I’ve got a story that I’ve been carrying around for years, a story that I keep coming back to, without ever figuring out how to tell it the right way—I’ve tried first person, third person. I’ve tried starting in the middle of the story, or at the end. I’ve tried writing it in diary entries, in letters.
I’ve tried all kinds of things, and I’ve never cracked the code.
But yet the story haunts me.
I think that what I need—what is missing—is the voice of the story.
For me, finding the voice is like plugging into something greater than my self—suddenly everything is electric, bright and dazzling. Luminous. Possible.
The one thing I have learned for sure in my years of writing is that while I can’t make the voice show up, nothing (Nothing at all! Not one ding-danging thing!) happens unless I show up, unless I sit down and write.
So I keep showing up, because you never know when the luminous is going to arrive.

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