What is it? I’ve heard instinct is your subconscious picking up on cues you miss. Okay. So what’s your subconscious? Well, a friend told me one time it’s ‘that still, small voice inside that makes you feel still smaller’. Huh. I thought that was guilt. Whatever these weird things going on inside us are, I have yet to hear a definition that feels tangible to me. And I need tangible. I’m not much of a ‘take it on faith’ sort. But this isn’t a rambling on biology and the workings of the brain, or faith.

What fascinates me about instinct is how it intrudes in writing. I’ll be working away, words are flowing, everything seems hunky-dory. And then that still, small voice starts niggling back there behind the door I closed so I could write uninterrupted. It’s a mental whisper that manages to shout at the same time, yelling at me to stop, to go back, to take a breath. Which I don’t want to because I’m writing. Who wants to stop when things are working?

So I don’t stop, I ignore whatever that ephemeral presences is in the gray matter and keep going. And usually, a few days later, when I read over what I have written, I realize things weren’t going as well as I thought at the time. Sometimes it’s a simple matter of having headed off in the wrong direction, or sent a character off to do something totally out of character. Or I got too caught up in description, or have nothing but talking heads on the page. Whatever the problem is, I realize I should have listened to that voice because, in not doing so, I end up having wasted a lot of time.

Which raises the question, why don’t we listen? I can excuse that in someone who’s young. But someone with enough experience to know that not paying attention to that niggling doubt always, and I mean always, ends up in wishing attention had been paid? There’s no excuse. Possibly laziness. Possibly the ability to self-deceive and tell that voice that this time it’s wrong.

I have yet to have a situation where instinct told me to watch out, and it ended up being wrong. Whether it’s when the stranger comes up to the truck in the parking lot wanting to know if I have cash, to the family friend that everyone loves but your inner voice tells you is a creep, to the simple act of writing.  I know better. I know to listen. Sometimes I choose not to.

But I still want to know exactly what that voice is that’s telling me, at this moment, that the writing I did last night isn’t going to work.

Dang it. Did it again. Didn’t listen last night. I guess I have some rewriting to do.

The photo below has nothing to do with writing or this post. It’s simply that my son is 5’10 and driving and sometimes I wish he was still little and the future simple.

Recently a friend mentioned she likes to have her writing edited as she works, that having a second set of eyes during the process is like flipping a light and illuminating the piece for her. I had this mental image of her sitting with her words, illuminated, just glowing as she wrote. I told her my process and figured it was worth dipping into a bit more, here.

It used to be that if I shared a work in progress before the first draft was done, the piece died and I never finished it. But as those of you who have followed this blog for some time know, radiation kind of fried my writing process and the past two years has been spent discovering the new ways I can write.

Over the past couple months, I shared my work in progress with my friend Jenni, who shows up here in the comment section, and  with two published authors during a writing retreat. I shared by giving them pages to read. I did so with trepidation knowing my history, but it was fine. The story survived.

I got overly enthusiastic and read a problem passage to Jenni. At the time it felt okay, but then that old familiar heavy feeling started, and sure enough I didn’t write. Saturday I forced myself to go back to the piece, wrote very stilted for a bit, and then very slowly found my way back to the flow of words. Kind of like writing CPR.

This is what I picture. Rather than being in that golden glow like my other friend, I’m more like this weird creature hiding in a dark room, caught up in an imaginary world. I can share the story only once I am done with it. If I share it too soon, it’s like the door opens and lets in too much light, glaring spotlight-like, and me and my words shrivel. Kind of like a slug with salt poured over it. No, I am not going to make vampire analogies!

So, letting Jenni read on her own, away from me, was me slipping the paper under the door, so to speak. I was still hidden away with my story.

Me reading out loud to her was cracking that door open just enough to let some light in. Luckily not enough to kill the story. But poor Jenni isn’t going to get read to until the story is done.

It brings to mind photos pre-digital, when you could over expose them and everything would be washed out.

The writing process is just so weird. And so individualized. And so tentative. And so lovely when it works.

I tried to find a photo of light, that would show how I pictured my friend illuminated. The closest I can find is one of my son, taken a few years ago during his first kayak lesson on the Skykomish river. The sun was slanted low, and he’s ringed with a glow.