I haven't been this excited about a writing project in a really long time. I'm working on a series of novellas themed around the four points of the year (winter + summer solstice, spring + autumn equinox). Because the market for novellas is so small, and the small presses and journals that would publish a novella are not likely to take on four of them, for the first time in my life I have been released from the pressure to publish. I can just write for the pure fact that I want these stories to exist. I'm sure some people would say that that's how I should have been writing from the beginning. It's not that that wasn't true for my earlier projects, just that the specter of possible publication was always the goal I was working towards. And while a goal like that can be motivating, there's also something really freeing about not needing it anymore. I'm writing these books for me. I'm writing them in order to become a better writer, to really hone my revision skills, to make them the best that I can make them. And hopefully, when I return to full length novels, I'll have the confidence to know that I can carry them through to the end.

With this revelation, I'm also trying to change my habits and mindsets around writing. I don't want to spend hours avoiding writing and feeling guilty about it. I want to get really curious about the unknown, rather than being terrified of a blank page. I want to stop idealizing being a writer, and embrace the messy, repetitive, unglamorous, but also infinitely rewarding process of actually writing.

The writer Sarah Elaine Smith says that writers are people who have to become comfortable with uncertainty, and who are intimately acquainted with mystery. They interface with the unknown every time they sit down to write. Perhaps that is what people mean when they tell you to "surrender to the process."

I'm not exactly sure how to do that, but I do know that I can make a start, like the promise to look at my manuscript every day. Even if I don't write a single word, at least I have kept the door open. Which brings me to the title of this post- an idea I've been toying with for the past few writing sessions. What if writing wasn't a state of mind I had to rise to the level of? Some level of concentration I had to reach? What if it's simply a place I go? A room, or a house to explore. Places just exist. They are not dependent on mood or circumstance. They are not morally good or bad. They don't have goals, at least not beyond providing shelter. What if I could simply open the door and stay a while?

That's what I want writing to be. I'm tired of trying to create the perfect writing routine that I never stick to. I'm tired of my level of satisfaction being tied to my word count. It might take some time, but I hope I can get to a place where writing is a place I can go, a refuge even. I won't always know what's on the other side of the door. The room changes every time. But every day, I will step inside, and I will find out. Because that's what writers do.