This isn’t fully thought through. But, that’s fine, because it’s rather the point.
Jay is a far more experienced (and published) writer than I am. When we first met, he soon became my mentor. He read my work and gave me feedback and my writing improved ENORMOUSLY as a result. I’ve learned so much from him. And I am more grateful than words can express.
Similarly (bear with me, it’ll make sense in a minute), I’ve been going to a psychotherapist for a while–long enough that she knows me pretty well. She’s given me a ton of incredible insights as to my own psychology and patterns and whatnot.
So today, I disagreed with my therapist over an important matter of my psychology, and I disagreed with Jay over several small but significant turns of phrase in our current collab.
Trust yourself: I think is the lesson here. Listen to others, but trust yourself.
Am I right? I don’t know. I might be utterly full of it. I might turn out to be really sorry I didn’t listen to these experts.
But you know? I have to do what feels right to me. So I changed the words in the story back to what I had written, and I told the therapist, “No, you’re asking me this, but I think you’re actually trying to tell me that.”
Then I came home and killed a spider. Okay, I lie: I killed it the other day. But I’m a writer, damnit. If I want to say I killed a spider today, then I killed a spider today! Mwa-ha-ha!
Any questions?