Losing My Manuscript

IN 2015 I left an editorial job that I really liked at a magazine I’d always loved to finish writing the book I couldn’t stop thinking about. I tried writing chapters before work, after work, in the cafeteria on my lunch break, on weekends between errands and friends and life. For my job at the magazine I’d always loved, I stared at a computer screen all day long, making minor adjustments and suggestions to other writers’ words. By the time I got back to my apartment, my head was too filled with their voices and rhythms, and my brain felt so soaked with the news and content of the day that I couldn’t tell what was good or bad if I managed a few sentences of my own.

Still, I kept trying to turn myself into one of those enviable miracle workers who wrote entire books in the mornings as the sun rose. I set the alarm on my phone to ring at small, aspirational hours and fell asleep envisioning a better version of myself greeting the new day with notebook pages already filled. Instead I usually woke up to work notifications about new news and more content from colleagues even more aspirational than me. At my desk in the New York City office, I’d find myself gazing out the windows on a very high floor, ignoring the views of the sparkling river and the famous bridges that spanned it. I stopped noticing these beautiful, coveted scenes. I thought more and more about the sentences and chapter structures and research I would need to complete my book. I had dreamed for years about writing a book about my family and the folklore of the low country of South Carolina where I was from. I really liked my magazine job, but if I did not write the book, I worried I might not like myself. It was the vision I had for this book that brought me to New York City in the first place, as a grad student in creative writing desperate to