The Planets Will Collide In Their Rush to Celebrate You). Signed up for NaNoWriMo every year for a century only to write 250 words before getting frustrated and giving up. I will say this for every guide out there — all of them talk about the discipline required to sit down and write, and they are RIGHT. Ideas are all well and good but they are difficult for readers to enjoy if they never actually make it to a page.

So here I am, attacking from a different angle. Well, it’s the same angle, different platform. Along with the Google Everything game I have been playing the If Only I Had game, where I continually put up hurdles to keep myself from actually working towards my goal, and my last roadblock just cleared on Christmas. No more excuses. I had bookmarked David Kadavy’s excellent and thorough post “How to Write a Book” and since I already had a Medium account, I decided this would be where I begin.

I can do 10 minutes a day. I can document my executive dysfunction, build a habit and set some realistic goals. I may not write a book this year but I can approach it like baking a souffle: gather the ingredients, be gentle with them, be patient as it bakes and expect it to fall the first few times. Practice souffles won’t wow anyone but they’ll still be edible, and in time, I’ll bake one I’m happy with.