On Writing

Tour guide are really just teachers & storytellers, and most well-crafted verbal stories start as written ones. There’s about a dozen stories I want to have ready for my Drink•Eat•Walk tours, stuff like ‘Why DC looks the way it does’, “Ethiopians in DC” and ‘Why you’re stuffing a delicious Papusa in your mouth’. I’ve spent months researching & reading about the topics I want to cover, but finally started the hardcore writing last week. The goal is to “finish” one story per day.

It’s so hard, though, and it makes me physically squirm when I sit down for writing time each day. But I’m actually enjoying some, and not just when I’m “done”. Part of the reason I’ve had a writing goal each year was to get better at writing by forcing production & repetition. I didn’t have a specific reason for wanting to get better at writing, I just knew it was something I needed to work on.

I still don’t love my writing, as I still don’t think it adequately captures the IRL me. But these writing sessions have been more enjoyable than any writing I’ve done in the past. It’s especially thrilling when I’m able to sometimes drop into The Zone, and emerge in a daze hours later with a completed story. Perhaps I’m liking it more now because I’m writing for me to speak, and I know I’ll be able to inject the real me then? I don’t know, I just know it’s working, once I de-squirm and settle.