Let your writing find its own form

Continuing our elaboration of Jack Kerouac’s Belief and Technique for Modern Prose.

Something that you feel will find its own form

Dear Writer,

Don’t question yourself as you write. Don’t ask it what it will become. Just get the story onto the page.

Our minds write novels while we sleep. But when we’re awake, our conscious mind nags at our big, dreamy ideas like a grumpy school marm.

This is stupid. This will never work. Who do you think you are to write this? Who’s going to want to read this?

Don’t listen to the grumpy school marm. She is hangry and menopausal.

Trust your intuition. If you felt compelled to write it, it will find its own form.

—Christa

Did you ever have a hopeless story of yours fill itself out?