A comment was posted on this site about going where you don’t want to go with your writing. I know too well about this. Sometimes, especially when writing about sensitive topics or painful experiences from the past and present, I find myself delving into an area of my life I would rather just ignore. But then I have to ask myself why. After all, there is no such thing as being able to avoid myself. Circumstances and situations that brought me to where I am right now all had reasons beyond just bringing me pain. If I can’t see what those reasons are right this minute, perhaps writing about it will help. Quite frankly, it has been through my own writing, both commercial and private, that I have been able to make sense of the seemingly nonsensical. I guess the point I am trying to make is that wherever you end up in your writing may be the best place to be. And accepting that might be the key to understanding.
Right now is a great example of how constipated I can get when writing. It feels as if everything is stuck in my head and I can’t get a a damn thing on paper. It’s not quite writer’s block, which to me feels as if I am standing with my nose against a looming cement wall with no chance of ever getting over it much less seeing it in its entirety. Hopeless, overwhelmed and a failure. The feeling I have this morning is different. It feels as if there are no walls at all, just a million open paths and I can’t figure out which way to go. So I falter and pause, hem and harrumph and hope that I can find the motivation to walk down one of them. When I am in this place, I have learned some tricks to give myself the push I need. One of them is to remind myself that no matter which path I take, it will still get me there (wherever ‘there’ is). The other is to stop thinking and start doing. My mind is my biggest asset to my creative writing and also my most annoying liability. Overthinking is a bad habit that has left me frustrated and blank-paged. Right now I have to remind myself that the craft is actually honed on paper not in my head. Just go do it, Lenore. I’ll let you know how it turns out. 
The only sure fire way to lose is to quit, give up, or stop trying. As obvious as this sounds, it is the place where a lot of great writing has ended up–just steps from the finish line. I am hardly a patient person. It is one of my tragic flaws. Timelines, goals and endpoints live in my head and dictate to me just how my career and even my life should unfold. Of course, it rarely works that way. And it’s been one of my greatest lessons to let go of that way of thinking and just focus on what my part is in all of this. Namely, as a writer, it is to never give up. And than requires tenacity. I wish I had nickel for every moment I wanted to quit, every tantrum I had over rejection letters and foiled plans, every time I told myself that this was it–my final attempt at success. Wealthy is what I would be. But thanks to my stubborn nature and the confidence of a few pivotal people in my life, I always go back and try again. Over time I have come to the place where I can isolate what my role is in all of this. It is to develop the ideas, do the writing, finish the projects and create, create, create. Then to sell, sell, sell. And that always involves a lot of waiting, waiting, waiting. But what I have realized is that I don’t need to cultivate worry, anxious thoughts of what now or fret over why isn’t anything happening. I have learned to allow the universe, God or just the unfolding fates to do the rest. I think it’s called faith, or perhaps better put, trust.
Where does the evil little voice in your head come from? It has to have a source, right? One of exercises I do in my writing seminars is to ask the participants a series of questions designed to give a face and a voice to the critic the exists in all of us. To give life to the critic who tells us we will never make it; we don’t have what it takes to go the distance; we lack talent; we should just give up. Many during the process discover that the origination of their inner critics take root in their parents, a judgmental teacher or mentor, a jealous peer group, or some other influence from their young lives. The ironic result of the exercise is that after painting a face and a personality on this inner critic, the participants realize that they have to ultimately take ownership of the wretched monster. Because as much as we would like to blame our inner critic for our inability to feel good about our accomplishments and ourselves, the truth is we have met the critic and it is us.
I have a voracious appetite for writing tips. Thankfully, I have found a mentor in my literary agent who has helped me immensely with a plethora of tips. I believe the art of great writing is an expanding one; always changing, deepening and spreading even if only by nuance. No writer is ever so good that he or she doesn’t need a) an editor and b) a teacher or mentor. You may notice when reading your favorite authors, some of them get sloppy with success. Some don’t. Those who take their time producing their writing projects over a longer period of time often show a consistency in style and plot development and continue to be solid writers that can captivate the reader. Others, often the ones who have become superstars and crank out book after book after book, can have the tendency to start to believe that every word they type is untouchable. Either that, or they have ghost writers doing all the work for them. Two of the authors I admire have fallen from grace in my opinion. Their newer works seem to have bypassed the editing process. Extranneous detail, going-nowhere dialog, and boring plotting seem to drag them down. I can only assume that they have gotten somewhat full of themselves. It reminds me of the early days in my professional journalism career when I worked on the copy desk at McGraw-Hill in NYC. I worked for BusinessWeek Magazine and was this young, just-out-of-college kid. Part of my first day on the job was to edit copy from one of the most established and prestigious writers there. I nervously but dutifully did my work and sent it back to him for his approval before the piece went on to publication. It came back to me with his approval. But as I read through it, he had stripped out all of my edits–which were few–and replaced the original copy. Apparently, he felt he didn’t need to be edited. Especially by some punk kid. I think this can easily happen in the case of writers, especially since most of us have frail egos and can view our writing as untouchable. If you don’t believe anything else anyone tells you, please believe this: Having a second set of trained eyes work through your copy for content as well as grammar and syntax is invaluable and a vital part of solid writing.
Writing can be a huge stress reliever. I believe that journaling has become such a popular pastime for even non-writers because of this. It astounds me when I think of how many people I know who have found popular online social networks and blogs to showcase their work. It’s such a wonderful trend. As a staunch proponent of freedom of speech and a believer that information is a good thing, I applaud their efforts at being heard.
There is something about putting thoughts on paper or the computer screen that helps pull the thin strain of yarn that balls up inside of us and winds up unraveling the complexities of emotions tangled therein. Regardless of the result, the mere act of writing can be very healing. I discovered this a young teen writing for myself. Though I was never much of a diary keeper, I was fond of writing just for myself on scraps of paper or in my mind. To this day, many of my column ideas and dialogue for my books is done internally. Being somewhat of an insomniac, I have learned over the decades how to write in my head. And then I tell myself to remember what I have written. It stays locked inside when I finally drift off to sleep. It has come to be such a habit, I can now write from memory. Of course, it is not verbatim, but the gyst is there. And often times I can recall key phrases. We all have some sort of internal machination that helps us work through the stresses of life. This is mine. And because of my natural bent as a writer, I work it into the creative process and it becomes something that I can integrate onto a larger canvass.
So here’s to a new year of writing yourself through your stressors and into a life of better understanding of the demons that dog you.
My sister had a children’s book growing up about a child who owned a pet turtle. The kid would walk the turtle around the block with a string tied around his shell for a leash. The point behind the little book was to enjoy life, take your time and try not to hurry everything. The turtle, after all, was never in a hurry. I think of this when it comes to writing beause oddly I got this very message from my literary agent when I went to visit him in NYC last week. His first words were, “Don’t be in such a hurry.” Of course, I internally argued with him even though I nodded my head in agreement the whole time. He said few authors get it right the first time. And while I took that as a challenge, the little voice of wisdom in my head had to agree with him. My first novel with him took approximately five rewrites of the chapter summaries and then an additional six rewrites of the actual book, including tweaking and light edits over the course of six months. It was maddening. But in the long run, the final product is truly sterling. Why? Because I was forced to slow down and focus on it. My lesson for this year, as it winds down, is to break this habit of being deadline focused and rushing, rushing, rushing. Great art takes great time.
It’s been debated for centuries. What is the role of a writer? Depending on how you define yourself within the writer’s universe, that definition colors the way you view your role. But I found a quote that applies to all, in my opinion, regardless of what you are writing. Anais Nin, known for her published journals and erotica–neither of which I have read–said it best and most succinctly.
“The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.”
And there you have it. I look to this quote daily to help give my own writing depth and dimension. Face it, who hasn’t read a columnist who just rambles on and on, colorless words, predictable conclusions and trite phrasing with no nuance or fascinating insight into what she is speaking about? I work very hard to make sure I am not her. I can’t say that I succeed on all occasions but I do make it a priority. I try to say “what we are unable to say.”
Someone once asked me how I could write about such personal and revealing details in my column. Funny, I never really look at it this way. As I often tell my students, “You have to risk something of yourself in order to resonate with your readers.” And I don’t care what you are writing about. Whether it is an article for the school newspaper or a regional magazine or copy for a press release or your doctoral thesis. You have to challenge yourself with your writing in order for it to reach across and grab your reader’s attention and keep it.
This can be especially challenging with journalism, given its underpinnings in matters of balance and unbiased reporting. How to do you risk something if you have to keep everything so objective? Risking something in that situation, and I have faced this thousands of times in my own career, means fighting like the dickens to find a new angle, a great lead, a fresh perspective, or clever packaging of your article. It means not falling back on the same old same old, even if that is exactly it is. It is so easy to be formulaic. It is much more grueling to forge your story into something worth reading by the sweat of your creative brow.
There’s the challenge. For the way I look at it, readers take precious time out of their days to read you. Or me. I want to give them a gift in return. I want to be worth reading. Whether it be a bit of tight, well-crafted writing; a humorous tale told to hook their attention; a bizarre bit of my personal brand of armchair psycho-analysis; or just an anecdote about being a person, a mom, a writer and a friend. I do indeed believe that, “The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.” And I thank Anais Nin for saying what I was unable to say.
Writers love to talk about “the muse.” Author Stephen King jokes about the concept, having once said that if he had a muse it would be a short, fat guy or something of that sort. In his humorous and insightful tome, Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, King very bluntly gives his own insight into the craft that he has honed so well. Whether you are a fan or not, as a writer you would enjoy this book immensely. We listened to it on CD several years ago and everyone on the long car ride enjoyed King’s candor, humor and style in describing what can be and often times is the arduous process of producing a saleable piece of writing.
I like to think I have a muse, but the truth is, while I have an inner critic, I do not have an accompanying muse to conquer him. For me it’s more like a bevy of muses that take the form of characters in my novels, voices in my column or even inanimate objects in my short essays. After two decades of writing professionally, it’s easy for me to tap into the corral of muses IF I don’t try. That’s right. If I just allow myself to write unencumbered and for the joy or the deadline of it, I find that the flow comes. When I try to produce, I get constipated. Nothing seems good enough; nothing seems to come easily; nothing seems to work. And then the inner critic rears his ugly head.
The trick for me is to focus on enjoying the moment and the gift of writing regardless of the end product. And according to Stephen King, to write whatever I (expletive deleted) please.
While the tricks I use to get through my own personal writer’s block work for me most of the time, there are those moments when I fall prey to the machinations of my own demon. I highly doubt that only writers deal with their demons. Being criticized, whether by self or others is probably more common then I realize. And it is particularly daunting when I let it get to me. At those times, I personify that fear into what I have dubbed my Inner Critic. Regardless of his origins, and yes it is a ‘he’ for some reason, I do know my critic is really me. But for my own purposes it helps if I make him his own entity. And he is nasty one.
What has helped me get perspective and take care of the task at hand, which is writing, has been to take the opposite tact of my inner critic, who takes himself very seriously. I don’t take myself seriously. If my critic hurls insults, I shrug it off as merely opinion. If my internal demon is rude and obnoxious, I laugh at him and then tune him out. If my critic doesn’t like what I have written, I shrug because I know my writing isn’t for everyone. And when it comes right down to it, he is not my editor. So my advice is whether the critic is external or internal makes no difference. Ultimately, you have all the control.
