One of the hardest parts about being a writer (or at least trying to, per theme of blog) is how insanely lonely it can get. Physically, it’s alienating in the sense that I need to isolate myself to get things done. I end up spending a significant amount of time alone or in the proximity of strangers, which is hardly proximity at all if I stop to think about it. Cerebrally - well, let’s just say we’ve gone over that one. But on top of it all, I’m quite young and going through something (you know, the laborious pursuit of revision and publication of a novel) into which most people my age simply aren’t even tuned, let alone experiencing. There are nights where I want to turn my head and look someone in the eyes, and tell him or her that I’m feeling X. And I want to hear, “God, yeah, I’m feeling it, too.”
Now and again, I’m glad to have my attention cast to something that makes me feel even the slightest bit less alone. (Thanks, Shane.)
Names are everything. BabyNames.com is like my writer’s candyland of metaphor and possibility. Disclaimer: said usage, however thoroughly explained, does not alleviate the unsettling suspicions of friends, family, and significant others.
The 3 train took a while to pull up into Atlantic Avenue this afternoon. The day was awful: pouring rain, biting cold, and when the train finally pulled in, the speaker said it’d be running express. I shrugged at a young mother with a boy of seven by her side. ”Just when you think you’re going to get a break,” she said, returning the shrug with a polite smile, patting her son’s back. We began talking. ”I have to take him to a birthday party. I wish I could have Sundays to myself. I’m battling cancer,” she continued. ”Mondays I get chemo, so I just wanted to rest today. My life is hard. No matter what’s bad for you, at least it’s not that. Nothing’s as bad as that.”
She smiled at me as she got off at Grand Army Plaza and wished me a happy holiday.
I was unaware there was such a thing as a “vacation in one’s mind.” Calling myself a “cerebral person” would be a fairly kind, accurate assessment. While my writing physically manifests itself on my two-pound notebook computer (you know, if all goes as it’s supposed to), it spends just as much – if not more – time stewing in my head. I’m constantly thinking about my characters, and if I don’t have the novel weighing, I’m processing every captivating action performed in front of me and embedding physical details of locations into memory so I can use them in some capacity down the line. As such, it follows that my mind is something that never turns off. I didn’t realize that most humans don’t function like this, and that it’s essentially impossible to be functional when that’s the case.
Last week, I had an experience with my writing that I’ve never had before – visceral, full-bodied disgust (I swear there’s no word powerful enough for it). As far as I was concerned, my writing was abhorrent: I’d let my own fears and apprehensions compound to a point where they were no longer novelty or sources from which to draw motivation. They were uncontrollable, controlling paralysis that eclipsed everything I thought I knew about myself. Last Tuesday night I decided I hadn’t written the book that I’d wanted to. And I was authentically convinced that I was done with it.
I told very few people, but those in whom I did confide all had the same reaction: it was like I was standing before them in a floor-length, lilac-colored sundress, hair platinum blonde. It just wasn’t me. What I was saying had nothing to do with who I was – the person passionate and serious enough to have a finished novel at twenty-two. But I was a broken-down zombie: completely serious, a mind-controlled slave to the disgust.
I spent a week away from the text. But more importantly, I was so repulsed by the mere thought of it that I turned my entire consciousness off to writing. So emotionally drained from using my entire body to hate it, I was too exhausted to think.
A week later, I’ve reemerged (though not without some scars and conversations that were the literary equivalent of talking someone down from the ledge of the Brooklyn Bridge). I am feeling something I don’t recognize. I am not a person of moderation; I am a person of extremes. I’ve never confronted the middle of any situation or emotion because I’ve always written it off as unsatisfactory territory that meant I wasn’t pushing or wanting hard enough. But now, as I start to look at the text a little here, think about a scene a little there, I’m feeling something almost like placidity laced with a few nerves. And I’m in control over my emotions. Old habit is inclined to chalk it up to numbness, but I don’t think that’s it. Approaching with caution and not throwing every ounce of your humanity into something doesn’t mean that you’re not in it all the way, and I think that’s the single most important thing I have had to learn during the revision process. I suppose it probably seems really inane to most, but this is a full-scale revelation about not only my writing, but my entire life.
I have a lot to do, and a short timeframe in which to accomplish it if I want to utilize the incredible opportunities in front of me. However, I know I need to take care of myself again and not run myself down to the axles, or I won’t last long enough to be able to agonize. A person cannot live, let alone perform under such unrealistic pressure from self. I never want to reach a point like this again, and while there are no guarantees, not taking preventative, logical steps after having felt this way is inexcusable. Step by baby step. I’m serious. I have no other choice.
Exposing your vulnerability is a hell of a thing.
M
Freudian type.
November is over. (Note: when you have a nine to five in the real world, it doesn’t matter what month it is.) Some tried to undertake the gigantic task of writing a whole novel. I tried to face editing with a new approach, a meaningful one. And that was a gigantic task on its own.
I think I learned more about myself this month than I did revise. I suppose that’s a decent thing, but it’s no less difficult. I’ve come to a lot of conclusions about who I am as both a person and a writer, and some of them are as hard to deal with as writing a novel in a month.
Because I’m in a really fragile mood, I’m going to step away from the keyboard. Blogging while upset is like driving while drunk: someone is going to get hurt, and if that doesn’t happen it’s almost worse because you’ll never learn your lesson that it’s a bad idea. I need to take one gigantic step back before I can restart. If I decide to restart.
Maybe I need to run a marathon backwards.
M
I wanted to run up to the woman reading Ethan Frome on the train and tell her, “Please, please don’t let this ruin your faith in literature. Ignore the praise on the back cover. I’ve never actually met someone who liked this. You don’t have to pretend.”
The in-and-out strikes again. While the good feedback just keeps on coming, it’s hard to smile and yelp “Yes!” when I’ve just realized there are two glaring logical impossibilities on which my plot and ending hinge. You know, not the, “Oh, drop a detail in here” sort of logical impossibilities, but the fully metastasized “This involves godlike levels of telepathy and planets aligning” sort of logical impossibilities. Even more embarrassing is the fact that they’ve been sitting there through almost ten readers.
Um, oops.
So now, my focus is not only working these out, but seeing how they fit into the deep flaws that I already know need to be addressed. I suppose calling this “lucky” would be odd, but it’s sort of a blessing in disguise that the places in which these occur are tied into sections that I need to rewrite because of agent feedback, anyway. They’re forcing me to step back and not only tidy up the ending, but functionally rethink how it’s going to happen.
Of course, it all comes while I am still on the heels of “How on earth do I get any of this to paper?” mode, both because I feel drained of ideas and devoid of ability to turn them into decent words if, for some god-given reason, I actually think of a concept with which to move forward.
My fortune cookie said, “Confidence isn’t something that you get. It’s something that you are.”
M
Well, hello, sixty-thousand word milestone.
“But that’s fiction for you: it taunts you with the spectre of what you cannot do yourself.” - Zadie Smith on “novel nausea”
I’m fairly certain that I’ve crossed a bridge into a new place. This blog, while not only acting as real-time therapy, has been where I chronicle the incredible journey I’m on with this book. While there are occasional downs, up to this point, I’ve been lucky to feel so much forward motion, so much fervor to create, and for the most part, words have flowed very freely. Sure, I’ve doubted perspective at times, but I read back through old entries, and very few times have I been flat out stuck while I have goals in mind. In short, while I’ve always had the aim to make this the best book it possibly can be (and publishable, if possible), I’ve never had to think twice about this as anything but pleasure.
This weekend, I learned what it means to “push through the pain.” And in doing so, I think I’ve pushed myself into new writerly territory. As I’ve only recently begun to relate, I’m experiencing my first bout of absolute disconnect with my own writing. Nausea about my work. A deep doubt of everything that’s on the pages. Distaste for my own ideas. Feeling like I’ve run dry of ways to meet the explicit goals I’ve broken down for myself. I’ve never felt something more paralyzing. This book is, in many ways, my life. And what do you do when your life just stops working? Of course, it comes on the heels of real professional interest and a need to work on a timeline that’s not my own (yes, I know this is not a coincidence).
After spending the week talking through the confusion and doubts workshop had brought up, I collected myself and decided that Friday and Saturday night, I’d dedicate my evenings to confinement in coffee shop walls, trying to get things done. While I was able to do some work, it was mostly housekeeping and organizational (read: stalling). Not a single new word was written. Sunday, with my new chapter index annotated with specific goals, I was determined to get the momentum moving again. And at 1:30, I sat down. By 3:30, I’d barely written 200 words. All of which I hated.
I started making my frustrated noises (read: squealing like a baby dinosaur) at my computer in the middle of the Tea Lounge. This is never a good sign.
I don’t know what happened. But something happened. I reopened my laptop, and just started going. I didn’t have that full-bodied inspired feeling. My dislike for my work was still in full-force. As I wrote, I was fairly confident that I hated everything going down on the page, and that I wouldn’t be able to use any of it. It felt like I was physically dragging prose from my gut, kicking and screaming the whole way. But between 3:30 and 4:30, I’d written 3,000 new words.
To me, this is a breakthrough. ”Inspiration” is such a tough thing; in a sense, it’s esoteric writer bull, but in another sense, it’s true that you often don’t create your best work (or sometimes any work at all) without feeling something. With this manuscript, and probably fiction in general, this was the first time I was able to write because I knew I needed to, not because it felt good or natural. I understand that now I can push myself through this rocky period, and even if I don’t love everything that comes out, the fact that something is coming out at all is enough right now. I have no idea if what I wrote yesterday fills any holes, or whether any of it is really useable. But having this experience, this odd version of triumph, proves to me that this is the only thing that I want to do. That I’m meant to do. And if it kills me, I’m going to be a writer. I just may lose some time/hair/sanity along the way.
M
Wall Street Journal interview with Cormac McCarthy:
How does the notion of aging and death affect the work you do? Has it become more urgent?
CM: Your future gets shorter and you recognize that. In recent years, I have had no desire to do anything but work and be with [son] John. I hear people talking about going on a vacation or something and I think, what is that about? I have no desire to go on a trip. My perfect day is sitting in a room with some blank paper. That’s heaven. That’s gold and anything else is just a waste of time.
How does that ticking clock affect your work? Does it make you want to write more shorter pieces, or to cap things with a large, all-encompassing work?
CM: I’m not interested in writing short stories. Anything that doesn’t take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.
…not that I - or anyone - needed Manhattan-bound service at 8:10am on a Thursday morning or anything. Thanks, F train.
Criticism is a really odd thing. It’s not odd in the sense that it’s unexpected, but what’s odd about it is what it can do to you, especially when you realize that it’s the first time you’ve really ever experienced it.
Writing is always something that’s clicked for me. This is no surprise - I’m a writer. Two and two generally tends to make four, or at least enough that I’ve come to rely on it. I’ve always excelled in with all things writing - my published works, with beta readers, and in workshop settings. Sure, I’ve experienced criticism before, but I’ve never had comments, questions, and suggestions shake me to the point where I’m losing sleep. Until now.
My MFA-level workshop is really the first time I’m surrounded by people who don’t take my work for granted as good (or who aren’t expecting and hoping it to be), and who are criticizing it on both a macro and micro level. I, of course, expected this - and even wanted it as a way to thicken my skin and improve my book - so it’s not my own imperfections to which I’m reacting. In fact, I’m grateful to see the holes, the disconnects, the tired language to which my own tunnel vision has blinded me. However, it’s how the criticism is affecting me and my process that’s really knocked me flat out.
I’ve never been at a point where I’ve received so many conflicting opinions - and ones that conflict with my gut instincts, too - where I have no way to reconcile all of the information that’s coming at me. Where I have no idea what to take with a grain of salt, and what to embrace fully. Where I have no idea how my intentions and gut play into everything. Where I am asking questions of myself to which no answers exist. So now, I’m terrified to open up my computer and begin work, because all of the input has become so jumbled that I can’t stare at the screen without feeling like everything is totally inadequate, like I’ll never be able to fix it, and even if I could, like a solution even exists. Like I’ll never be able to bring certain sections of prose up to to the level of some of the other writing in the book. When I open my laptop, I can’t even figure out which questions and comments are the ones that are stopping me in the first place.
I sat and had a long talk with my professor tonight about how this is all affecting me, and it was the first time I’d had the realization that I’ve never really been criticized like this before. It explains why my reaction has been so consuming, so shocking, and so halting. I have no experience on how to internalize things, how to detach myself from certain comments and pick and choose what’s meaningful, and how to prioritize my own instincts using that little thing called “confidence.”
I hope that gaining a little bit of perspective on why I’m having such a visceral reaction will help me calm down. Thanks to Stephen, I’ve given myself a concrete, small task to try out to help ease me back in, give me some confidence, and free me from trying to revise the entire manuscript in one go. I’m anxious to see how I do.
I know I’m in a unique situation: I’m very young and not previously published in fiction, but I’m sitting on a strong, potentially publishable manuscript with professional interest and the weight of a time crunch over me. It’s inevitable that there’s going to be some kind of dissonance in that equation that may very well end up feeling like a bit of a car crash sometimes. I’m just hoping that I will learn to ease up on myself sooner rather than later.
M
“If I was 27 and trying to publish my first novel today, I might be tempted to shoot myself.” -John Irving
I have never before experienced fear of confronting my own work. It is horrifying.
