It’s a feel when a pallet of raw material arrives with a plonk, and just sits there, awaiting transformation into… something.

Back in 2014 when I was spooling up for A house made of air, a flatbed truck arrived one afternoon and dumped 55 sheets of 4’x8’ plywood off the back end. It landed with a ka-bam.

Richard Swayze, the artist-craftsman advising on the feasibility of the sculpture I had in mind standing up properly, looked at me like I was nuts. He cocked an eyebrow that asked, pointedly, do you really intend to rip an absolutely mental amount of ply into this multi-hundred-piece jigsaw puzzle you’ve (somewhat vaguely) proposed? I did. He didn’t know me yet; there was an I’ll-believe-it-when-I-see-it-Kristin vibe. I looked at me like I was nuts too. So it begins.

Wish I had a pic from that day. By the time of the above work-in-progress shot, the stomach-churning pile of ply (at left) had dwindled.

This one shouldn’t be so difficult, are my famous last words every time. But really, this one should be much easier….

As we know I love a consult, so I reached out to Sasha Chapin for writing coaching and he lit a fire under my atmospheric ramblings.

First, I had to throw open the doors and windows of sayability in the house of my own mind.

Second, I knew he was going to tell me so, and then he told me so—write a stupid amount very, very fast with absolutely zero regard for quality. Which I did. Turns out that’s liberating, even fun, who knew. Well, Sasha did.

All that’s gestating, work-in-progress, but it’s no doubt the speediest 20k words I ever did see.

Side note, I’ve always kind of idly wondered why I made a blog tag called “epigraphs.” I did it without much conscious intention, which is a feature, because in the creative process things shouldn’t make too much sense. I mean, if it makes sense at the start, you already get it, what’s to discover. Dig a little deeper. Anyway, while writing 20k words very fast, without adequate time to censor myself, after how many years I finally encountered my writing denial, shook its hand, thanked it for its service, and realized I really am supposed to write a bunch of stuff after the frontispiece, lol.

For reals, I had no idea how much I needed a tuned pro to read what I was up to and zoom-call-encourage more of it. Seeing the best in each other is a gift. I hope to be pretty good at doing that for others, steadily getting better. Though my biggest thanks are for all you, who day in and out do it too.