Writing Down the Ghosts
My whole process of writing is tricking my brain into writing without realizing what I’m doing, to make myself write even when the idea of writing instills a vomity feeling in my gut.
Ted Lasso
Oh, Inverted World
drive
when I actually look at them
Just freewrite

Any entry point is a good entry point, as long as you are entering.
writing

As I cut up each chunk, I read it over. (This small scrap of paper seems manageable in a way that a full document does not.) Sometimes I realize I hate one line, or want to add something in it, and I make a tiny note in the margins to myself. Then I place it on the floor. Then I cut out the next chunk and place it down. Eventually, I come to some chunks that might be better being placed before the previous chunks, or that I know belong later, or that I throw away because I don’t like them at all. I set chunks aside to be discarded. I move things around. See how that looks, see how it feels.


Jami Nakamura Lin is the author of THE NIGHT PARADE (Mariner Books/HarperCollins and Scribe UK 2023), an illustrated memoir that uses yokai & other Japanese , Taiwanese, & Okinawan folklore to investigate what haunts us. A former Catapult columnist, she's written for the New York Times, Electric Literature, and other publications.
Jami has received support from the National Endowment for the Arts/Japan-US Friendship Commission, Yaddo, Sewanee, and We Need Diverse Books.
Twitter: @jaminlin / jaminakamuralin.com
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