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A Love Letter To Writers
When I write, later I remember the objects around me when I was writing. I remember the smell of the room and the thoughts and feelings in my mind and heart. I remember, later when I look at the ink. Ink dries. Digital pixels do not. And as the ink dries and ages, my heart and brain keep track of an approximate time between the fresh ink and archived thoughts, plans, and memories.
“You’re writing notes?” My boss asked me this a very long time ago. “Everything is in the powerpoint we’ll send you.”
“Oh…it helps me remember. It helps me understand.”
I kept writing, but I felt self-conscious.
I want to help create a world where nobody feels self-conscious for putting pen to paper.
“I am afraid to mess up the notebook,” I’ve heard so many people say.
I have never been afflicted by this fear. I love messing up notebooks. I’ve loved it since I was four years old and had a collection of half-finished 50 cent notebooks stashed in my secret things. So much possibility. So much self-expression. I wanted to fill the notebooks up and make the next one better. Better words. Better story. Better handwriting.
I never stopped.
Here’s an excerpt from the novel I’m writing, Falling Towards the Sun © Marisa Grace Porter:
“I have something for you,” my mother said.
Mother took something smooth and hard out of her pocket. “I always wanted you to have it, and it will help keep you…near.”
There was something else in her eyes besides sentimentality, and I looked at them for a few moments before looking back down at her hand.
It was a pendant, like a star, made of some kind of metal with a jewel in the middle. It started glowing at my mother’s touch.
She placed it in my hand.
It was warm.
“Agomite?” I guessed.
“Yes. It was engineered to power up when in contact with Eradornnian electromagnetic pulses. Not just any, but ours.”
“Wow,” I said.
“And what’s the jewel in the center?”
“That’s a secret no one knows about that I call Solumbra.”
It was beautiful. Like a partially translucent white stone, but shot through with micro streaks of translucent green and blue.
“Solumbra.” I repeated. I had never seen it before.
“Yes, it’s very rare, so it’s only used for extremely important things.”
“Like a…necklace?” I teased.
“It’s just not any necklace. It’s something to guard very well.”
“And you made this?”
Mother’s eyes went all soft and she didn’t answer, busying herself with slipping the necklace around my neck and closing it.
“Beautiful,” she nodded. “But you should keep it hidden.”
I wasn’t sure why she said this, but I let it slip inside my shirt.
“Did you know,” she suddenly said, “That we are always just falling towards the sun?”
“What?” I laughed, caught off guard by the sudden shift in conversation.
“Yes,” she said. “We fall towards the sun because of its gravitational pull. But we miss it. Then it pulls us back in again.”
“Trippy.” I said.
“I know,” she said.
“And did you know,” I suddenly said, very matter-of-factly. “That every star probably has its own world of people living on its very own Eradornn orbiting it?”
“Well, that’s never been proven.” Mom said, but I could hear the smile in her voice.
“I know.” I said. “It’s probably not true.”
“I wonder,” my Mom said quietly,” …if there’s anyone out there at all.” Her tone surprised me, not confident like she usually was.
“Are you ready to go?” She asked after a few more minutes.
“You go ahead. I…want to stay a few more minutes.”
“Okay, but don’t be too long.” Mother rose and walked away.
I stayed for a long time, watching the stars, thinking about Eradornn falling towards the sun over and over again, and wondering why Mother had sounded so sad and wistful when she wondered if anyone else was out there. Somewhere light years away from Eradornn…. in those little bright dots of stars.
And then I got into my little Disc and flew home.” © Marisa Grace Porter, 2023
I feel so close with my novel some days. Other days so far away. But I do know I wouldn’t have gotten this far by being afraid to write. By having planner pages that felt like straitjackets, or by having too many notebooks to carry. Yes, my Owl Paper Planner Journal has helped me get much closer to my novel being finished. Because I write a whole page, or I write a note. The whole page gets indexed. So does the note, and it gets an icon, and that icon gets indexed. Yes, I have a separate notebook for my novel. It’s fairly easy to keep track of both. But I don’t worry about not having paper when I go out with just my “Mom Book.” (Not all of us have a Frances to our GK).
But the other big thing that has helped me get closer is this:
Writing for 30 minutes a day. (And I track this in my planner journal).
That’s one atomic habit that grew from 15 minutes a week (yes, only 15 minutes a week).
Start small. Start somewhere.
This is a love letter to all you writers.
I believe in you.
Marisa Porter
Paper Forever