So today I promised myself that I would write this outline.

I have to somehow get Cassandra from the house into the field. What are the possibilities here?

I bought this book that says if you write anything but do it everyday then you are a writer. I actually have to write at least 500 words a day or I think I’m cheating myself. So basically I’ve been cheating myself for quite some time. I always think no one will know. But I know. And suddenly that is enough. What I think of myself is way more important than what anyone else thinks of me.

A dear writer friend once said her greatest fear was lying on her death bed and asking herself:

What if I had finished that screenplay?

There is something so penetrating about that question especially if you’re asking it on your deathbed. And if I never tried. What would happen then? I have to try. Because without trying I’ve already defeated myself before I ever start.

I’m terrified that it will be shitty. I’m terrified people won’t like it. That it will be crap.

Well I have actually gotten that kind of feedback. And you know what is so precious? I can just rewrite it. I can make it better. I can have an editor help me structure it or rearrange it or see the flaws that I don’t see. I can keep writing every day until one day it is all done. And I can finally start another one. Day after day after day.

And that is what art is.

The long haul marathon.

I might actually finally be getting on board.

I will not let someone else or myself or my wounds or my failures or my perceptions hold me back any longer. Not one more day. Never again. Enough of that.

I’m writing.