I didn’t write about how hopeless I felt about my writing just before the holidays. (Who wants to hear someone griping about anything during Christmas?) But I did feel hopeless. And it wasn’t one of those “I’ve had a shitty day writing, so please leave me alone,” kind of thing. It was a deep hopelessness. An “I’ve spent the last two and a half months writing and every single page - every single word - of it has gone into the garbage,” hopeless.

Then Christmas came - and with it, all the demands of shopping and wrapping and being Santa Claus for our children. Whether I wanted to or not, I had to leave the manic pounding, the frantic searching of this character behind for a while. I had to sit still - in another kind of way - and be quiet.

And so I stood outside with my 5-year old on Christmas Eve night as she wrung her hands and stared up at the inky sky. “Don’t worry,” I said softly, anticipating her next question. “He knows the way.”

“But how?” she persisted. “Does he have a map?”

“I think so.”

“What if he loses it?”

I glanced over at my husband for help. “Rudolph knows,” he said, without missing a beat.

And that (thankfully) was enough. We put out a few extra carrots for Rudolph, (just in case he wasn’t sure how to get back home again) tucked them in, finished the wrapping and the displaying of gifts, and enjoyed a few hours of sleep. I tried not to think about all the time I had wasted over the last 75 days or so, time that - unless I emerge with something I can use - I always consider wasted until I finally remember that the opposite is in fact true: that time spent writing - anything - is never wasted. Period.

Over the next few days, strangely enough, something began to happen. Amid the family games of Wii and Twister, the annual Christmas Story movie marathon, and midnight consolings of my little boy who has suddenly developed a fear of invisible spiders, I watched as my mind wandered off on its own. Slowly, silently, away from the forced circumstances I was shoving my character in day after day, it began to lead me down corridors of her life that I had not known were there before - one a particularly dark one that I know will be difficult to write about - until a picture of her - an actual image - finally gleamed forth in my mind’s eye like a glorious, newborn baby.

Each time a new detail unearthed itself, I would get up and go over to my notebook and write it down. And this morning, as I sit at my desk and begin my daily solitary routine once more, I am filled with hope. Next to me is a tattered notebook full of images that I was given this holiday season. I realize now that it is a map of sorts. A silent, flying through the blackness, with just the glimmer of  light out front kind of map.

It knows the way.

Not me.

It is time to let her speak.

Onward, always.

CG

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