One On Writing

Having finished a novel in early June that represents two years’ labor, I have decided to work on nothing but short pieces for the foreseeable future. It has proved much more difficult than expected in every way.

Firstly, I am torn between whether or not I have too many ideas to get down on paper or not enough. One day, I feel like I have a thousand ideas, well okay, more realistically, I have two ideas for novels. And I curse myself for them. What kind of a maniac would go straight from working on one novel to working on another? I want to give my subconscious a rest. I should give my subconscious a rest, right?

Secondly, when I write, it’s just not the same as it used to be. Writing, at its best, feels like flow. Words pour from mind to hands to computer. Lately, writing has felt like the dry heaves. I scrape and force to get ideas on to the computer. What I get I am actually rather pleased with, but writing has gone from a task I run to do, and willingly do as long as I can, to a miserable hour of forcing out a thousand words before hiding in the bathroom to read Brandon Sanderson novels.

All this is exasperated by the futility of novel-writing. I am confident in my novel. It is the best thing I’ve ever written. I also am confident in my own abilities to self-assess. This is the first novel I’ve ever written which deserves to be published. It is my 5^th novel, or 7^th depending on how you count. I’ve been able to grok the level of dog-crap in my work. The dog-crap has been steadily decreasing. This last novel was two years spent making sure I did not make any of the mistakes I made in my other novels in this one. Furthermore, it was my sell-out novel. And in that last regard, it was certainly a failure.

While in many ways, there has never been a better time to be a writer than now, (Mao said “There is chaos under heaven; conditions are excellent.”) it is also possible that there has never been a worse time to be an unknown writer than now.

Stranger yet, I am more successful as a writer now than I ever have been before. I have a magazine that regularly publishes me. I’ve made some money. What I’ve written has been well-reviewed. It is a magazine I grew up reading, and if you told me that my first work in print would have been in its pages I would have shot myself over the moon with joy.

And yet it is harder than ever to heave my ideas on to the page. It grates, it grinds, but rarely flows.

Nietzsche talked about those who felt contempt, and how he loved them because their hate for the way things were would drive them forward to create the Ubermensch.

I look at the things I am writing for the magazine, and constantly find things to hate among them. I tell myself my work must be new. If it is not new, why would anyone bother to read it? I tell myself my work must be unique. If it’s not, why would anyone read it?

And so I pull poke and prod at my own creations, terrified that my current works will not match the modest success of my previous ones.

I’ve wanted to be a writer since I read Charlotte’s Web. I’ve been taking writing truly seriously for the last ten years. What got me through those last ten years was telling myself daily that if I just kept at it, I’d be published before I died. Now I’m published and I am consumed with envy at the success of others. Their money, fame, and interviews with Ira Glass.

In some weird way, it seems as though getting closer to my goal has in some way frustrated me.

Oh, and in a final shot, anybody else out there a regular listener to "I Should Be Writing"? Anybody else notice that since her success, the podcast has nose-dived?

Okay, enough navel gazing. I’m going to stick my finger down my throat and get to work.