The True Girl Anthology published yesterday.

The editors, Sarah and Katie, approached me last year a few months after my sister died. I’d gotten to know them years ago when I was living in New York City, and I’d never submitted to their magazine when they still published it, but they had joined an online critique group I had started, so we were familiar with one another’s work. This new project caught my eye because it was a way to reflect on life and choices, 10 years after they’d shut down the magazine. I discovered this new anthology would become a creative buoy for me, grounding me amidst panic attacks I couldn’t control as my life upended.

The personal essay regarding my faith happened quickly and easily, flowing from the trauma. I’d been what I considered a conservative Christian for my entire life, holding onto faith through an unfortunate childhood, then a difficult divorce. But my faith didn’t survive Margaret’s death, and not for the usual reasons.

But the other two pieces were more difficult—to write, anyway.

I’ve found, over the years, that writing real-life things can be a challenge. I often write from interviews, and sorting through the content can take time. There should be a main idea and a flow, along with all the technical aspects of style, grammar, and description, depending on the piece.

But there are different challenges with other sorts of writing, whether poetry or novels or short stories or speeches or technical or scripts, and when it comes solely from imagination, there are unique aspects for each format to consider. With short-form fiction, I can’t just fill in the empty spots with the things I make up—there has to be a level of believability and consistency.

I wrote a story once that included a character who was a teacher, and fortunately my teacher friend read it and let me know what I got wrong about what I had assumed. And once another friend wrote about a woman having a baby, and the birth was difficult, and she was passed out for most of it, and when she was awoke, her belly was flat, soon after the birth, which doesn’t often happen in real life. I read a story once that wrote about the horses throwing up on a ship—and anyone who knew anything about horses lost their trust in that story immediately, as I did.

It’s not enough just to pull things from the air.

The little details, from the beginning to the growth to the completion of the narrative that concludes in a satisfying way, are important.

And most of my 13 years writing have been about real-world stuff. I’ve dabbled in fiction since I was a child, but I’ve completed very little of it. I often, like many others, like the idea of writing more than I like to actually write, to really delve into the discipline required for the creative process.

Because along with the emotional cost of creating art, there are rough drafts and rewrites and alpha/beta reviews and edits. There’s getting rusty from not practicing or not being consistent.

And as I embraced this challenge, I found myself consumed with doubts about what I was doing and if I should even be doing it in the first place.

Then I saw how mine own flowed.

It required just one rewrite for me to be satisfied with it and to feel like I had completed something cohesive and complete.

The idea stemmed from imagining, quite a bit as a child, being able to see, just for a moment, through the eyes of others. I’d considered it sort of like a boomerang, just a moment of seeing then pulling back, very controlled and purposeful. When I wrote mine own, I thought about the consequences of being able to do something like that and decided to explore the opportunity if it were connected to an emotion, like anger.

I felt a sense of pride, of accomplishment in what I had created.

And it gave me the confidence to do another.

But then I struggled as I worked on underneath.

I wanted to play around with choices and consequences. I wanted to examine fear and control. I first build an old mansion hidden away, sitting nearly on top of a lake, and I sent a married couple there, together. And it was an odd mix of old and new, with new technology but also stale innards, as I forced a mechanical plot point into the story. And then I wanted to flesh out the husband and try to figure out his motivations and his past. And he consumed the story when I’d wanted, truly, to focus on the wife.

I started over, switching the mansion to a cabin in the woods. The aunt went from absent in the story, hospitalized for a mental breakdown, to present and odd but harmless. And the wife searched for answers and found very little, because others can’t (or shouldn’t) dictate our lives. I used a physical underneath to mirror a metamorphic one, and an actual creature to reflect the things we don’t necessarily want but often must live with—although readers will find their own interpretations in the story, of course, because that is what art prompts.

And I struggled with this version, this rewrite. I asked a friend to read it, and he provided some feedback.

And I rewrote it, using pen and paper, and sat on it some more.

The deadline loomed. The anthology was set to go live on September 1, after a few months of delay, and on August 31, I saw that final edits were being made.

I messaged the editors and asked if there was still time. I didn’t like underneath. I could change it.

But Sarah messaged me back (on the day of her wedding shower as well, scheduled so soon before a move to another state), and told me that underneath was the one she loved the most.

Because we sit too close. We sit too close to our words and our paintings and our art, and when we are immersed in it, we can’t see it the way that others do.

And because I hadn’t read it for a few days by the time I’d messaged Sarah, I pulled out the papers I’d printed and read through it again.

The ease of time had worked its magic, and it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Perhaps not perfect, yes, but also not a horrible piece of writing either. I could release it.

And I could try again soon with another story, another opportunity.

I hope you enjoy the anthology.

It is available here.

No financial cost, merely a labor of love from the editors and everyone who participated—time, sweat, tears, and agony.

There is a lot of richness to be discovered there.

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Sustaining Craft is back tomorrow, actually! It took me a bit longer than expected. I talk with Jessica and Justin Crum about films and graphic design. Support the podcast here. Also follow along with Hew and Weld on Instagram here, with behind-the-scenes and writing tips here. Hew and Weld is also on Facebook.

And I’ve started dog training with group classes at SoMa Animal Clinic and private lessons available for in-home work. Find Telltail Dog online: website, Instagram, and Facebook.