Spring 2025 Update
From a recent visit to Snoqualmie Falls, WA
Hello there. It's been a while since I've written a post (though I've been writing in the digital garden), and my blog looked a bit sad. So I'm writing an update of what I've been up to this year. My dad passed away suddenly in late January. We spent a few days in the hospital where we were optimistic he would recover from a cardiac event before watching the life slip out of him. It was the worst experience of my life.
I spent all of February dealing with grief, the memorial service, and helping my mom with his affairs and their house. I won't write too much about it here since I have another blog post about the grief process that I'll post when I get around to finishing it.
Between the stresses of my dad's passing, arranging the memorial service, and keeping up with my work, I got sick three times between February and March. I swear to never do that again if I can help it--arrange a memorial service while grieving. Next time, I'm waiting at least six months or until I'm good and ready. Of course, it was my mom's choice, but we were getting some pressure from family members and felt obligated to do something. We had help, but much of the work fell on me because I'm the one who had time, computer skills, and willingness (unlike my brother). I also had to get up and read the eulogy in Mandarin, which was another big source of anxiety. Overall, negative ten out of ten, would not recommend.
Reducing perfectionism...again
I'm finally getting caught up and settling back into my routines again in April and May. Getting back into writing after being away is usually quite enlightening because I see my work with fresh eyes. But this time, I was at a loss as to what to write next. I started going to my local writing group again, and I asked the people there for advice on how to get unstuck when they don't know how to proceed with a book project.
One writer gave me excellent advice that I took to heart. Tara Campbell, a six-times published author, told me that her most recent book came about unintentionally. She was writing short stories that fascinated her, and one person in her other writing group suggested that they could be strung together to form a longer work. So because she wrote the short stories with no expectations for what they would be, the book came together nearly effortlessly over a year and a half.
I found her experience inspiring, and it fits what I've learned about creativity but have had intermittent success in putting to practice. From the book Fearless Writing, I've learned that following what feels good is the easiest way to write. But I still have layers of doubt that what feels good or comes easily to me is not "authoritative" enough. That it's not enough to be myself and write about my experiences, but I have to generalize my experience and back it up in order to reach more people. There are times when I feel inspired enough and confident enough to write this way, but more often I'm not there. I've learned to not force it when nothing's there, but sometimes I end up avoiding writing instead of working through the tough spots, which isn't helpful either.
I've also been thinking about posting things that are less fully written to my digital garden, like shorter notes with random thoughts that don't connect to others, or even notes written in bullet points. After hearing Tara's experience, I noticed that I was trying to write according to my outlined chapters rather than let my curiosity guide me and see what shows up. Because my digital garden is public, I feel the pressure to have it be well-written and presentable, but the creative process is not always like that. It requires me to me to play with ideas, learn new things, follow different threads of interest before connections are made.
So I've been asking myself, what if I wrote this for me, first, rather than for other people? What if I wrote more randomly based on my interests rather than follow my pre-determined structure? What would it look like then? How would I write?
What if I let the writing show me what it wants to be, rather than demand what it should be?
In many ways, writing a book is somewhat like pregnancy and giving birth, or at least what I imagine it's like. While I do have an outline of the book and a clear intention, the process of writing is not just getting the words out of my head. It's a lived experience. The details are developed within me and through my life. Yet, it has a mind of its own and is not entirely controlled by me--if it were, I'd have finished it long ago.
I'm now at a place where I'm okay with not making money from writing, and I don't need it to prove my worth (mostly). I'm finding that I can let my curiosity lead more easily than ever before, but it's easy to default to my tendency to plan and want to know where I'm going. I'm sure I've asked myself these same questions before, either in blog posts or privately. Nevertheless, the layers of my perfectionism are getting more subtle and easier to relax. That's progress!
Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear your thoughts. Let me know down below!
