I Am Writing My First Book

I decided to start calling myself an author now. This process has been years, decades in the making. In the past few weeks I’ve started drafting the raw material that will at some point be my first book. It came to me that I don’t have to wait until the book is published to begin calling myself an author. I am already inside the heart of the process of authoring this work. I am already performing all the labors it will take to bring this book to life. I am already what I am also becoming.

I asked a dear mommy friend, who is also an editor, to work with me on this project. I have my first due date for a rough draft to get to her. It’s my birthday, coming up in a few weeks. Every morning before the munchkins are awake I try and write something. I don’t worry about it being cohesive, fully fleshed out, or even really good writing. I get words on the page. I know there will be time to transform these words into a strong, compelling narrative. For now, my job is to just write, and write, and write.

Recently I located and organized all my journals spanning the 20 years of my life from young adult, to woman, to artist, to invisible mother, to birthworker, to mother, to mother mother. This collection of pages journeys through major and minor life changes, relationships, travels, creative projects, pregnancy, losses, recoveries, births, career advancements, life partnership, familymaking, mothering stories, dreams, and the root motivations of characters I am constantly creating for short stories, novels, and plays. Having all my journals on one united shelf feels like a fullness I’ve been needing to experience for so long. The journals have been with me all this time, but they’ve never lived so intimately as they do now, gathered together in the shared celebration of their contributions to my evolution as a mothering artist.

Most of what’s in these journals has nothing to do with the content of the book I’m writing. But the accumulated magnitude of all the words, my words, in close proximity to me supports this knowing that I am already an author. The words, the sentences, the poems, the paragraphs, the scribbles in the margins, the pages, the bound volumes and spiral notebooks and loose papers of life documentation offer a sort of proof, and act as a loving witness to my process. It’s like situating my words so near to me helps me make new words. I am never starting from scratch, in this way. I am always building onto more of my practice. The foundations of my format, and tone, and flow for this book are readily available to me. I can trace my beginnings seamlessly, even as I push passionately forward into new literary worlds.

This writing process, more than anything, excites me. Even when I feel like I don’t know all of what I’m going to say at the start of a new essay, or whether what I’ve spent the precious, pre-dawn, pre-munchkin circus hours writing will actually make it to the final draft—I feel a deep satisfaction in having poured myself into my practice anyway. I love that I have added in some way to the larger becoming of my authorhood. Every word matters, because just like steps, it brings us into the next word, and the one after that, and the one after that. The process for creating my first book is showing me, over and over again, the magical, limitless nature of writing. It is bringing me into more intimate communion with the art of crafting my own narrative, and connecting it to the broader human story of life. For this, I am already so grateful. Everyday, I look forward to stretching and growing more and more into my words. This book is happening. Here we grow!