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One summer in Brooklyn I made an outline for my first book. I was told I must do this, or my ideas would be unorganized, my plot would do no plotting or propelling, and my arrow of story would fly and just keep flying, never hitting any mark. Readers would be disappointed. This prospect made me sad, so I got to work.
Two long and sweaty months later, I’d made about 100 different timelines in Sharpie on construction paper which I’d spread out on the floor. Each time I tried to make an outline that was clean and full of straight lines and correct, I’d get an idea and start making little notes to myself over and under the clean and straight lines. Every timeline eventually resembled the illuminated Biblical manuscripts I once studied in Divinity School; the most interesting and salacious stories were found in the marginalia, where monks depicted themselves in various compromised scenarios and sometimes robe-free. I wanted my mind to think in an organized way, to track the right path forward, to start and begin at the perfect places. I wanted to do it right, but I couldn’t do it at all. And, more significantly, I didn’t want to do it anymore because I’d lost the love of the project. I was housesitting in Williamsburg for a musician, who told me I could play the instruments if I didn’t ruin them, so when I arrived at this stage, I made a bunch of noise on the drums. I felt better.
