“This is how you do it; you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy, and that hard.” -Neil Gaiman
I just spent the last two weeks pouring over the final, final (final) edit of my book. This entailed taking the finest-toothed comb of my attention to a massive PDF file containing what publishers call “proofs,” the designed pages of my book. And I gotta tell you, they look great.
That might not seem like the most exciting thing in the world (believe me, it's not) but it did offer me a new vantage point on a piece of work that has now occupied 3 years of my life. When you’re that deep into a project, be it a book or a business, it’s hard to see it from the outside. After doing that for the past two weeks, some of these reflections have emerged about the writing process itself.
I’ve also had various friends and people I respect ask me about writing and my journey of crafting my book. There is no magic formula. The answer, as dear Neil says above, is that I simply sat down, and started, writing one word after the next until I had something that felt weighty and wild enough to be complete.
While it really is that simple, I thought I’d share some reflections on the writing process and what I’ve learned after apparently birthing a 300 page book that will very shortly take corporeal form and appear on shelves this Fall.
In fact, pre-orders are now available, and I’d like to cordially invite you to get a copy if you feel so inclined. You can do that through this link, and wherever books are sold (though I highly suggest you go through my local bookshop, Powell’s).
If you’re a writer yourself, you could stop reading this now, open up a blank page, and just begin. Though my hope is that these reflections will serve you in your process, and perhaps offer some simple jewels of guidance and fortitude as you embark on your own journey of creation.
Tracking Wild Inspiration
Creativity begins with noticing what catches our attention, and following where it leads. Like beholding a paw print in muddy soil or hearing an owl beckoning from a hemlock grove, we are drawn deeper into an imaginal terrain that asks us to step outside the confines of what we know. Creativity then becomes a process of discovery, something both confronting and confirming, as we are led outside ourselves by forces decidedly wild and blessedly untamed.
Ask any artist or creative midwife and they will tell you the same thing: Inspiration does not emerge from you, from ego consciousness, but from a source far beyond it. There is something inherently more-than-human going on when we are in a creative space.
I often feel like more than half the time being “creative” is spent out in the imaginal forest, so to speak–waiting, watching, and wondering. Hours pass. Maybe I am writing, maybe I am not. But something in the unconscious or the sensorial is stirring just beyond view. I am waiting for a glimpse of something other than myself that captures my attention. This is the moment.
When that wild, inspirational being crosses our path, we must be ready to follow it. Sometimes it leads to a dead end, or an impenetrable thicket of ideas that might be better left alone (or that simply don’t make sense). But other times, it leads to a meadow in full bloom, a secret cave, an ancient temple of memory–places where good ideas emerge from.
It feels like I am tracking these wild imaginal beings. Not hunting. Not trapping. Not chasing (although sometimes my fingers have to run to catch up). Tracking: feeling my way through the forest of imagination, step by step, carefully examining each broken branch, each scuffed patch of moss, or whatever catches my attention next. I often get lost. But when an idea is good, it has a strong scent, and I can tell that I am on a trail that will lead me somewhere interesting.
In my book, each chapter begins with a story or myth. It eventually became clear that I needed to learn the story and retell it in my own language while also staying true to the original source (or sources). Sometimes this took weeks, as I navigated competing mythic texts, translations, or versions. I needed to really feel the thing under my skin, and know it from the inside.
Here’s the weird part: the more I immersed myself in the stories, the more they began to talk back. Characters and images would come to life as I delved into these mysterious tales. Bizarre synchronicities started occurring. The stories have a mind all their own. Trust me on this.
Tracking wild inspiration means that our ideas have a psychic autonomy that can lead us to places we don’t expect or understand. It might be one of the most rewarding and fascinating parts of creative work. And when the work is finished, it begins a new life in the mind of whoever encounters it next.
My all-time favorite podcaster, Blindboy Boatclub, routinely features extensively researched audio-essays (what he calls “hot takes”) that focus on whatever bizarre historical rabbit hole piqued his interest that week. His podcasts cover everything from the connection between breakfast cereal and Victorian-era sex cults to Irish mythology and folklore. I highly recommend them. The point is that he fiercely follows where his inspiration leads him. And often, the truth is far stranger than we could even begin to imagine.
Write it for You
The first year of working on my book, I just let inspiration flow. Half-formed Ideas, obscure historical tangents, and sometimes entire chapters would pour out of me, most of which never made the final cut. I knew during this time that I needed to just let the wild horse of my imagination gallop where it wanted, and reign it in only when I had lost the trail.
A year and a half after I started writing the book, I carefully put together a non-fiction book proposal that I submitted to North Atlantic Books. I was blessed with a warm introduction to the publisher, but I didn't think for a second that it was a guarantee of anything. I submitted my proposal in December of 2022. And then I waited, and waited, and waited.
I was re-adjusting to the harsh realities of the Oregon winter after living off and on in Jamaica for the past 18 months. Predictably, it was a rough ride, and that year I found myself navigating a bout of seasonal depression, compounded by the grief of losing two people close to me. I took a break from writing, because I was waiting to hear back from the publisher, or so I told myself. After about two months of waiting, I began losing hope.
Eventually I began writing again. “Fuck it,” I told myself. “I’m just going to continue like this book is already happening, like I already have the book deal. I’m doing it for me at this point.” I cracked on, and began to detach from the potential of ever hearing back about it.
And then I began to notice something: the days when I wrote, I felt better. The sensation after a morning spent immersed in the myth world, being in flow, and producing something for me, felt incredible. Just like a long hike or a run, writing became an essential part of my self-care routine, a ritual of tending to my inner landscape. Writing became a reward in itself.
And then I heard back from the publisher.
You don’t have to look hard to find books that are written to appeal to a trending market, cobbled together by algorithmically-minded hacks only interested in making a buck. The world is full of cheap books that could have been blog posts, with chapters that could have been sentences, and sentences that could have been bullet points.
Celebrities and influencers don’t even write their own shit. They hire ghostwriters. I’ve known business-coaching bros who have attempted to do the same, or hire some virtual assistant to duck-tape together something using unhinged, consciousness voice memos and market research data. It didn’t work out well.
Forget what others want. Write it for you.
The Blank Page - Resistance
Steven Pressfield, in his monumental work, The War of Art, said it best: Resistance is the enemy. Resistance will devise a thousand insidious tactics to try and pull you away from your work. Resistance, not fear, is the mind killer.
The feeling of facing the blank page is potent because it is full of immense energy. Sometimes that energy is fear, which in turn becomes resistance and all its maddening shapes. But other times that energy can become something transformative.
Yet the blank page is actually an alchemical container. It involves all of the primary alchemical colors: white, black and red. It begins with a white expanse soon to be filled with solid black words inked into existence by human will and imagination, eventually marked with the purifying glow of the red editor’s marks, refining the prima materia of your work into something that might eventually take on a life of its own. These three ancient esoteric colors are strangely imbued into our modern day word processing apps and writing practices. Don’t ask me why.
Because the blank page is an alchemical space, prepare for heat and pressure. I personally work well with deadlines, and I experienced several (rather intense) deadlines while writing my book. The first was to get a workable draft to Tim McKee, the publisher at North Atlantic who was gracious enough to be my first reader. I remember approaching entirely uncharted territory during this period, facing blank chapters that seemed like impossible wildernesses I needed to cross.
But just showing up and sitting down in front of the blank page is half the battle. Show up, and the words will come. You will make it through.
Thanks for reading! As always, if you enjoyed what you found here, please consider subscribing and sharing with your friends.