This piece is an update from Week 3 and 4 of my book writing journey — a behind-the-scenes paper trail of my process each week.
The last two weeks of writing have been a tug-of-war between inspiration and resistance. The intense resurgence in energy I felt three weeks ago has waned as I find and settle into my rhythm.
Some mornings, inertia takes hold and flow feels just beyond my reach. As I write, I notice a subtle clenching, a desire to retreat toward safety rather than put raw truth to paper. This desire to hold back, rooted in the fear of what if someone reads this, compels me to write these stories in a linear fashion, wringing all struggle, vulnerability, and raw emotion from the first draft.
And yet, the reality is that no one will read these first drafts. Writing the first draft of a book, as I’m coming to learn, is the act of getting comfortable writing as if no one is reading.
This part of the process is about creating space to allow truth to tumble out of me in all its imperfections, messiness, and rawness — inviting the words to spill onto the page, unbridled and unapologetic. That’s where the resonance and power of these stories live.
I’m not writing this first draft for my readers, my parents, my friends, or an audience. I’m writing for me — a younger me. A girl who longed to find herself and feel seen, to know that she wasn’t alone, and that her struggles weren’t in vain. This book is an offering to her: a testament to the simple truth that life was never about having the answers, but about asking the questions and living into them.
The filtered, sanitized versions of our experiences do our stories injustice — if we refine and polish our stories from the start, what’s left to share with the world by the final draft?
So every morning, I remind myself: let the words flow, let it crack me wide open, and let it rip.
As I’m reexamining how I write through this process of writing a book, these lessons are reshaping the way I approach short form pieces.
There are two ways I’m experimenting with emboldening myself and letting it rip:
Write as if I’m journaling: when I write stream of conscious, it often becomes clear there are still emotional blocks to certain experiences that need more time to be worked through and fully processed — the truth isn’t yet ready to be set free
Write out loud: turning on an AI voice recorder, going for a walk, and letting the stories move through me more naturally — the act of writing happens after my words are transcribed and I can sit with what came through
constraining the Muse
In Big Magic, Elizabeth Gilbert reflects on her relationship with her creative muse — a force that knows no bounds, often arriving to inspire her at all hours of the day. In the most inspired and creative seasons of my life, I feel a similar connection to my Muse. A sudden thought will cross my mind, pleading for me to sit down and unravel it. Sometimes, its unannounced arrival is welcome and I can create the space to make sense of it — other times, it’s the middle of the night and I wish to go to sleep.
Over the last few years, I’ve worked on creating the conditions to welcome my muse first thing every morning. I tend to be most attuned, clear-headed right after waking up, meditating, and journaling. While I’m still not as consistent as I’d like to be with protecting my morning writing block, I’m more disciplined about when it ends so that writing sessions don’t spill into the rest of my day.
Starting my day with writing is meant to fuel me, not drain me. At some point, it’s time to step away — I’d rather leave my session buzzing with inspiration than hollowed by exertion. The external constraint of having a workout class right after my scheduled session has been a helpful way to reinforce the boundaries I’m setting.
strong intentions, loosely held
At the start of each week, I’ve been experimenting with explicitly planning out what chapters I intend to write that week. Last week, I specified the exact chapters I wanted to finish first drafts for, but that felt too constraining. This week, I made space for inspiration to strike, setting an intention for two chapters I’d like to write, but welcoming whatever chapters wanted to materialize.
capturing the levity
The morning I wrote this update, the weather was impeccable. I used to spend many mornings outside, writing on a bench in my local park, drawing inspiration from the world around me. Sitting alone at a desk can feel so isolating — a drain in life force rather than a recharge.
Being outside that morning reminded me of the levity of writing. That writing is about capturing the magic the moment it strikes and allowing the next moment, the moment after that, and the moment after that to unfold until I have a collection of words that make up an essay, a book.
