Every time I tried to write this column it sounded sappy and poetic, two things that I secretly am but don’t like to admit.
But that’s what this column is about.
One year ago on this day, Feb. 4, I published my first book. That is a wild sentence that I never thought I’d say.
The biggest hurdle to writing and publishing, and the reason it took me until I was 26 to publish a book, is that whatever I write is the truest form of myself. That’s true for anyone who writes. Their style, their word choice, the way they tell a story are all indicative of the person writing it.
So basically, whatever I write is very indicative of myself. And that is both the best and worst part. When I let my best friend read it, she called me and told me how much of me she could see in my first book. But she’s known me for over 20 years, so she can recognize me anywhere. Others are seeing my writing for the first time.
What a terrifying thought. But I guess I get to read other people’s writing all the time, and also I write for a living. You all get to read my writing weekly, but writing a story out of my own brain is very different from reporting news or other people’s stories.
There’s a misconception that writing a book is easy, and in some ways it is. The whole putting words on paper is easy, the difficult part is having it make sense and constructing some kind of story, and then letting people see it. It’s like letting someone see all of my thoughts, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone because there’s a lot of them all the time.
In the past year, I published my second book, and in ten days on Feb. 14, I will publish my third book.
That is terrifying. But it’s also a relief to my mind to put another of my stories out into the world.