learn by doing

in my own way i am freaking out. i ask my editor, am i being too ambitious for the first novel? she says, are you overreaching? i'd say yes if it's a lesser writer, but you are a very, very good writer. the challenge is, you don't know how to build a book. the first couple of drafts, you can just write and write creatively. and you write beautifully and poetically. but in the third, fourth drafts you have to be strategic.

i begin to see that i have to retrain the mind. i can write eating lox and bagels for forty pages but then i lose the story. i say, yeah, now it's about craftsmanship. she says, but then i don't want you to lose the poetry. aaaah. i have to learn how to do both things at the same time, to be strategic and poetic. how? i know only one way. learn by doing. the guru says, meditation shows you how to meditate. it's the same principle in writing a book, or anything in life for that matter. stay in the present. listen. keep at it.