Getting There

07Jul08

I have spent the weekend and today gardening and reading and hanging out with Colin. It’s been very rewarding and restful. I’m also reading The Golden Compass aloud to him and so we’re getting to spend more quality time together just relaxing, dog between us, feeling like family.

But I’ve also been thinking a lot about writing. I’m thinking about my story and where it’s going and if in the end it’s suitable for that newspaper contest it was initially meant for. I’m reading short stories I wish I had written, ones that are so bloody brilliant I have to periodically put down the book and look out the window and succumb to outrageous jealousy and raging desire to write as well as Elizabeth Gilbert, whose Eat, Pray, Love made her one of my favourite authors of all time. I went to Chapters and made myself at home in the writing and publishing section, sifting through books on how to write and what to write and on learning to forgive yourself for writing something crappy at first. I bought Atwood’s Negotiating with the Dead, finally. I’ve been meaning to read it since it came out in 2002. I bought a book of “prompts to ignite your fiction,” and have been flipping through it, my mind reeling with possibilities — a good sign. And I’ve realized through all of this two things.

One is that mindset really is important. It’s been forever since I’ve been in the writer’s mindset (at least, to write fiction. I have been writing this blog since last October on a regular basis), and I feel I am finally and once again arriving — I’m starting once again to think “I can,” instead of the opposite. Finding the mindset, getting in the mood, seems to be super important to writing, and reading stories like the ones I want to write, reading books on writing, and talking about writing with all you guys here and on your blogs has really been helping. I’m blowing the sparks that have always been there but never caught since 1997 until now.

The second thing I’ve realized is in this story: I have also been thinking about my freelance editing and revamping this business I’m not happy with. I have to make money. I’ve been trying to find out what kind of stuff I’d prefer to edit (as opposed to academic fiction, which I’m tired of and which causes all sort of issues that stunt my success), and have come to the conclusion that I’d rather edit literary fiction. However, I’ve been told that literary fiction is not going to get me much work because those writers are already good and less likely to pay for an editor when they can just hire an agent and then get hooked up with an in-house editor. So then I move from the idea of revamping my business, because it’s too hard to dwell on, too much work and too confusing, to what my real dream is, which is to open this super cool bookshop tearoom I could tell you about (it’s very solidified in my head) but won’t for now because I’m driving at my second realization, which, finally, is this:

In thinking about editing, in struggling with my bookshop tearoom idea (mostly the struggle is I don’t believe it could ever happen), it suddenly occurs to me that I haven’t really been focusing my attention on either one of those things. I have been putting almost all my energy into writing, as though this is what I’m actually being paid for. Today, as I sat in Chapters bordered by piles of books I had to choose from, I thought, I’m not interested in looking up business books and marketing books, and books on editing and freelancing. I don’t feel like tackling my business plan for my bookshop (the financial part is just so hard and though I love the idea and would be happy doing it, I can’t get past the thought that it’s impossible because I need so much money): no, all I want to do is write. Besides reading, this is what gives me the most pleasure. Gloria Steinhem said it best:

Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.

I feel this so profoundly it brings tears to my eyes. Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved to write. I’ve written constantly, whether journals, letters, emails, non-fiction, poetry, fiction, comments on blog posts! I questioned myself today: do I want to do this because it seems easy? Just sit and home and write? And then I snorted with laughter: yes, so easy that it’s taken me eleven years and then some to get over the fear of doing it, of sucking at it. I’m still not over it entirely. But I’ve wanted this so badly I’ve been totally afraid of not being successful at it. What if you had such a dream and then found out you sucked at what you want to do successfully? How devastating!! Thus, it’s been easier to lie and say it’s not really what I want because then it’s okay if I don’t go for it. It has been easier to fear than fail.

I’m coming to the end of that fear, now, I think. Or rather I’m getting to the point at which failing is a possibility but not something that has so much power over me I’ll never write again. As Brett says, “Fail early, fail often.” Eventually, I’ll get there, and it won’t be failure at all.

Give it, give it all, give it now.

– Annie Dillard

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