I was out walking a few days ago.
I was preoccupied with the novel I’m working on.
I was puzzling out the bits of the story and thinking of how much of it I didn’t understand.
I was wondering if I would ever be able to do the work of writing the whole thing.
And then I walked past a fenced-in backyard, and two voices floated out over the fence.

VOICE ONE: Well, I can tell you one thing. She’s never going to get all them boxes out of the attic if she wakes up and thinks “This has got to be done right now!”
VOICE TWO: But that’s how she thinks. That’s exactly how she thinks.
VOICE ONE: I know that’s how she thinks. I’ll tell you how you get all them boxes out of the attic. One at a time, that’s how. You think: okay, today I’m going to do a box. And you go up there and get you a box. And you deal with it, and then you’re done for the day. And the next day you go up and get you another box.
VOICE TWO: she’ll never do it that way.
VOICE ONE: I know it. But if she did, the whole thing would get done. One box at a time.

I stood there, on the other side of the fence, smiling.
It was just what I needed to hear.
How was I going to get the novel done?
Well, every morning I would get up and go to the attic of my mind and get a box, and box by box (or, as Anne Lamott says, Bird by Bird) I would get the whole thing done. I would get the attic emptied, the novel written.
I walked on cheered, comforted.
I’m putting the whole experience here in the hopes that it cheers and comforts you, too.

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