Get Out of Your Own Way
I always do the first line well, but I have trouble doing the others. – Molière
When I finally bought Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love, it was more because of a strange feeling that I had to buy it than anything else. I very rarely buy non-fiction. But I actually couldn’t leave the store without her book. In the car I turned it over and over in my hands. I loved the feel of the matte cover, the flexibility of the book, the smell of the pages, the title. The feelings I had reading it were incredibly intense. My favourite book, probably ever. It’s the book I love so much that every time I see it in a store I pick it up and feel I want to buy it again and again and again, but I already own it. I’ve blogged about it before but on rereading my entry I thought, but that doesn’t carry at all the enthusiasm I felt for it! It doesn’t tell how I inexplicably cried feeling so utterly connected with the author, as though she was me, or part of me. Or how joyfully I laughed while reading. How much love I felt, how much I related, how much I felt inspired. How I dogeared, the first time in my life doing such a thing, my favourite pages. How I have never shelved the book. How I want it to become a well-worn copy rather than keeping it pristine. It doesn’t tell how when I went to her website and read her advice on writing, and read everything else on that site, I cried. I never wanted more, I think, to write like a particular person. This woman awakened in me such longing to write well that, again, I cried. I bought Pilgrims, her book of short stories, and I’m jealous and aching with longing to write stories like this. I cried when I read her influences and what she grew up with, so similar to my experiences. What was I crying for? It was the only way I seemed able to express whatever it was I was feeling. Too deep for words. I’ve never in my life come across anyone so similar to me (or so evocative). Only she’s different in many ways, too, most significantly in the fact that she has shown far more determination and dedication in writing than I ever have. I feel ashamed. Like a fraud.
Although I really don’t want this blog to become solely a diary of my frustrated (frustrating) writing experience — I was hoping it would more reflect actual writing and progress in that department (and I don’t mean blog posts but “real” writing, excellent writing) — I will say now that this afternoon I revisited the one and only story I’m trying to work on. The story that, by the way, began with a great first line and seems to flop from there. I hated all four pages of it. It sucks. I’m angry. I’m upset that this writing struggle is happening, that it’s lasting so long, that I can’t seem to barge past it in spite of all my inspired posts and the wonderful encouragement I receive. I began to edit that story, yet again, and then felt I was making it worse, editing it within an inch of its sorry life in an effort to force it to be better and, more honestly, to avoid having to continue down to page five when I had no clue what was going to happen next. I’ve stared at it. I’ve shed frustrated tears. I’ve convinced myself that becoming an editor was the worst thing I could ever have done to my writer self. It wasn’t the divorce that stopped me writing so long ago, it was the editing. As soon as I started that, the writing stopped. I’ve debated giving up the story and not entering the stupid newspaper contest (deadline next Monday), and made up excuses that perhaps this topic just isn’t working for me. I’ve picked up good books and read a few sentences and just held them wishing for some sort of brilliance to pass through to me, then gone back to the story hoping to suddenly have something flow out of me.
Yes, YES, I know. Stop forcing it. Let it come, let it suck, and just for God’s sake write. Write. Write. WRITE.
But I’m tired. I feel as though nothing makes sense today, least of all what I’m writing. Some days I guess you just have to know when to give in, though it feels weak and and dirty and shameful, like cheating. I just want to run from this hard work.
And then I read this in an interview with Gilbert:
I can’t get behind the ambition to be “discovered” as much as I can get behind the ambition to write beautifully and honorably and steadfastly. Here’s what I believe about creativity. I believe that creativity is a living force that thrums wildly through this world and expresses itself through us. I believe that talent (the force by which ephemeral creativity gets manifested into the physical world through our hands) is a mighty and holy gift. I believe that, if you have a talent (or even if you think you do, or maybe even if you just hope you do), that you should treat that talent with the highest reverence and love.
Don’t flip out, in other words, and murder your gift through narcissism, insecurity, addiction, competitiveness, ambition or mediocrity. Frankly — don’t be a jerk. Just get busy, get serious, get down to it and write something, for heaven’s sake. Try to get out of your own way. Creativity itself doesn’t care at all about results — the only thing it craves is the PROCESS. Learn to love the process and let whatever happens next happen, without fussing too much about it. Work like a monk, or a mule, or some other representative metaphor for diligence. Love the work. Destiny will do what it wants with you, regardless. Just love the work.
Filed under: fiction, writing | 27 Comments
Gilbert definitely knows what he’s talking about. : )
As for your writing, the struggle is the seasoning — and like meat, it tastes better, seasoned.
It’s also why I’ve always loved the birth metaphor for good writing. The best in life never does come easily for the majority of us.
A friend of mine always used to say, and it fits most everything and anything, “Don’t quit before the miracle”. It remains the best advice I’ve ever been given.
And, a quote comes to mind:
“Easy reading is damn hard writing.”
~Nathaniel Hawthorne~
Emily
I wish I had more time to read books. The internet has a way of eating up your free time.
Throughout my life I wanted to be a writer but I never knew what to write about, lacked self-confidence, etc. Now I seem to have discovered my niche. I started a blog about television:
tvcrawlspace.wordpress.com
Eric
@Lefty: Your comment hit the nail on the head. Thank you. I know you’re right and that was a fabulous way of putting it. Thanks for giving me the push I need this morning to continue! PS. Gilbert is a she!
@tvcrawlspace: I totally know what you mean about the Internet taking up your time. That’s why this morning I’m going straight to that story. I love reading blogs, especially the ones I regularly follow, and will certainly check out yours — but AFTER I’ve put in my time writing today! I have to do it this way, I think. Get out the writing first, and then read.
I’m very glad you’ve found your niche! Blogging totally counts as writing. If I have trouble with fiction, I come on here and remind myself that I am still writing, just not always what I want. But so long as I’m writing something good enough to be read, I am still being true to myself.
“I’m upset that this writing struggle is happening, that it’s lasting so long” – but you just started! And if you’re a good critique of yourself, it’ll always be a struggle, and it’s part of the process and part of the reason why it’s so satisfying when you do get it right. But it’s like a rollercoaster of times when you’re hitting your head against a wall and times when you’re on a roll. At first it seems like most of the ride is uphill but once you keep plugging away at it and getting more practice and more experience, you’ll realize that for every unproductive, head banging against the wall, self loathing moment, there is one where you’ve realized you’ve come a long way – more than you thought you could and hmmm…er….yeeess…you really are kind of a good writer/artist after all. It’s ALWAYS always a struggle, even for Atwood and Gilbert, because it’s the thing that strangely enough, keeps you going.
T: I did not just start!! I’ve been struggling with this for eleven years! I started this blog last October as a desperate effort to open the gates…and I’m still pushing the rusty fuckers open!!
I know it will always be a struggle. And, yes, your comment was brilliant and utterly true. Which makes me want to grit my teeth, of course — not that my little sister is right, but that what you are saying is so damn hard to hold onto. I know it, but I hate it most of the time. GRRR! I’ve hated process all my life, and that, I know, has been a big mistake/misfortune. Indeed, what can you learn without process? I know its value. I am just having a hard time accepting where I am, acknowledging that I am not even a smidgen close to where I want to be. When writing is easier, when I have ideas, I mean, the process is okay — in fact, I love it because writing is thrilling to me. But when it’s laborious, when everything sounds like it sucks, I feel not quite good enough, not yet validated, to continue. When Atwood or Gilbert struggle, they at least know they are still good. It’s not that their writing sucks. If I could just stop being amateur…I am ready for rejection, I expect it. But I want to believe my sentences are great, my writing is publishable. I want to get to that point sooner than later. Then at least when I’m having a hard time, I can say, I’m having a fucking hard time, but I know I’m good. I can do this. Like when I’m crying over an edit that is sooo hard and when I want so badly to email the production editor and say, I’m sorry, I just can’t do this, and then I think to myself, yes, I can. I am a good editor. I’m perfectly capable, it’s just hard right now. And then I get an email back after a month, after thinking I have probably royally pissed off the author with all my hacking away, saying “thank you for the splendid job you did on my book” (that happened for real, yesterday night.) — that’s where I want to be with my writing: where I can say, “I am having a hard time writing, but that does not mean that my writing sucks.”
You know?
What I mean about just starting:
Yes, you’ve been struggling with this for eleven years. But you’ve only been struggling with the IDEA of writing. It’s only recently that you’ve taken the huge leap to actually sit down and write.
When the process is laborious and everything sucks, see it as impetus to get better. The fact that you love writing so much, love it enough to keep going at it for so many years and finally give it a go again is validation enough to continue. (Besides the fact that I think you’re a good writer).
Eventually you’ll start to overcome the struggles simply because you’ll have gone through enough experience that you’ll have the tools to work through them. And you begin to see the struggles not as a sign that you’re not good enough, but as just being part of the process.
“Not being good enough” has no place in creativity.
Like Gilbert says, the only thing it craves is process…
Ok, this is a horrible, cynical view, but…
I think for the most part there are two types of writing: Writing for oneself to produce something beautiful that you love and can be proud of and can share with people who love beautiful writing.
And then I think there’s writing that can be published.
My short stories definitely fall into the first category (though I’m not quite sure they’re beautiful to others). I write them to get them into elegant and exclusive literary journals that don’t pay but give you lifetime satisfaction of being a “real writer.” The writers in my first writing group in Philadelphia shared stories that fell into this category. We adored and admired each other’s work, and we worked hard to make our work as impressive.
And then there’s commercial fiction: things that get published and make money. I wrote a manuscript about a trip my sister and I took around the country. We visited 26 states in 6 months, working odd jobs and sleeping in a tent we’d set up behind the dumpster at hotels so we could sneak in for the free continental breakfasts. I found a publisher and learned much about the publishing process. It’s an industry that exists to make money, not to necessarily share beautiful works. It focuses on what most people want to read, not what some people think is beautiful.
That doesn’t mean that beautiful writing doesn’t get published. Obviously Gilbert is one of those writers who wows us with prose and gets paid for it. Alice Munro is another. James Patterson is not, and he’s on the bestseller list today, as is Danielle Steel.
Today my father proved this point for me. He has a Ph.D. in zoology, and for his birthday I sent him “A Primate’s Memoir,” a fascinating, intelligent book about a neurologist’s study of African baboons. Papa said, “I’ll start it right after I finish reading my book about the mystery of Nancy Drew.” Yep, Nancy Drew. He was reading a mystery novel about a woman who was researching the Nancy Drew mystery series and ghost writers, and the woman herself becomes involved in a mystery.
I guess my point is that just because you write beautiful prose that is honest and true and real doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to make a living writing. And, speaking as someone who has dreams of making a living writing books (eventually), my book ideas center around commercial fiction that will sell (though I hope my books will be snappy and smart and include people and places that my readers will come to love).
I do indeed hate that I’m so cynical. I’d love to be able to write my edgy stories and have the crowds go wild. But the odds are against that, so my idea for a mystery novel series is much more likely to find a home.
Yep, I hate that I’m so jaded. Jeeze.
PS — My book was never published. The publisher and I had a parting of the ways about 10 days before the book was due at the printers. But I’m fine with that. After three revisions, the book was no longer mine and no longer good. It still sits in a box in my closet. On the bright side I received $2000 in advances that I never had to pay back, so I feel satisfied that I made money writing books. That counts, doesn’t it?
Oh my gosh but seeing my own views on the art of writing is a real downer!
I need a cupcake.
T: Stop being so right, dammit. And I have to say with a very wry smile that I’m glad this is here, online, because when you have this problem I’m having, I’ll be able to email you and say, um, see this, here? Remember this? EAT IT!!
Beth: thought-provoking and a little depressing! At the same time, the writing I want to create is both beautiful and wonderfully crafted AND publishable, it’s literary fiction, no? Like Gilbert’s and Atwood’s and Martel’s. NOT like Nora Roberts’s and James Patterson’s and Ken Follett’s. I don’t want to write popular fiction or even necessarily bestsellers (in my experience, the bestsellers are most often crap, and everyone goes for that crap). I want to write what in my opinion is great, and what is still publishable and appreciated by a group of people who can appreciate that sort of stuff. The fact that literary fiction does sell is promising. I don’t expect to get rich, but I do want the kind of respect I have for Munro and Dillard and Atwood and Shields and Thomas King and Elizabeth Hay, etc…
PS. I’ve read about what havoc publishers can wreak on books. I’m sad but proud of you for standing your ground and not publishing something that no longer seemed yours or good.
Beth: and yes, that counts, totally. You came so very close!
oohh, cupcake! So are you going across the street again?
I’m still boycotting the coffee shop across the street, and I have no other cupcake resource…. although DJ did bring me one a couple of times. And since we’re dating again…
I have a phone call to make.
LOL!!!
I need a man who’ll bring me cupcakes! Where’s my hubby?!
Steph,
Your sister is right. Don’t forget, you are still young.
I’ve also been reading a lot about self-made people (entrepreneurs in a more traditional sense, rather than writers).
Most of them tend to hit their stride in their early 40’s. I guess it takes time to build experience and apply it with enough determination.
(I guess I should make my first million in another couple of years, then, as I’m 38…)
Or for writers – it took John Grisham 3 years to write “A Time to Kill”, and after a lot of rejection, another year to get it published. He started writing “The Firm” right after he finished writing “A Time to Kill” – didn’t even wait.
And every book he wrote after that was easier and easier for him.
So it will be with you.
@tvcrawlspace,
Maybe audio books?
@Brett: I just took the dog for a walk and was thinking about how all these writers I respect, whether successful young or old, just kept persisting. They put their heads down and wrote. And wrote and wrote. They were rejected a LOT. Oddly enough, I don’t feel scared of rejection, even though I badly need to be good at writing. Maybe it’s that I need to be good by my standards most of all, and if they’re rejecting me, it’s okay so long as I feel I’m happy with my writing. On top of determination, though, is the hardest for me: patience. I’m not worried about being too old to write something and publish, I’m worried it will take me forever to be what I consider good. (That could sound like the same thing, except that even though I want to be published, I don’t equate being published with being good.)
That said, the only thing I can think of in response is that I had better just shut up and get started then!
Steph, you shouldn’t be afraid of rejection, you are an expert at doing it to yourself! No one is ever going to be as hard on your writing as you are! LOL! Your poor writing Muse, you flog her mercilessly!Be nice to yourself!
I think we just have to do, just write and let someone else be the critic sometimes. Come back and look at it later.
One thing that has been working for me, other than ER where it is so immediate, is that I write in the morning and I just save and leave it. I don’t try to edit or fix anything until the next day. I find I am not so hard on myself the next day, I can look with a more objective mind as if someone else wrote it.
Wendi: LOL! I know, I know. And you actually said exactly what Gilbert said: let someone else decide. Your job is simply to write. It’s true, I’m a TERRIBLE self-critic, always trying to measure up to what I think is good, to what I admire. I find that so hard to change!! How? What will it take for the AHA! moment to occur?
And HOW do you write something and then leave it?! Talk about patience and discipline and calm. I don’t think I’ve ever left a blog post. I just go until it’s finished and then I finally post. Sometimes it takes a ridiculously embarrassing amount of time. How does one truly let go of this perfectionism (without drugs?) If I read a post on another day, it’s all I can do not to edit it, even though it’s done and gone. Letting go, getting out of my own way: it sounds impossible. I can’t stand the feeling of something not totally done. How can I learn this? How can I learn to accept the process of becoming better and not only that but LOVE it? Naturally I want to get better, just instantly, unfortunately!
ISSUES!!
PS. I’m still scared of ER. Retarded, right? YES. I know.
Steph,
One thing I will say – that some folks will disagree on, but I don’t care
– is that there are a lot of published writers who write rubbish. I think your work is pretty good. I think it is better than some of the stuff that is published.
So there.
Keep on writing!
Brett: You are officially hired to follow me around and just keep saying things like this.
Seriously, though, thank you. I’m extremely flattered and very touched. You give me such hope!
Steph, maybe ER is exactly what you need. You don’t have the luxury to analyse yourself to death. It is SO immediate you have to stay in the moment, keep your charactor real, just react, write from the heart.
I think it has been very very good for me.
And the Pen Men…they are gentle beasts..scary because of their mighty talent and power yes, but so caring and kind and patient and gentle when it comes to teaching and showing and helping. Both of them. Really. You won’t find a better classroom and group anywhere. Do it. You know you want to, It will give you confidence and more skill!
And Brett is right, you have a lot of talent and are a very good writer!
@Wendi: How do you find the time to play? I’ve just been on the ER site, reading. Every time I go there I get totally overwhelmed, which is the real reason I didn’t start in the first place. I’m so overwhelmed by the whole thing, but I don’t know why. I know, J & H are fantastic and they do spell out everything. But I’m still freaked out by where to start and all that. I find normal gaming easier, perhaps because it’s more visual?
My issues are time (when I have a job to work on, it’s virtually impossible to commit to anything and there’s no such thing as a regular block of time) and getting in there not knowing what the hell to do or where to go or how to jump in. I guess I have to read the how tos again. The guys did say they made it user friendly and with beginners in mind as well. I got freaked out the first time. (See? I am a wuss!) Also, you may be right that improv writing may be just what I need to get in the flow of things. I am amazed by how many posts players have.
Thank you, very much, for the compliment. I’ve never written fantasy before, but I’d also never written anything like the LW Pub story, either, and that worked out all right to start. There’s a first time for everything.
Which is your character on ER, or can you tell me?
@Steph,
I’ll do it! Hey, you are welcome – and I wouldn’t say it, if I didn’t believe it.
-Brett
@Steph,
Selene Rose Flynn at your service!
You just start. They will help you, we all will help you. Think up a charactor and a little bit of a background on the charactor. I wouldn’t even over analyse that because as you start writing the charactor starts taking on a life of its own anyway and makes itself known to you. Then arrive in Reckon someplace where you can bump into the story.
Like for instance if I were entering the story right this minute, I would have my charactor somehow enter the story at the hospital as that is where most of us are going to be by the middle of today. So you have the best chance of meeting most of us. So you could have been in a car accident and brought in, or you are visiting someone there or something.
I had never written fantasy before either and I had never ever done gaming before. CLUELESS!
Wendi: I cannot even begin to tell you how much I admire your pluck!! You rock. I wish I could be more like you and just jump into things!
I’m considering. I’m concerned it will eat up my time, though I suppose I just write as long as I can and then exit. I guess all my questions and anxieties will be addressed through trial and error and their forums…
Well as far as the time. You won’t be writing as much as you think you will. More time is spent waiting to write then writing. Especially if you have more than two people in your thread and you are taking turns, it can be half a day before you post again or a day sometimes. And you can set up a notification. It isn’t that bad. And we let each other know if we are going to be gone for the weekend or evening or whatever. We all work toegether to cover each other. Its not like we are all sitting around with nothing else to do, we all are busy people..
You WOULD fit in. I promise!!!
Oh Wendi, you should get paid by the MwP for this! You’re convincing!!