A Vacation to Serena & Lily Land

Do you dream of a vacation where you leave the to-do list behind? Me too. But it’s not always possible. So when I need a mini-escape, I just flip open a Serena & Lily catalog. Breezy California-style, here I come. It’s more than crisp photos of furniture, bedding, and accessories—it’s a quick trip to Fantasy Island.

Read all about it in my recent piece, published in the University of Dayton Blog, featuring Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop submissions. And allow me to welcome you to Serena & Lily Land!

(You can stop here—or read on if you’re a fan of the creative process and writing.)

EXTRA FUN FACTS

Oh, hi, you’re still here! Well, now I’ll share a lil’ fun fact about how this essay came to be.

For over seven years, I’ve been in a writing group with a group of women I now count among my cherished friends. We meet on Thursdays at ModernWell, a collaborative workspace in Minneapolis. And it’s beautiful there, light-filled, bright and welcoming (dare I say… Serena-&-Lily-like) and buzzing with creativity and brain power.

Our fearless leader, Nina Badzin, along with the ModernWell founder, Julie Burton, dishes up a prompt to usher us into a fury of free writing. For twenty minutes, our fingers fly on keyboards or our pens pound on paper. A timer rings, and whatever we’ve written, we read to each other. These are “shitty first drafts,” so coined by the one-and-only author, Anne Lamott, in her book Bird by Bird.

Referring to these less than polished drafts, she says, “All good writers write them. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts.”

That’s what happened with this piece. I wrote it in twenty minutes, shitty style, and worked on it some more after our session. Draft after draft after draft, it became publishable. How fun!

THERE’S VALUE IN JUMPING INTO A “SHITTY” START

I think the value of jump-starting applies to many things, not just writing. Just dive in to something and don’t worry if it’s shitty. It doesn’t have to be stellar. You just have to start.

Because starting is the key. To writing an essay. To kicking off exercise or healthy habits. To learning a new language. To blasting through anything that you procrastinate, really. Just like you can’t light a fire without a spark, you can’t reach a finish without a start.

So here’s to you and all the shitty starts, plop-plop-plopping along to fulfilling finishes!