Letting Go

Today is my birthday. But don’t worry, I’m off today. I wrote this a few days ago. Thank you for all the well wishes.

This post is for the writers out there. Thanks to everyone who subscribes to my little newsletter. I’m glad to know you like it. And thank you to the premium subscribers who help make Sitting in Silence possible.

At Mardi Gras, some years I do the most. I go to all the parades. I walk the whole city. I eat until I’m stuffed. Other years I stay home and watch it all on TV. Mardi Gras is a kind of birthday party for my city, and I treat my own birthday like Mardi Gras, alternating between frantic years and chill ones. This year, I’m feeling low-key and reflective, so perhaps I’m reading a book right now. Or writing a poem. Still, I wanted to post today because sharing feels like a gift to me. Enjoy.

The power of letting go.

I once heard a story about two women. One woman said that a second woman had abducted her infant. The second woman said the baby was hers. The women went to a local judge, who was also the head of state. The judge decided to solve the problem by offering to give each lady half of the child…oh, you’ve heard the story of King Solomon? It bothers me that we don’t know the name of the women in this old story, and that they’re treated as secondary figures in possibly the most important moment of their lives, but patriarchy is going to patriarch.

The “Judgment of Solomon” is about the wisdom of letting go. Life is full of such stories. Sometimes you find yourself smack dab in the middle of a story like that. The first writing conference I ever went to was BEA at the Javits Center in NY during the summer of 2004, if memory serves. I didn’t know an epigraph from an epitaph, but I was obsessed with learning about writing and publishing the book I was working on, so I hopped on a plane from the Big Easy to the Big Apple.

Most of that day is lost to my recollection. Which airport did I fly into? What hotel did I stay in? Did I catch a cab or the subway to my destination? I don’t know. I recall getting lost during my walk to the convention center but following a trail of people entering the building like ants to honey. I was only there for a few hours. I attended a book pitching session led by the agent and author Donald Maass. I’d read his book, Writing the Breakout Novel, and liked it. It’s been a big influence on me for almost twenty years now. His techniques are a big part of the reason why people don’t fall asleep when they read my books. I hope.

After the event, as I waited in line, I got to chatting with a man from Texas. Call him Bobby. Bobby was an amiable fellow. We talked about our home states. Our writing dreams. I noticed he had a spiral bound book in his arms. I’ll fictionalize our exchange for you.

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“What’s that?” Maurice said, rubbing his chin.

“Oh. Shucks.” Bobby glanced down and stroked the clear plastic cover. “This is my book. I’ve been writing it for 15 years, and I’m going to sell it, if it’s the last thing I do.”

Bobby would not go on to sell the book. He did a lot of things with the rest of his life but writing and publishing the fiction of his heart were not among those things. Over the years, Maurice would remember Bobby, who he never saw again, and who he imagined was still standing in line in Hall 3B of the Javits Center, cradling that manuscript like a chihuahua, the sound of light fixtures buzzing overhead like bees.

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Listen, I’ve met a lot of writers in my life. Writers are my favorite people, but I’ve noticed a sad character trait. Too many of us don’t like to let go of projects that torture us. Yes, there are plenty of stories of brilliant writers who started books many years ago. They were diligent, and the fates smiled on them. Their book was published to rave reviews, and they gained a large fanbase of dedicated readers. Yet, for every writer in that category, I wager there’s five or five hundred Bobbies. Someone who has a book that isn’t coming together. Someone who won’t admit the book may never come together.

The purpose of today’s post as I finally turn 25 years old* isn’t to discourage anyone from their path. I’d simply like you to check in with yourself.

Be honest.

Do you need more time to finish that book or do you need a new idea?

I have unpublished books that I started in 2004, 2007, 2010, and 2020. Every one of those books had promise. But each of them had knots I couldn’t untangle. Put more directly, those projects didn’t offer much fun. Here’s a verse from a band I listen to sometimes.

“The days assemble, what do I see?

A river running inside of me

Some have waded and many more will

We laid on the bank and had our fill.”

                from “Letting Go” by BRAIDS

If you’ve been struggling with a book over a long period, it may be time to try something new. I have found that when I move on from one pretty good idea, a truly wonderful idea is just over the horizon. The new idea is one that I was wholly unaware of, but when I stumble upon it like a desert traveler upon an oasis my spirit is renewed.

To be sure, I would never find the new project if I didn’t put down the old one.

In fact, before I bounce, I’ll give you two specific examples from my writing life. My first book, We Cast a Shadow, was published by One World Random House in 2019. I love that book so much. There’s nothing I would change about it. Whenever someone sends me a photo of it on an airport bookshelf, I smile with the glee of a child learning of a snow day. We Cast a Shadow only exists because of two books I started but never finished. In 2007, I wrote a book about handsome, sexy Black professional (nothing at all like me) making his way through career and relationships in New Orleans. I had recently binged on a bunch of Saul Bellow/Phillip Roth/John Updike and the work showed it. There was plenty of racial and ethnic angst. Lots of juvenile sex jokes. (I once made a roomful of ladies blush at a public reading. That was a moment.) But none of the writing felt deep enough or true enough. Sometimes writing is about answering questions in your soul. There, I was just scribbling on the surface of something.

In 2010, I sprinted in the opposite direction and wrote a draft of a book based on my short story, “The Pie Man.” This book was gritty, dark, neorealist, as classical film scholars might say. I only got 100 or so pages into the 2007 book, but I wrote a full draft of the 2010 book and I…kinda hated it. The character was in search of a good story that I couldn’t provide. I didn’t even want to revise that one.

I wasn’t panicked. I just kind of assumed that I would never fulfill my life goal of publishing a book I was proud of. No biggie.

But I wasn’t idyll. I was in grad school. I was reading as a writer. I was in a great writing group. Two, actually. I was writing flash fiction for myself. I was sending stories to journals. I was trying everything. That everything became the womb that birthed my first published book. Notice I said my first published book. Not the first book I wrote.

I believe that most writers need to have at least one unpublished book length project stashed away. Maybe this is a tribute to the muse. Or maybe this is just how we prove to ourselves that we’re serious about committing to the writing life. Writing and publishing a book requires patience, sacrifice, reflection, a dollop of madness, a willingness to reinvent oneself, some luck, and an endless supply of self-love. You can’t completely control the process, but you can evolve into a version of yourself brave enough to let go and move on to a future bigger and brighter than your imagination could dream of.

*Just making sure you’re still paying attention.