Posts Tagged ‘writing’

Even though I’m regularly asked to speak on my perspectives on writing and literature, I never really feel qualified to do so. As is evidenced by ten blogs in a row about my writing process, it’s a tenuous and delicate and scary thing, so how could I ever master it? Luckily, I doubt I really need to. I just need to keep getting back to work, back to myself.

Rather than depressing me, a workmanlike (workwomanlike?) attitude toward writing keeps me going. It reminds me that I can improve with practice, that I need to plug away. Treating writing like work is not the most glamorous choice in the world (pro tip: neither is any aspect of writing, at least for me), but it results in writing that gets done with the minimum of fuss and emotional trauma. This is not to say that there is not emotional trauma galore in the process…how can you really get to readers if you don’t strip naked and wander around every once in a while? But for me, it always comes back to the work.

Luckily, I am a person who loves to work. I am a hard worker. This could be due to insecurity or incompetence or some other word that starts with “I”. I’m sure it’s safer for me to keep my identity as a worker instead of as an artist, but it works for now.

Might this change as I mature? I guess we’ll see. For now, there’s a big pile of work awaiting me—the work of finding myself and others on pages I create and the work of showing up for my work. That sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it? And yet I relish the rolling up of the sleeves. Who’s with me?

 

 

You know the big, huge, terrifying amount of time, energy and love you pour into your writing? You know the dreams you wrap up in every word? It will all be for naught if you don’t show up to protect it.

I don’t mean go out and buy a gun, or go out and get all obsessed with the remote possibility of someone stealing your precious ideas, unless that’s your thing. I mean that letting your desire for publication trump your common sense and your sense of self-protection is somewhat ludicrous. So is allowing people to divert you from your higher purpose or giving away your self-respect to someone who seems to offer “something for your career” in exchange for your firstborn child, or something. Find the right people to bitch to and trust. Find a sense of unwavering something that lets you shut the door a few moments a week to write those words, or stand up on behalf of the draft you can’t get out of your head, or murder the character you love too much for your own good.

I won’t go into specifics, but I have had to learn all this the hard way. Ultimately, I must show up on my own behalf and on behalf of my work.

Look, the publishing industry is changing fast. Things are buzzy and kind of terrifying. There’s always something to compare yourself to—a stellar success that is just enough like you to make you really jealous, or a flameout that is just close enough to home to make you wince.

It might sound cliche, but the only way I know to combat this weirdness is to look for the book only I can write.

When I got close to my first book deal (spoiler alert: it didn’t happen), I really didn’t get this. I didn’t get that an editorial committee, or an editor, or a reviewer, or a librarian, or a reader would take a look at the cover of a book with my name on it and say something to the effect of “So? Why should I care?” And that’s okay. It really is. Because when I’m doing my job right, I’m writing the book only I can write, the book I was born to bring to all of you. This doesn’t mean that the book will change the world, but in order to succeed I have to bring my uniqueness and my voice and courage to the work.  It might be scary, or confusing, or really hard to get down to that essence, but I kind of feel like that’s my calling as a writer.

It’s also the hardest thing in the world to go for, because in order to pursue the book that only you can write, you have to figure out what “you” means at any given moment. That’s the really tricky part.

There are two types of revisers: the reluctant and the thrilled. Maybe it’s the former-school-newspaper-copyeditor in me, or the short drafter in me, but I love revision. At last! Drafting is done (ha) and I can make the damn thing a bit better, or at least I hope.

But revision isn’t as straightforward as it might seem. It’s a layered process, one with lots of nuance and fluidity. The layers I can think of are:

• Flow
• Story
• Voice
• Time
• Tense
• Facts
• Focus
• Pace
• Look
• Ease of Reading
• Grammar/Spelling
• Fun

I’m sure there are hundreds of other layers, if you look for them. But these are the common threads I look for in revision. I try to consider the piece from a reader’s standpoint. What comes before/after? Is the voice accessible or (woe!) dry and academic? Has the piece caved in to the wall o’text mentality or is it sparse and flimsy? Does it clog my throat when I read it out loud? Am I falling asleep with boredom?

As I get into revision, I always start with an assessment of what I’ve written. Usually this consists of me scratching my head and feeling mystified at my word choices and decisions, but then I get down to business and do a paragraph-by-paragraph summary, just a few words to describe each paragraph. Just going through that exercise usually immediately reveals big holes, things begging to be rearranged, things that can go now. It also, strangely, reassures me a bit. Okay, I have a slight idea of what I’m doing, or at least what I’m doing wrong.

I am pretty brutal about cutting, but every once in a while there’s a turn of phrase I find particularly brilliant and can’t bear to let go. This tends to be a warning sign of tunnel vision. Rather than forsake it completely, I force myself to experiment: What if I cut it out and put it in another document of dead darlings? Would it improve things or detract from them? Nine times out of ten it languishes in that file forever as I find I can live without it.

My last gasp is always what I call “the fun pass.” My insecurity tends to show up in wordy academic tendencies that make every sentence into a parenthetical disaster, so I go through one last time and get honest with myself. Is this fun to read? Really?

Since the revision process is a multi-layered one, there’s no right or wrong way. This is maddening and heartening at once.

How about you? Are you a reviser? What’s your favorite revision trick?

 

So, you’ve given yourself permission. You’ve made the space. Now it’s time to draft.

I will be frank: this is my least favorite part of writing. I feel like that makes me a freak (do you sense a theme here?) since writers are, you know, supposed to enjoy writing? And I do enjoy writing, but much more the fixing part than the vomiting out raw material part. Because that’s what drafting is for me.

I will be frank once more: though the thought of an outline gives me the chills, I really work better with one. Usually I try to draft too early and the first draft turns into a truncated, Frankenstein-like thing with lots of brackets and indicators of things to add. When I was writing The Heroine’s Bookshelf I would outline each chapter in five lines or less. It helped me know where to go when I got lost (and wow, did I get lost).

Drafting is terrifying to a control freak like me. It all looks so disgusting! It’s weird and doesn’t get anywhere near where I’d like it to go! But beneath all that grossness is a big leap, a sense of “here goes nothing, I am just going to show up and go through this crazy process” that always leads to serendipitous and good things. Drafting is where I really get in touch with my gnarly, confused subconscious, and my best drafts are totally unfamiliar to me once they’ve been written. It’s like creating a ball of tangled yarn. It’s disgusting and weird. I promise. And then it’s over and I can do what I do way better…editing.

How about you? Do you enjoy drafting?