“Write drunk, edit sober.”
-Ernest Hemingway
It appears I have many, many hours of sobriety ahead of me.
I was, what I am estimating to be, half way thorough my book (30,000 words) when I unconsciously switched from writing in the past tense to the present. I was describing a pivotal scene in my Camino – an emotional one, and in writing about it, I was transported so thoroughly back to that moment, it was like I was literally living it again.
Around the same time, I had taken an editing workshop for ‘writers in the midst of a manuscript’, and though the feedback I received on the three page sample I provided included such praise as “cinematic, descriptive and wonderful creation of atmosphere”, the constructive comments revealed that I was sometimes writing very emotional content with very academic language.This, I realized, was absolutely true. I was looking back on what were deeply moving, highly spiritual, intensely emotional right-brained events from the perspective of my intellectual, fact-based left brain. I was editing while I was writing. I was sober for what I should have been doing drunk. So, I have begun the task of taking the academic in me out of my story – of letting my right brain lead the way by becoming present. Literally. (Ironically, this is one of the reasons I walked the Camino. I wanted to practice living life from a right-brained perspective.) Lesson learned…again.
Changing language from past to present tense is proving to be therapeutic. It is a reminder that the present is where real life takes place. I hope that this transformation of text will serve to bring you, the reader, into the story with me. To experience it as if you were there too. After all, I would much rather bring you along on the journey with me than simply gathering you together afterwards and explaining myself through a looking glass.
So, allow me to raise a glass (of water) and propose a toast to relaxing into the The Present Tense – where it’s not actually tense at all. It is, in fact, quite liberating.
XOXO
The Writing of "Wide Open" - A Moving Experience on the Camino Portuguese to Santiago 
Looking forward to learning more about your Camino experiences. We did the Camino Frances last fall too and then toured Portugal and southern Spain for an additional month— loved it all!!
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Hi Leslee, i´m glad to hear from you. You’re still on the Camino, even if you’re already almost six months back home. Each piece of the path brings something new, I do not know yet. That’s very exciting. Your lines bring me back to memories of the walk from last year and all the experiences which i got each day. Thank you 🙂
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