Day 123.5: Things I've Learned...

From Writing This Book:

1. I am willing and able to put my creative work first, above all else. Even personal hygiene.

2. The numbers do not and cannot matter: word count, number of pages, your age, how long it's taking. All that matters is that you're writing.

3. The rituals work: gratitude, prayer, morning pages. It all works. Of course it does.

4. Hotel writing works, too. But next time, I resolve to write someplace sexier. And warmer. And with a pool.

4.5 And cabana boys.

5. Writing a book might mean having no social life for half a year. This frightens me.

6. Writing books is hard. But I also make things harder than necessary, so maybe writing books is really easy and I just did it wrong.

7. A lot of the bits I thought I'd throw away, I ended up using. Keep everything you write, just in case.

8. My ego is a fragile, monstrous thing.

9. Writing every single day is a good training/discipline thing, but isn't necessary. Creative work need time to brew and sections will refuse to come clear until they're good and ready. You can't force it.

10. Believe you are being led and you will never feel alone. Believe you are the only one doing the writing and you will have dark days of loneliness and despair.

11. The most incredible, supportive people in the entire world love me and have given me the space to do this, even though I have neglected them, been weird and freaky, begun to smell strangely and have forgotten how to sustain a normal conversation.