The overthinking

I had an epiphany this weekend. I just need to write. I need to stop overthinking it.

Some of my first stories are my favorite ones. That's because they're written without craft in mind. I went with my gut, my heart, my subconscious, and the voice of my ancestors streaming in my head. I wrote in first person, present tense, child voice and sometimes, the writing was almost automatic. I became the words. 

Yet now, I've gotten to the point where all I can think about when I'm writing is about the act itself and that is not a good thing. It's harmful. Because writing is about the act of letting go. The craft can come in later in the editing and revision stage and even that can be too much overworking of the prose. 

For example, in my memoir, there were early stories that I went back to my original of after a decade of revisions because I preferred the earlier, less edited versions. 

As a writer, it's too easy to get in your head. You start to think that all of this can be tied together. You forget that writing, at least the good writing, is magic. It's about the heart. 

So I vow to let my pen or fingers slide effortlessly over the page and keys. Like a pianist, I just need to play. It needs to be fun, and it needs to be real. It needs to capture something that nothing else can capture, humanity. Because that in the end is what I'm here for. To somehow and someway, put my life into prose.