i thought i was the only one

Writing fiction is a scary, solitary experience for me. Eventually, I get stuff to Andrew and we start working together to hammer out the final draft, but I write my first draft with the door closed, as Stephen King advises, and it can be a lonely time, with Self Doubt and the Inner Critic dropping in uninvited and unannounced from time to time to mess with me before the real fun starts.

As I struggle through the first (really the zero, but that’s just semantics) draft of this novella, I have to keep reminding myself that the first drafts of Just A Geek and Dancing Barefoot weren’t as easy as Happiest Days , and the first column I wrote for Geek in Review wasn’t as effortless as some of the last ones. In other words, I’m learning a new skill, and since I’m mostly on my own as I explore this new territory, it’s easy to get lost and confused.

Luckily for me (and all other writers) there are experienced authors who are willing to share with us how they got where they are, so that we may try to follow in their footsteps.

Elizabeth Bear is one of the most fearless, honest, and generous of these authors. Cherie Priest (who makes me wish my name could be turned into a cool anagram) and John Scalzi are right there with her, and if you’re a serious writer, you need to be reading their blogs every time they update. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read something of theirs and said, “Thank jeebus. I thought I was the only one.” It’s tremendously reassuring to know that some obstacle I’m struggling with isn’t unique to me, or a result of my inexperience or illustrative of a lack of ability, as much as it is just a part of the writing process, something other writers who are much more successful than me have also experienced (and, probably annoying to them but incredibly reassuring to me, still experience.)

Way back in February, Cherie wrote:

I give the hell up. On its present track, Awake Into Darkness simply isn’t working. It’s a tough thing to admit, especially when I’m almost 30,000 words deep in the draft; but if I’m going to be completely honest with myself, I’ve known from the start that it was b0rked — because I was doing a shitty job of recycling old material. I knew from the get-go that I ought to just trash the whole thing and rewrite it, and I didn’t, and that’s nobody’s fault but mine.

At least I’ve come to grips with it in time to do something about it. Following much head-desking and a whole lot of emailing, badgering, and drunken grumbling (at self, husband, editor, etc.) about this story, I think I’ve finally got an idea of how it can work — and yes, it definitely involves starting over from scratch.

I can’t imagine starting over after 30K words. Hell, I have a hard time even getting to 30K words, which is something I look forward to not being completely intimidated by in the future. Cherie says that she wrote most of the stuff that didn’t work when she was still a rookie (like I am right now). When I’ve struggled with a story I thought was worth writing, I always thought it meant that I sucked, and just wasn’t cut out to write fiction. After reading this, though, I was relieved to have permission to let something go if it just doesn’t work. It’s also a good time to remind myself: Don’t be afraid to suck, and learn from the mistakes you make.

Elizabeth Bear recently said:

… one of the reasons I need breaks between writing things is that telling stories is an exhaustive mental effort. They use up all my thinky, and then I am left without too much else to fill up my time. […]

And it cracks me up, because when I am actually working on a story and it’s ready to be written (as opposed to being hacked out of the living rock to beat a deadline), I am crabby and reclusive and very defensive of my precious time, and very very aware that there’s not nearly enough of it. The winged chariot is right at my heels, and there is never enough time in the day and strength in my poor mortal frame to get as much done as I want to.

From time to time, I get creatively exhausted and no matter how hard I try, I can’t put two words togeher. Usually, it happens after I get across a particularly important deadline, like my brain just shuts down and refuses to do anything until I take time off and recover HP. Problem is, I always feel guilty, like I’m being a deadbeat while Anne does real work during these times. Other times, I feel like a ferret on meth, struggling to help my fingers keep up with my brain as it unleashes idea after idea at me. It’s reassuring to know that someone as successful and as consistently awesome as Elizabeth Bear experiences similar extremes.

In his introduction to The Secret History of The Lost Colony, John said:

The lesson here for writing is that even your “failures” — the stuff that doesn’t work for your book, for whatever reason — can still have value to you as you’re wrestling with your work. This is one reason way, whenever I chop out a significant chunk of text from a book I’m writing, I don’t simply delete it: I cut it and paste it into an “excisions” document that I keep handy. That way I can go back to that material for reference, or to drop a line or an idea into the final version, perhaps in a completely different context, but where it will do some real good. This is what I do, and it’s worked for me so far.

I got a whole book out of one of those folders. I’m intensely grateful to be living in a digital age when it’s simple and efficient to hold onto tons of stuff that I’d otherwise throw away, if it was printed out.

As long as we’re talking about writing, I wanted to point all my fellow rookie writers to 5 Writing Lessons I Wish I’d Learned the Easy Way. I also wanted to point all my fellow bloggers/writers to a fantastic post I wish I’d written about the difference between writing a book, and writing a blog.

I’m not under the delusion that I’m anywhere close to the same league as the authors I’ve mentioned in this post, but that’s the point. They’re all successful and talented and awesome, and instead of hoarding their knowledge and guarding their experience, they share it with us, so that we can dream of one day being like them.

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36 thoughts on “i thought i was the only one”

  1. Thanks for posting this. I think every writer goes through this exact thing. I’m seriously no writer, but I’d like to be. Whenever I attempt anything I always stop at a couple thousand words in, kick my own ass, and drop it. I tend to delete the whole thing and move on. I should really stop being such a moron and save my work, crap or not, as you and your sources suggest. Maybe one of these days I’ll give writing another go. You’re definitely one inspiring force, so maybe after seeing you at a PAX (this weekend!) I’ll feel more up to the task. 🙂
    PS I hope you have at least a couple cool things for purchase this year, I’m missing Just a Geek, and would love one of those samplers you mentioned before….any hints what swag you’ll be carting around this year?

  2. I watched an interview with Paul Simon, who said that it’s impossible to rely on creativity. It either happens, or it doesn’t.

  4. Great post. I find all of this very interesting because I am planning on becoming at least a hobbyist writer. I just finished the audio version of Stephen King’s “On Writing.” It is unabridged and read by King Himself. I highly recommend it to others. I know you have already read it.
    Right now I am just working on King’s recommendation to turn off the TV and read more. Bram Stoker’s Dracula is hard to put down and I enjoy its epistolary form.
    nmc orca- if you do not have Wil’s “Just a Geek” I highly recommend the audio version.

  5. You know, I’ve ‘known’ Cherie online since before she started her association with Tor – and no one has worked harder or deserved the success she has had more than Cherie.
    She’s driven, she’s dedicated, and she managed to keep doing it even while relocating half-way across the country and working full-time ‘rent paying jobs’.
    She’s my kind of inspiration – glad she’s yours too, Wil.

  6. Anagrams for WIL WHEATON:
    Wino wealth
    Whole twain (appropriate, and also an oxymoron!)
    A whole twin
    I want whole
    The LA in “wow”
    Did you make money on your rib posts? Because you have “Wealth in ow”
    I won wealth
    Whale in tow
    Thin weal ow
    Owl hit anew
    Wet hail now
    Thaw lei now (if only it were “Thaw Han now” that would rock)
    And my fave: Nail the wow.

  7. You know, this is why I like doing NaNoWriMo every year. It gives me permission to suck, thus denying me the excuse of not writing. Yeah, the stuff is mostly crap, but there’s some gems hidden in among the detritus.
    And Jay Lake’s also a good author to read along with Scalzi, Bear, and Priest. 🙂
    -kat

  9. Another good resource for writing ideas/confidence boosts are podcasts. One, “Will Write for Wine”, are two authors who talk their experience writing, while enjoying a bottle of wine. There are about 50 episodes, most with good info on different aspects of a writer’s experience (plotting, storytelling, drafts). They have two very different perspectives on how to write- Lani is a “pantser” (just sits and writes without knowing quite where she’s going) and Sam is a “plotter” (spreadsheets, research, every plot point meticulously decided before the draft is written). It’s informative, and pretty darn entertaining.

  10. You are SO not the only one. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve crashed and burned (usually at 30,000 words, oddly enough), or gotten fed up with a book and decided I’m a hack who somehow managed to trick an editor into publishing that last book … and then I hop online to vent and read about how many other authors (most of whom are far bigger names than me) are struggling with the exact same thing.

  12. awesome read.
    I just started about 5 month ago to write. I want to write screenplays for movies. so this is all very new to me and I started with reading alot about writing first 🙂 its was very odd in the beginning, the I was very lucky to go to a robert mckee seminar which encouraged me alot. this post does it too. my choice came a bit late to write and I want to do it and enjoy it also as I want to make movies and it is just good to see that you are not alone with all the problems you encounter from time to time :-). thank you! by the way did you read “the war of art” by steven pressfield by any chance? very good read, helpful and fun!
    I just registered here, but I am reading your blog for quite a while and just wanted to say how much I enjoy reading your posts.
    be safe!

  13. One of my favorite pieces of writing ever is actually a tiny chunk that was excised from American Gods, about a Chinese emperor and his map. Ever. I still am not sure entirely why it means so much to me, but it grabs my gut and yanks it about like so much… uh. Yanked stuff.
    So keep those excisions! Read them aloud on tours and make people cry unexpectedly and despair when they only way they can get that little something is by dropping a few hundred dollars on a limited edition of one of your books until you slip it into the introduction of one of your short story collections!

  15. Writing is a journey, and has a lot more to do with intuition and the unconscious than the conscious.
    The more you try to cherry pick your sentences and squeeze out great ideas, the more banal you will be.
    Writing is about life blood and your life and your imagination. It is about vitality in life, and the power of the human spirit … from those who have written before and from you who wish to write something now.
    Good writing has nothing to do with grammar, sentence structure, novelty or ingenuity.
    Good writing is what Emily Dickinson once answered when she was asked how she knew what good poetry was:
    “If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire ever can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only way I know it. Is there any other way?”
    That is good writing. There is no other definition.

  19. Oh wow, dude — thanks for the name-check! You make me feel so … so … cool, I swear 🙂
    And as for the anagram, try adding your middle name. It broadens the options considerably.

  21. Thanks for sharing your insights and especially the link to Waiter Rant’s article. Its very timely for a project I’m working on at the moment.

  27. First drafts (or zero drafts) sa-HUCK. They’re supposed to. Embrace the suckiness! Puke on the page! Because once you actually have something on the page, you have something to revise. which is a lot less painful.
    KEEP GOING. EMBRACE TEH SUCK.

  28. If anyone is suffering from writer’s block, there is an excellent book called “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron that is all about how to overcome the blocks. She teaches a course on this topic, and turned her course notes into this excellent book.
    I am in no way associated with her. I was loaned the book by a family member once and I was completely blown away by it. I’d recommend it to anyone and everyone who does anything artistic, from drawing and painting to writing or any other artistic endeavour.

  29. Regarding this:
    “From time to time, I get creatively exhausted and no matter how hard I try, I can’t put two words togeher. Usually, it happens after I get across a particularly important deadline…”
    I work with photography, and I have a friend who is also an artist (drawing/painting) and we’ve had discussions about this very phenomenon. We call it the Post Project Low… just after we reach a deadline (either our own, or those imposed by someone we are working for) we have a couple of days where the creative juices dry up, and we wander our houses wondering which direction to go next.
    I think your description of recovering hit points is dead on. It makes me want to print a t-shirt for those occasions…
    “Don’t bother me, I’m recovering HP”

  30. Great post! This is one of the reasons I love the internet. You can often find like minded people who understand how your feeling about your work at any given moment. I often have times of feeling like I’m THE SUCK! I usually pop online, check some blogs, and find other artists who totally understand the ins and outs of working by yourself.
    In fact that was what I was doing when I saw your post. It really helped a ton. I finished some major things yesterday for deadlines coming up and I think my brain is just on a vacation. I’m glad I’m not the only one who has this happen.

  32. It’s interesting that you would blog about this subject – Meg Tilly recently posted about the very same thing. I read her blog regularly, and after a particularly frustrating day of non-writing, she decided she was going to quit. She was convinced her writing was crap, and that everyone would know that she’s a sham. After reading all three of her books, I know her to be extremely talented and capable.
    Having support from others, especially within a unique group, is psychologically healthy. Knowing there are others that share your same frustrations, fears and doubts, ease that feeling of isolation and helplessness. Kudos to you for recognizing the importance of connecting with other writers.

  33. Actually, Wil, your blog is the one I usually go to for a much-needed dose of “Oh thank goodness, it’s not just me”. But I’ll give the others a look; your recs usually lead to good things.

  34. I’m glad you liked my list, Wil. Thanks for linking it. Purists might say you should learn all the important lessons the hard way, but I hope that posts like mine and the others you linked and a lot more I’ve seen will just cut through the crap and make the fiction happen. The world needs content.
    I had a hard time explaining to my wife last night why I was so excited to get the link. “He was the kid in ‘Stand By Me.’ But that isn’t why it’s cool. He’s the king of the geek bloggers, except geek bloggers would never submit to a monarchy, so he’s more like the President. If the President was cool. Which, the next one might be.” Trouble is the only time I ever talk to anyone who might be suitably impressed is at a con.

  35. I had a similar experience when I went to writing workshop for teacher’s apprentices at my college. We were learning how to help along the writing process for freshman in our classes. As we talked about what we do, I found out that I am not alone in how I get stuff written, it was a nice feeling!
    Good luck on your book. I am so excited to see how your fiction work turns out (though I know I will have to wait a while.)

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