"And Now to My Ambivalence"

Office Hours

Q.

Dear George,

First and foremost, I am deeply thankful for Story Club. It is a perfect way to connect across continents (as I am from Norway). It truly is food for thought, and every post feels like a little short story on its own, containing honest, funny, warm, insightful, and surprising words. It's the delight of my week.

And now to my ambivalence:

Many years ago, I started with a fun idea and was so excited. Gradually, the plot has become larger than life—pretentious and lacking humor (and humor is actually my most valuable trait in real life). But this isn’t even my biggest issue. Fast forward to today, and I have only written a total of 10 pages. I don’t know why I can’t make myself sit down and do the thing I love the most—writing. I have a full-time job and two little kids, which surely demand a lot of energy, but shouldn’t writing be fuel for the fire? Writing has always been like a dearest friend to me, bringing a lot of joy, and my biggest dream is to create a story I am proud of. The thought of never accomplishing this feels like living a life unfulfilled. So why can’t I seem to, as if my life depended on it, sit down and just write? Am I scared? Lazy? Lacking discipline? Do I not want it enough? I suspect the answer is behind door number one. How can I take the leap—and just write (as you amusingly referenced Robert Frost)? And can the fun idea-turned-pretentious monster somehow be the darling that hammers down the nail in the motivational coffin?

P.S. The twist is, I am a clinical psychologist and can only seem to help other people solve their own puzzles.

P.P.S. This email is better than my story.

A.

Dear Questioner,

I think you may have answered your own question here, with that sweet, funny P.P.S.  It gave me a little jolt of pleasure. Why was that?  Because, I suspect, that that notion (of the email being better than your story) came to you even as you were typing it.  It felt true, frank, genuine, and surprising, i.e., charming. 

So, I’d encourage you to ask yourself: Why is the email better than your story, do you think?  In what way? 

I suspect the answer lies in the state of your mind as you were writing.

In what way was your mindset different while writing that email to me, than it is when you are writing your novel?

Here’s one definition of writing: being in a state of high, playful alertness to what we’ve just written. 

Ditto revising.  Revising is being in a high state of playful alertness to what we’ve already written, and that we’ve just now read.

Writing that P.P.S., you were in that state of playful alertness to the email you’d just typed.  And that made me (made us, I’m guessing) feel included intimately in your thought process – like a valued and respected co-creator of that moment of urgent, self-effacing communication.

So, bravo.

A second thing I notice in your email is that you characterize your plot as “larger than life” but that you only have ten pages written.  This tells me that the plot hasn’t been tested by the actual writing of it – it’s all notion, so far. 

Which means, I suspect, that you’re a little pre-bored by it.  You have all that “plot” and now you have to dutifully “write it up.”  Which doesn’t sound like all that much fun. It can be discouraging, and intimidating, writing from an outline we believe to be very good.  (“I have outlined my Great Novel.  What if the actual thing doesn’t live up to my expectations?”) Maybe the fact that the book is all mapped out is keeping you from entering that state of playful alertness – you’ve got one eye on that outline, which you are dutifully bent on adhering to.

For me, the fun of writing - the way I manage to do it every day - lies in the openness of it all. I’m curious about what might happen during the writing day, how the plan might change.

You also wrote that: The thought of never accomplishing this (writing your book) feels like living a life unfulfilled.

Can I just say…that’s putting an awful lot of pressure on yourself and, while I know the feeling, and I do have it myself, I try not to have it, if you see what I mean, because (for me, anyway) that creates an obligation in me that is profoundly anti-playful. 

And then that day’s writing will stink. 

I mean…I do want to write a great book or story.  I do want to be understood as a serious, literary writer. 

But I know that, if I’m to have any hope of doing either of those things, I have to relax. 

Relax and try to communicate.

Whereas, when I say to my book: “Look, pal, I need you to be great and thereby fulfill my life’s purpose,” this makes my book nervous, and it stops talking to me.

Sometimes – and this happens to the best of us – we sit down to write and feel we must WRITE – you know, assume an intent and a language that is inspired and extraordinary and that sounds different from us in real life and is LITERARY and elevated and all of that. 

And that’s hard – it’s really hard to do that for 250 pages.  Because it’s contrived: a form of standing on literary tip-toe.  It’s like, say, singing in a fake voice. 

“My real self is too low and normal - let me be this Better Person here for a bit. In order to do this, I’ll have to be a bit fake - hope you don’t mind, dear reader.”

When we write an email, we’re not doing that.  We’re just very lightly trying to communicate normally, adding in such moments of charm as we’re capable of (such as, in your case, that P.P.S., and also that “And now to my ambivalence.”)

So, what if you thought about your writing like this: you are bursting out some thoughts that you will, of course, of course, later on, come back to, with the intention of making them more literary.  You’re just, basically, typing. 

Don’t worry about making things great or good (or even good enough) – for now, you’re just typing.  (You’re in the same friendly, articulate, hoping-to-communicate- something mindset you were in when you wrote to me.)

Maybe establish a modest daily word count (100 words?) or set a timer and write for 30 minutes or something.  Then…you’re done for the day.  Don’t even read it. 

Hooray: you’ve written.

Then it’s the next day and your goal is: make whatever you did yesterday (even incrementally) better. For example: “Make the sentences smoother.”  Or: “dwell in a couple of the moments a little more deeply.”  Or: “make it a bit funnier (or faster”). 

You’re not going to be climbing up on that stepladder called EXALTED.  You’re just…tuning.  Making the thing corner more sharply.  Trying to be 5 percent more charming.  You’re working with the text your subconscious wisely and generously gave you the day before (and you’re assuming the subconscious gave you that exact text for a reason).  You’re not starting from scratch or judging what you’ve done, other than making small adjustments on the line level.  (Sort of like in the optometrist’s office: “Is this better?  Or this.”  And then a quick decision.)

Then, when you’ve gone through the first day’s production in this way, burst out another (say) 100 words, to work on tomorrow. Don’t read them - just leave them for tomorrow.

Your mantra: this text I’m working on doesn’t have to do everything, it just has to do something.  And maybe, tomorrow, I can get it to do a little more of that.

Above all: play.  Know that your literary voice is not going to be some grand construct.  It’s just going to be a slight rarefaction or refinement of your natural writing (email/first pass) voice. 

You’re gradually elevating that first-draft voice into something “literary” by a series of small condensations and improvements and cuts.  We might say that you’re slightly photoshopping your first-draft voice - seeking, over time, with editing, a slightly more refined, polished, attentive version of that voice.

Doing some version of the above, with iteration, a voice will get produced.  It will.  For sure.  And maybe, at some point, it will occur to you, “Oh, so that’s my voice.”  You didn’t aspire to it or construct it – you arrived at it. 

You’re using your outline as a guide (and only a guide) and as a way of generating text.  But the outline will change in response to the revision and refinement you’re doing to the text every day.  And that is your book starting to talk to you, because now you are starting to listen to it.

Slowly, pages will accrue.

You are already doing so much, it sounds like.  Two kids and a full-time job as a clinical psychologist?  That’s a lot of important work you are already doing.  So, why add to that list of chores: “Feel bad for not writing novel.”

Instead, you could give up on “writing your novel” and just do some version of what I’ve suggested above.  (And guess what? You’ll be writing your novel.)

Finally, re fear.

What if you said to yourself, “Well, of course I’m scared!  I love literature and writing so much, and have such high standards, that I don’t want to disrespect the craft or let down the lineage by underperforming.” 

In other words, try to understand “being scared” as being exactly equivalent to “having reverence for literature.”

Then gently talk yourself down: “Of course, I’d love to write something good.  But I can’t do it when I’m all tense.  And I can’t do it when the goal is “to win” or (worse still) “not to lose.”  I can, maybe, do it, if my prayer is: Please Lord, let me offer something of value to my reader – a moment of joy or commiseration or just a good (better) sentence or phrase.”

So: if the only goal (and I mean the ONLY goal) is to type (not write, type) 100 words a day (or type for thirty minutes) there’s nothing to be scared of – there’s no judging voice that can cry “failure!” 

And if you miss a day or two (which, of course, you will) that’s not failure – that’s part of it.  (Because of course you’re going to miss a day or two.  You’ve got two kids!  You’re a clinical psychologist!)

It's actually kind of tautological.  I say to you: write 100 words a day and, next day, do whatever you can to make those 100 words (even slightly) better.  Well, after a week of that, you’ve applied your aesthetic discernment to that 100 words seven times and, de facto, you have been writing and, I’ll bet that, if you compare those 100 words to the 100 words you typed the first day, you’ll like the later 100 better. 

And that’s progress, real progress.

Anyway – I wish you all the luck in the world – please write me back if you’re inclined to try any of the above, and let me know how it’s going.