I keep a running list titled Things I Want to Write About, which is an insanity in itself because the list gets longer and longer and my free time less and less, and the more I think about it, the crazier I get. So, I don’t think about it. In fact, it helps not to plan too much during the early phases of anything I’m working on. Unless I’m working on something specific, usually I rely on a new project finding me.

The real utility of this method seems to be that usually it drags several things on my list into the mix at once. Even then, I try not to overthink it. I like to mix these different colors together and paint outside the lines to see what it will look like. After a while, when things are taking accidental shape, only then do I rein things in and impose some kind of order—but usually I’m acting to preserve the accidental more than anything.

By then, the narrative is taking on a conversation all its own, one I couldn’t possibly have planned. My approach is this: I figure, if I’m moved by this, the reader probably will be too. In fact, trusting our own reading minds to be similar enough to anybody else’s is about the best thing we can do for ourselves as writers.

I forget who said it, but “No surprise for the writer yields no surprise for the reader” (or whatever) might as well be one of the Commandments of writing. Carve that shit into your desk. If what you’re trying to convey is speaking to you on a fundamental level, you’re probably onto something. The key, then, is ensuring you’re sending this transmission in an intriguing way which hopefully cannot be ignored.

And yet, the trouble with any labor of love, at least for me, is cutting ties with it. To “finish” anything is to move onto something else. Such is life, but that doesn’t make it any easier. Maybe that’s why I’m so bad at wrapping up my often-sprawling, tangent-laden narrative yarns. Or why I tend to let relationships go on past their expiration dates. To invest one’s self fully in anything is to not want to let it go. To want to keep working at it, to keep improving it.

But, at least when it comes to writing: when it’s time, send it off and let it go. And move on. Find comfort in the fact that it’s still out there. Hope it’s making love with everyone it encounters.