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Hitting a Wall

You know that feeling when you finish the novel and the world is wide and the possibilities endless? That was a feeling.

Now I’m anxiously scraping together anyone with a pulse to beta read for me and researching literary agents, all the while trying to convince myself that what was miraculous a month ago is not now, in fact, hot garbage.

How is this a thing that authors do on the regular? I already have anxiety, please and thank you – this rollercoaster of feelings is not for me.

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Writing is a bitch. Seriously. No one could have told me this in the 7th grade so I could’ve hopped off this train? Sheesh.

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Four Things I Wish I’d Known

This year has been big for me as a writer. I’ve been writing for fifteen years, yes, but all of a sudden I feel like was doing it all wrong before. In the space of a year I’ve learned so much, and I wish I could go back in time and share some of it with teenage me. It might not have made that much of a difference in the long-run, true (I was not very good at listening to adults, for one thing), but at least I would have heard some of the advice that is really and truly making me better at my craft each and every day.

I’ve taken a few creative writing classes in my time in high school and college, and they tell you lots about active voice and the importance of showing and not telling, but they don’t tell you the good stuff, the really good stuff. Like…

#1. All words are good words

Seriously. No, really. Please, please hear me. There is no such thing as a “bad” word. There might be a word used in the wrong context, or a word that doesn’t fit the tone, or a word that distracts the reader from something else important that’s happening over here, but you’ll learn how to sort them. Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? It’s all about sorting the words – weighing them, sifting and sorting, until it’s time to weave them together. Let them be written – the sorting is the second step. Which leads me to my next point…

#2. You can’t edit a blank page

For a long time, this is what my writing sessions would look like: I would feel inspired, I would blissfully go to open up my laptop and create a word document. I would format it just right because I’m a little OCD that’s very important. And sometimes the words would just pour out of me – they’d come so easily it felt like my fingers were seven steps ahead of my brain. I wasn’t writing the story – I was just the vessel; the story was coming from some sacred well of prose that only literary geniuses are able to tap. It was beautiful. It was transcendent. It was why I wanted to write in the first place.

The trouble was, it was only happening about once out of every ten times I opened my laptop… and I wasn’t opening my laptop (because I wasn’t feeling inspired) but once every few weeks. I don’t care to do the math (you can if you like, nerd), but my productivity was abysmal. It is SO much easier to write everyday – something, anything, just keep moving – with the understanding that it can always be undone or changed.

#3. You will NOT DIE if you let someone read your writing

Okay, so this is a weird one, I know. For years, I was publishing fairly frequently to the world wide web under a pseudonym and with the understanding that no one who actually knew my face would ever know that those words were my words. Which was a little silly, because I liked those words – they were the words I was choosing to send out into the word; I was proud of those words – and other people seemed to like them too. I was getting good reviews, positive feedback, and making friends. Yet somehow, something kept me from ever sharing with the people closest to me. My sister, who is also a writer (and, props, a way better one than me!), would beg me to see some of my stuff. Nope. Never. I wrapped it all up, hid it away, and swore I’d rather die.

Well, last Friday I relinquished my first completed manuscript – 85,000 words (I’m not bragging, you’re bragging) – to my sister for critique. We’ve talked a few times since then, and while it’s still strange hearing my characters’ names out loud and in someone else’s mouth, there is such a freedom to it. I feel like it really exists for the first time. And, perhaps most importantly, I don’t have such a death-grip on it that I find myself open and willing to begin other projects. That piece isn’t my one-shot best-shot anymore. It’s still my baby, and when it comes back I will make it even better than it was… and then I’ll let someone else read it. Maybe.

#4. Read other people’s work

I’m already a reader. I’ve always been a reader. Reading was the genesis of everything for me; without it, I think I cease to exist. I am therefore I read – that’s right, isn’t it? Anyway, I read a ton and I read all different genres. I teach reading. But there’s something different about reading someone’s unpublished, fledgling attempts at fiction. I didn’t think I’d enjoy it at first. I thought I would get irritated at writers who weren’t as good as I believed myself to be, and become discouraged by writers who were much better. But something else happened entirely. Not only did I really and truly enjoy critiquing others’ writing, but it made my writing better. All reading makes writing better – sure, yes, I know that – but it’s different when it’s someone’s unfinished work, when you’re given the opportunity to see them undergoing the same process you are, trudging through the same mire, battling the same missteps. Every note you make prompts you to think back to your own manuscript and consider your own choices. It’s fun, it’s liberating, it’s basically magic.

So yes.

To teenage-me: Please read these. Please follow them. Please don’t dye your hair green the summer before senior year.

Love,

Someone who knows better but still has, and will always have, so much left to learn.

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This one always makes me feel some kinda way. 

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

   Old Time is still a-flying;

And this same flower that smiles today

   Tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,

   The higher he’s a-getting,

The sooner will his race be run,

   And nearer he’s to setting.

That age is best which is the first,

   When youth and blood are warmer;

But being spent, the worse, and worst

   Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,

   And while ye may, go marry;

For having lost but once your prime,

   You may forever tarry.

-Robert Herrick 

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“If roses tried to be sunflowers, they would lose their beauty; and if sunflowers tried to be roses, they would lose their strength.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo

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Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.

GK Chesterton

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Things I Swore I’d Never Do

Start a blog. Take time away from writing to write about writing.

I'm not saying I don't enjoy the thought of tracking my progress, because I do. And I'm not saying that there isn't a certain merit in sharing experiences with a wider readership, because there is. But it was never my style, and even sitting here now - trying valiantly not to be distracted by my cat or my Office reruns - I am feeling incredibly uncomfortable tentatively optimistic.

I finished my first novel at the end of March. Just a smidge above 80,000 words, I was feeling on top of the world. Nope. Higher than that. I was somewhere out near Jupiter. I sincerely felt (as I'm sure many young writers do) that the hard work had already been completed and I was steps away from becoming the best-selling novelist I'd always known myself to be. Zadie Smith said:

“It’s a feeling of happiness that knocks me clean out of adjectives. I think sometimes that the best reason for writing novels is to experience those four and a half hours after you write the final word.”

I mean ... YES. That's it. That's the feeling.

And it's not as if I'm entirely NEW to writing. I have a google drive full of short stories, fanfiction, novel beginnings, inspirational quotes, characters, ideas, etc. But this was it - I forced myself to finish this one because I had never finished before and I was chasing that feeling. THAT feeling. Thanks, Zadie.

So here I am. On my blog. Failing Trying to do something worthwhile with my words. Dreading Hoping for like-minded friends and my fellow writers to see me and hear me and join me.

This year I made it my personal goal to read all the things and write all the words. So that is what we are going to do. Novels, blogs, nonsense. We're going to do it. Hopefully you're here with me for the ride.