The Rapture of Writing

It was raining in Los Angeles, and the cafe I usually stop in before work was closed. I’ve carved out an hour of writing before work every day, and I was determined not to miss a day. So I hunkered down in my car and wrote in the rain.

There are so many terrible things in this world. So many things that cause me anxiety. But, for that hour every day, no force can touch me. The only news that concerns me for this one hour is the news in this little corner of the world that I’m creating. The only doomscrolling is the hell I’m putting my main character through.

For years, I would lament that I only had an hour a day to write. But that feeling has slipped by me. Instead, I look forward to this one hour, and because I have no distractions, I truly feel alive to possibilities. I’ve always rolled my eyes when writers say “the characters were telling me what to write”, but sometimes, sometimes, it does feel like that.

You read something back, and you wonder who wrote that?

Where did that come from?

It’s exciting to feel like a stranger to yourself.

Driving into work after my one-hour sojourn, I’m sometimes swirling with emotions. Music overtakes me. Grief. Happiness. Melancholy. A song can knock me off kilter. I feel raw and alive.

These extreme emotions are things I’ve felt my entire life. It’s always been coupled with the desire to transmute those swirling feelings into something worth reading. Something worth a damn. That endless chase to connect with another human being, even if it’s for a laugh.

Writing is hard, they say.

How do you find an audience, they say.

How do you make a living?

Yes, yes, yes, but also:

Is it not wonderful?

In the age of AI doom and gloom, let’s not forget the feeling that passes through you as you struggle with the words, trying to get them to align into some sort of shape. Some sort of human feeling to pass to another human being. One more time, this time with feeling, one more day, one foot in front of the other. And you’re off off and away.

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