From the Desk
Stories, observations, and dispatches from a writer whose granddogs have strong opinions about the creative process.
I finished chapter seven this morning. Biscuit finished it shortly after. We have different opinions on the ending, but his was more thorough. A meditation on collaboration, destruction, and the surprisingly motivating power of having to rewrite something from memory.
Dear Waffles, I understand the keyboard is warm. I understand it is exactly your size. I am asking you, as your grandmother and your biggest fan, to please get off it. An open letter that has so far gone unread, because Waffles cannot read.
There is a chaos that only a dog at full sprint through a dark house can produce. I have decided it is not an interruption to my creative process. It IS my creative process. A philosophical defense of being woken up by something that loves you very much.
He didn't eat the whole thing. Just the ending. Which, if I'm being honest, needed work anyway. On the strange gift of having your worst pages destroyed before anyone else can read them.
A dog will circle the same spot seventeen times before lying down. They are not being indecisive. They are being thorough. I have started applying this principle to my second drafts. It is going well. Mostly.
Waffles sleeps approximately nineteen hours a day and wakes up with more energy than anyone I have ever met. I am taking notes. A serious inquiry into rest, restoration, and what happens to a story when you stop trying so hard.
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