On Endings

A few things before the post: On Thursday, January 11th, I’ll be reading alongside Armin Tolentino and Veronica Sandoval to celebrate a year of the Constellation Reading Series! The event is from 7 to 9 at Tin House/Bishop & Wilde in Portland, OR. It’s free and will be live-streamed for anyone who can’t make it in person. (Please note that masks are required for everyone in attendance in the event space downstairs.)

There are a few slots left in my “Writing the Novel: Getting to the First Draft” course at Literary Arts. The class is online and will meet Monday nights from 6pm pt - 8pm pt (8pm et - 10pm et), starting on 1/22 and running 16 weeks until 5/6. The course is designed to cover every phase of the novel writing process from generating a first draft to publishing/finding an agent. There will be lots of generative writing exercises and lots of support. Truly perfect for anyone who put “write/finish a novel” on their NY’s resolutions list.

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I’ve sat down to write a newsletter several times over the past few months, but the letters never fully formed. I’ve been busy with teaching and bartending and finishing a draft of a novel. I’ve been distracted, unsure how to write anything and then immediately share it when there’s an ongoing genocide in Gaza. I wanted to write something at the end of the year, something about how the year had been (some good, some difficult things), but again, it never coalesced.

Maybe this will be something. I never know.

I’m thinking a lot about endings. End of the year, sure, but mostly I’m thinking of endings because I recently rewrote the end to my novel. It took a couple months, reimagining the scenario so my characters had more control and were making decisions for themselves instead of having their actions determined for them. I want readers to feel the characters’ mark on the ending, inevitable in some ways while still surprising.

In my own life, I can feel the private, quiet phase of the novel slipping away. Already there are more voices in my head as I edit this draft: my agent’s and the friends who’ve read it and offered notes. This is the second time I’ve been here, a few weeks before a book starts landing in front of editors, and it’s the second time I’ve felt this feeling. Everyone says it’s like birthing a child, so I imagine pushing the manuscript from my womb, the pages lying between my legs, wet with afterbirth. For four years, It’s mostly been me and the book, quiet in my back studio together. A little more each day. Gestating, they call it. I’ve told friends about her over coffee and drinks. I’ve shared pages at One Page every month. But mostly it was mine. It’s still mine, but it feels like my grasp is loosening, like maybe the book can learn a thing or two from being out in the world.

Two days after I sent the manuscript to my agent, I woke up at four a.m. with a couple ideas. I moved from the bed to the dining room table with my notepad. One of the lines is for the next next book, something I’ve been thinking about this past year, but seemed to come into focus in the early morning, a reminder that endings and beginnings overlap in many ways. Afterwards, I drank some water and went back to sleep.

Here I am on the last evening of 2023

Now it’s 2024 and I’m making line edits and fixing two chapters before I send it back out again. I haven’t been to my desk in two weeks. I spent the holidays with family, reading and eating. My studio feels a little stale, and it was hard to get to the desk. I kept reminding myself all morning that once I meditated, I’d feel like writing and that was mostly true today. I am not one for resolutions. When I was younger, I did silly ones (Go surfing! Learn how to make eggs benedict! Wear more bowties!), but even these never found fruition. Lately, I’m thinking about my career and what I want out of it, not goals per se, but more about why I write and what I hope it brings. I’m never exactly sure why I write, other than it feels like nothing else, and it’s something I really love doing. My career goal always feels the same, though it’s changed slightly over the years: I want to write as well and as much as I’m able. I like the rhythm that comes with writing a book: idea spark, turn inward, write in solitude for months/years, share, release. Share and release years are fun. They’re full of social events and nerves, but writing in solitude is gorgeous, something just for me. I know my phase of solitude is closing. I’m not ready for it, but I will be when the time comes.

Sending you many blessings and abundance in the New Year.