I started a major creative nonfiction writing project today. While I am excited, I am mostly terrified. I am telling myself not to let it grow too big before it is even born. I am telling myself not to tell people any specifics. I am telling myself not to plot the end before I have begun the beginning.
Slow slow slow. Steady steady steady. I am telling myself this too.
Write your time then forget about the writing until it’s time to write tomorrow.
I wrote the following affirmation and copied it at the top of what may or may not be page one. I will copy and paste it every day at the top of what may or may not be, that day, also page one.
The affirmation:
I allow myself to be a beginner. I allow myself to write the most miserable shit that has ever been written. I let go of the outcome. I consciously let go of the outcome. I release. I accept.
I accept. I accept. I accept.
-M.
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Published by M. Ashley
I am an essayist and poet. My work has been rejected by some of the finest journals in America. Fortunately, it also gets accepted from time to time and has appeared in equally fine journals such as Word Riot, Inlandia, Brew City Magazine, and SageWoman, among others.. In 2002, I won the Academy of American Poets Prize for Vanderbilt University.
For no good reason, I possess an unnecessarily dark humor which is why being third generation California Inland Empirian delights me so. My gods are weird. I once won $350 for writing a smartassed essay on “why the wise use of water is important in my daily life”. I am undoubtedly the Greek god Hermes’ special snowflake. I’m pretty sure I got into college via a series of fortuitous clerical errors.
When I had to grow up and get a real job, I decided against it and stayed a writer. I have worked many odd—and I mean odd—jobs to support my habit: PR writer for country music hopefuls, resume massager, WalMart fitting room attendant and switchboard operator, and telephone psychic, just to name a few.
I am also albino. That's why my psychic gifts are so strong. I traded in my pigment for magical foresight, because that's how it works. It gets all technical. Trust me. That's totally how it works.
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M. N. Ashley 