The hard parts
Last week was kind of a crazy week, between our four-day Eastercon that stretched into five days, and then an unexpected (though fabulous!) family visit that lasted the rest of the week. Factor in a major ME/CFS crash, too...and yeah. The last week and a half was great but tough, and by this weekend, I was beyond exhausted.
So it was SO the wrong moment for me to sit down (on Saturday) and read through the full manuscript-so-far of my WIP. Oh, wow, was it the wrong moment. Because it forced me to realize, with total shock and horror: This is only a rough draft!
Well...duh. Obviously. And yet...
Here's how I write novels: straight through, linearly, as quickly as I can (which isn't particularly quick, but whatever) to try to outrun the self-doubt that races against me, wanting to cut me off at the legs and make me give up any book I try. I drive my way through the first draft on instinct and sheer willpower.
In order to do that, I have to be like Orpheus and NEVER LOOK BACK. Because in order to keep driving forward, especially on a book that scares me a lot for various reasons, I have to somehow believe (insanely and incorrectly) that what I've written so far in my first draft is just great. Great great great! It'll barely need any revision in the next round! (Insert hysterical laughter here from my critique partners...)
I don't know exactly how this strategy co-exists with my first-draft mantra "It can all be fixed in the next draft!", but it does.
Unfortunately, this Saturday, I was so tired and crashed, I wasn't up to any active writing. At the same time, I couldn't bear to waste one of my rare childcare sessions. (MrD is in the middle of a two-week-long spring break.) So I told myself that it just made sense to read through the book so far and get a real sense of it.
Well. Let me just say here and now: when you're exhausted and sick, it is NOT the right time to realize how much work you have ahead of yourself.
It is the right time to be on Twitter, though.
I tweeted one of my most self-pitying tweets ever - a tweet so self-pitying and ridiculous it actually makes me cringe to re-type it here: Having 1 of those days when I curse myself for coming up with a book that's so HARD to write! Why cldn't I have thought of something easier?
But I'm re-typing that tweet here because not only did I get a whole flood of encouragement and commiseration that really, really helped, but I got one tweet back from one of my oldest friends that made everything go click! inside me:
because being finished will be so much sweeter and you will have done something you can be proud of
YES. It's that simple, and that important.
This book has scared me ever since I first thought of it. It's so personal in so many ways, which makes writing it a weirdly vulnerable process; it's full of bits and pieces of my family history and identity (buried in fiction, of course); it's built on a different plot structure than I've ever tried before, which feels intimidating; for heaven's sake, it's a road trip across 1930s America, and I'm stuck here in Wales!
(Although actually, the fact that it's a road trip across the country to Hollywood is another oddly personal part of the story, because I have vivid memories of road trips from the Midwest to LA from my own childhood.)
And the wonderful Kaz Mahoney just posted this quote on her blog, which I really needed to read:
“Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.”
― Steven Pressfield
I care desperately about this book, which makes it terrifying to write - and essential. And as absolutely amazing as it is to have gotten the bursary, of course I feel an added pressure there too - I want very badly to justify their faith in me (and I'm scared of letting them down).
I ran away from this book twice before - first when the idea had first occurred to me, two years ago, and then after writing the first couple of chapters, over a year ago. Both times I flung myself toward different ideas for books that felt easier, safer - and a lot less vulnerable.
I'm not going to run again.
And now I feel very uncertain about posting this blog entry, because it honestly does make me feel vulnerable to put this out there in public. But after sharing all my good news lately, it just feels wrong not to share the vulnerable parts too.
So it was SO the wrong moment for me to sit down (on Saturday) and read through the full manuscript-so-far of my WIP. Oh, wow, was it the wrong moment. Because it forced me to realize, with total shock and horror: This is only a rough draft!
Well...duh. Obviously. And yet...
Here's how I write novels: straight through, linearly, as quickly as I can (which isn't particularly quick, but whatever) to try to outrun the self-doubt that races against me, wanting to cut me off at the legs and make me give up any book I try. I drive my way through the first draft on instinct and sheer willpower.
In order to do that, I have to be like Orpheus and NEVER LOOK BACK. Because in order to keep driving forward, especially on a book that scares me a lot for various reasons, I have to somehow believe (insanely and incorrectly) that what I've written so far in my first draft is just great. Great great great! It'll barely need any revision in the next round! (Insert hysterical laughter here from my critique partners...)
I don't know exactly how this strategy co-exists with my first-draft mantra "It can all be fixed in the next draft!", but it does.
Unfortunately, this Saturday, I was so tired and crashed, I wasn't up to any active writing. At the same time, I couldn't bear to waste one of my rare childcare sessions. (MrD is in the middle of a two-week-long spring break.) So I told myself that it just made sense to read through the book so far and get a real sense of it.
Well. Let me just say here and now: when you're exhausted and sick, it is NOT the right time to realize how much work you have ahead of yourself.
It is the right time to be on Twitter, though.
I tweeted one of my most self-pitying tweets ever - a tweet so self-pitying and ridiculous it actually makes me cringe to re-type it here: Having 1 of those days when I curse myself for coming up with a book that's so HARD to write! Why cldn't I have thought of something easier?
But I'm re-typing that tweet here because not only did I get a whole flood of encouragement and commiseration that really, really helped, but I got one tweet back from one of my oldest friends that made everything go click! inside me:
because being finished will be so much sweeter and you will have done something you can be proud of
YES. It's that simple, and that important.
This book has scared me ever since I first thought of it. It's so personal in so many ways, which makes writing it a weirdly vulnerable process; it's full of bits and pieces of my family history and identity (buried in fiction, of course); it's built on a different plot structure than I've ever tried before, which feels intimidating; for heaven's sake, it's a road trip across 1930s America, and I'm stuck here in Wales!
(Although actually, the fact that it's a road trip across the country to Hollywood is another oddly personal part of the story, because I have vivid memories of road trips from the Midwest to LA from my own childhood.)
And the wonderful Kaz Mahoney just posted this quote on her blog, which I really needed to read:
“Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.”
― Steven Pressfield
I care desperately about this book, which makes it terrifying to write - and essential. And as absolutely amazing as it is to have gotten the bursary, of course I feel an added pressure there too - I want very badly to justify their faith in me (and I'm scared of letting them down).
I ran away from this book twice before - first when the idea had first occurred to me, two years ago, and then after writing the first couple of chapters, over a year ago. Both times I flung myself toward different ideas for books that felt easier, safer - and a lot less vulnerable.
I'm not going to run again.
And now I feel very uncertain about posting this blog entry, because it honestly does make me feel vulnerable to put this out there in public. But after sharing all my good news lately, it just feels wrong not to share the vulnerable parts too.