Writing is like working a muscle. Some days you hit the gym when you really shouldn’t and you end up pulling something. Other days you’re pumped, and the workout is amazing. Still other days you all but drag yourself to the gym, yet somehow come out incredibly proud for having pushed yourself. I experienced all three of these experiences while writing Hello Morning. I scrapped whole chapters that felt forced, and also wrote some of my best stuff on days I really didn’t feel like writing.
Writing this book for me was also a personal lesson. I am never going to be Toni Morrison. I am never going to be Maya Angelou. I am never going to be Octavia Butler. I am never going to be J.K. Rowling, but likewise, they will never be me either. My writing voice is unique to me, and the work that I produce will only ever be mine. It took a long time for me to really appreciate that, particularly with regard to the length of Hello Morning. I actually went so far as to collect all of the Toni Morrison books I own, and take the average of their page numbers...
But then I remembered something I heard Carrie Bradshaw say in the first Sex and the City movie (unlikely source I know). "Some love stories aren't epic novels, some are short stories, but, that doesn't make them any less filled with love." Something about that quote helped me to find my peace with what I’d written. Something about it allowed me to let this story to be what it is, instead of trying to make it into something else.