The early writing is foundation, not sacred

you won't keep it all, and that's okay...lessons from Loving Large

What am I going to do with all of this? I have 16 chapters and I can’t see how I could possibly fit them all in one book. Have you been hearing that?

You’re loyal to your work…of course you are. It took time and energy to harness a relationship of solidarity with the page and get that down. But that writing, was THEN, I’m here to say. It was the precursor, the foundation, the getting-it-out time.

You are a different writer and a different you now.

Brace yourself—oh, Wondrous Writer who counts your words, stacks your pages proudly, and uses an app to hit the daily “percentage of manuscript goal”—only a bit of it will end up in your final draft. Because you’ve made meaning of it since you wrote it, AND you’ve lived a life in the intervening time.

I overwrote my memoir Loving Large by at least twice, shaving away and trimming content for years until my editor got me to the final version. And I grieved what wasn’t there…for a long time. I thought that every single scene where Aaron and I suffered in a waiting room, mused over the mountain of food he would have after surgery or treatment, and teary wakeful spell in the night was too important to do without. But I didn’t need to show you 20 times how horrifying it was going into the MRI, bloodwork, brain surgeon’s office or tumour review board meeting. A couple of those told at length meant I only needed to remind you briefly that it was still that bad, and it was happening again.

The copious early draft pages, the teal floral journals filled, all live in boxes in the basement because I am loyal to our lived experience, not because I regret the cuts and inclusions of Loving Large’s final draft.

Be loyal and compassionate toward all of your writing. Hell, yes. Thank it for arriving at just the time that it did and rest assured if you need it, you’ll come back for it. But recognize that writing is iterative and cumulative. Every time you expose yourself to the page, it strengthens, distills, blooms and is imbued with meaning. Meaning that you can’t see while you’re in the living of it, or the writing of it.

Let the writing evolve. Your latest draft and your first draft are equally sources of gold.

It’s almost Loving Large’s third birthday, if you don’t have a copy (it is surprising how many of my followers, clients, and contacts don’t even know I wrote a memoir in 2020…please grab it on Kindle, paperback or the audiobook wherever you buy books.

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