First time commenter, but the question really resonated with me.
I have a just turned one year old, another baby on the way, but I’ve written for 333 days in a row, without fail, including birthdays, Christmas, sleepless nights, you name it.
I’ve felt the exasperation the questioner has in the past, and I’ve set myself 500 word goals, 1,000 word goals and stuck with it for a while, but then life gets in the way and I would beat myself up.
So I set up a tiny goal, one was so achievable, I almost couldn’t fail. I set a habit tracker, and said that I would write something, anything, as long as I had put something down in a doc or on paper. Anything. A sentence, a word, whatever. One night I even had to pull over in my car at 23:58 to write a sentence that meant nothing.
Have I got very far in those 333 days? I would say so. Because one sentence is very rarely one sentence. That sentence wants to be followed by another, and another, and all of a sudden a paragraph appears, and that joy of writing sparks back into life. I’ve written thousands of words, and hell, there may even be a couple of good ones in there! But I’ve felt more in touch with my writing self than I ever have before, more accomplished, and more like a writer.
Like George says, keep it so simple and don’t sweat it. Though maybe my late night screeching car tyres to write “it was a cold night by the roundabout” was sweating it a little.
Anyway, I need to go and write a sentence in my WIP to make it day 334! Good night.
That part of me that believes I must write great literature is insinuating. Even if I'm totally disciplined, writing every morning, it can still take over. I don't like it, it feels dark, grim, and noble--heading for the Nobel. Inevitably it gets stuck, it prevents progress, and then brings a sense of failure. It smothers the part of me that would rather laugh, amuse, charm my readers. I have a short story about a woman who, estranged from her daughter, goes to visit her on the bus and takes, for sustenance, smoked almonds and a thermos of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. I was advised to remove those details. Stories about terrible estrangements between mothers and daughters are supposed to be dark, grim, agonized etc etc, right? But George's comments, and the questioner, and all of yours, remind me that there can be a lightness even in the saddest stories. It may be time for me to go back to that story and look into why I was so delighted to be writing about this woman's food choices (she also likes tv dinners). To go explore the mood, to capture it again, to decide that it's my true writing self. I'm more than 65, and still learning. Bravo everybody!
So good to read this, Ilana! You have inspired me to keep on keeping on. I just celebrated my 80th. With so little published, and so little time left, I am easily discouraged. Thanks for sharing.
I'd like to ask "advised by who?" because surely the campbell's cream of mushroom soup is one of the striking things we all will remember from this paragraph!
This is also my first time commenting! It's so reassuring to know that so many of us feel this way. Thanks to the questioner and to George - this was just what I needed to read today.
I recently set myself a similar goal William - write a short story, based on a random three-sentence prompt from friends, every day for 100 days. Initially my rules were: 1. Only write the next three sentences of the story each day. 2. Don't go back and change anything you have previously written. Bad sentences were allowed.
The point was to get back into the habit of writing every day. I forced myself to focus only on writing the next sentence, rather than falling into the trap of beating myself up for not being productive enough (since I'd already ruled out writing more than three lines), or trying to perfect it before the first draft was done.
Now I'm on the home stretch, and often writing far more than three sentences a day. Since Day 50, (when my friends introduced another random prompt to change the course of the story), I've introduced another rule - don't use any verb more than twice (other than 'said' and ask'). I've learned so much!
As George said, I like the sentences I'm writing now much more than the ones I wrote in the first 50 days. And when the 100 days is up, I can go back and apply what I've learned to those early lines in the story. Keep going everyone!
I've felt compelled to write since a young boy, really, and started out wanting to be a renowned poet.
Early on I read Sartre and Camus and wrote some dark and stormy stuff I hid in my bookcase so my mother wouldn't find it. She found it.
Anyway, for many years I wanted to write and wanted my writing to be great. During those years I was pretty miserable and didn't even like writing the much. Over the years the feelings of inadequacy and failure morphed to demons and nightmares and fear and loathing of bookstores, because going into one and seeing all those published books was too painful.
Then something happened, I'm not sure what. Somehow I started not caring about greatness, well, mostly, and due to some surprise successes in public speaking, which used to be a phobia, I discovered I was funny, or people thought I was, and suddenly I was having a good time. I had other good times, but sometimes things take a while to sink in. :) Somewhat coincident with joining Story Club, and starting a Substack I had no idea what to do with, I started writing short somethings, they don't always meet the proscribed definitions of "short story", but so what. And I just threw stuff out there without a lot of editing or hair tearing, just letting things land where they will. Some people have liked it, and I've made many new wonderful friends here who are a big part of my life. Sounds like success to me.
So grateful to George for his sincere generosity and caring about people, and people as writers.
I too went through that, avoiding bookstores because it was such a painful reminder that I hadn’t published anything. It took about thirty years to finally reach that milestone. Even though it was through a hybrid publisher (SparkPress, the sister imprint to She Writes Press), with some costs involved, I’m so happy to have my first novel out in the world (and have made back publishing costs) and am working on my second. I’m much less concerned with HOW I’m published. I just want to produce something I’m proud of, and humbled, for others to read.
I'm really liking the efficiency of publishing on Substack. Sometimes it seems a little too easy to get something out there, so I try to be careful. Still sentimental for printed pages though, and might do a story collection. Come to think of it, I rarely finish reading a novel. What makes me think writing one is a good idea? Congratulations on your achievements.
I'm publishing my second book with She Writes Press, Jody. It's good to hear that you made back your publishing costs. Any tips?? Please email me at judylev45@gmail.com
Love this question—love your answer. During a long career teaching great literature, I became absolutely paralyzed as a writer. “The world already has a Milton, a Shakespeare, a Joyce, a Woolf, a [fill in the blank]—so much great writing. It doesn’t need my mediocre efforts.” But after a long time, I realized: “But no. I’m the one who needs my mediocre efforts. Me. So I can make them better. I love those writers. But I’m not competing with them. If I’m competing with anyone, it’s with myself—and not competing so much as exercising that amazing muscle that belongs only to me, to make it stronger and myself healthier and happier. If a reader happens on it and likes it too—well, great—and I want to share the feeling.” That’s what helped me out of the rut, but it took a long time to get there.
Hi Jane, read what Jean Rhys had to say about great writing/mediocre efforts: "All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. And then there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don’t matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake."
Well Portia, if I'm true to my contrarian self I have to take issue with Rhys statement. It's a problem for me academia exalts a few writers proclaimed great ( by themselves, no less) at the expense of so much else that's good in the world, and worthwhile. "I don't matter," just doesn't cut it for me, and the lake, what is that? Isn't Story Club about, in part anyway, finding one's voice ( in the wilderness?) and in so doing, finding meaning on one's own terms, which for me at least, matters a lot.
Hi Tod, maybe Ms. Rhys meant that we should neither be afraid, nor easily distracted by an arbitrarily defined, perceived as never achievable, elusive "greatness." I don't think a great writer's ever aware of his/her greatness, but they sure write to find their voice, and meaning, in their own terms.
and another thing. . . ( is it weird to reply to my own post?) as a poet friend always tells me, quoting Robert Creeley: “You got a song, man, sing it. You got a bell, man, ring it.”
In visual art, most mid level artists create some works that are great. My guess is that is true of writers as well.
I agree with Jane. There's plenty of great writing to read, no one needs mine. At the same time, from a different perspective, the best of mine may be just what someone... Wants to play with, at some time. It may be perfect, in some context.
Tuesday, there was a rare morning rainbow that arched from one side of this valley to the other.
I spent years trying to write a memoir. (I always had a working title like “If You Don’t Like Me, It’s Your Fault and If I Don’t Like You, It’s Your Fault.”) I could not get beyond an OK first chapter and a totally lame second chapter. I have several abandoned efforts buried somewhere in my hard drive. Then I started to write a book on how to write an essay for high school seniors. At 65 I finally found my voice. I hated writing about my life. It really just doesn’t interest me. I love working on my book now. I can’t wait to get to my desk. I think I love my book because I am not writing for and about myself. I am writing for the many students I saw struggling to write. I want to help them learn to write a very short story that illuminates who they are. The book is a story I’m dying to tell.
I can relate--I always wanted to write the Great American Novel-- turns out in my 8th decade I become a published poet in some 220 lit mags! Go figure!
Writing for the readers is profoundly satisfying. You did that to me just now. I am 86 and trying to write about my experiences that might touch someone. Thank you.
I'd like to take a sec and offer the writer a really big long hug. I really understand this on so many levels. The outline, the grit, the failure. Writing something without expections is a hell of a lot more fun than with enormous expectations. An email is more accessible, a really short story about something funny that happened is easier. I started doing a little 10-minute meditation before writing, which let all the stress and expectations go. I then write for 30 minutes and have fun without knowing where it will go. And boy, it's so much more fun and entertaining than when I tried to follow that damn outline rigidly. I went in places I never dreamed of, which was so fitting for the character. Please be gentle with yourself. You can always use an eraser and backspace. Relax and allow that part in you to take you by the hand and lead you to the land of surprise and delight.
P.S - This was written without an outline or pants.
Wowza. This line completely disarmed me, I choked up: "So, why add to that list of chores: 'Feel bad for not writing novel.'" I suspect many people feel guilty for not writing a novel, not even trying to, not at least writing a bit of poetry like we used to--or not doing whatever grand thing it is we suspect or once suspected we had the ability to do. George's response is so gracious and generous, with the power to replace our wilted ambitions with actual joy.
Me too. That’s the line that started my tears flowing; they’re flowing again reading your comment. George is such a warm and insightful writer he can seem to be able to see into the hearts of others, especially others who at trying — or failing even to try — to take their first, or ninth, nine hundredth steps on their own writing.
George’s posts are always such an affirming place to come to be reassured, intrigued, stimulated, and challenged. I just wish there’d been something like it forty years ago when I began to give myself permission to be a writer as I’d always assumed I would be when I’d finished growing up, which I also assumed would come when I was about thirty. Turns out you never really finish growing up, not if you have any sense — or any potential to be a writer.
It’s wonderful to come here and meet other writers who are just as scared, just as self-doubting and just as self-defeating because of all that. Like other self-help groups a huge part of the ‘help’ is in discovering you’re not the only freak! And George’s wise and supportive counsel is the remaining, and most important, part.
Thank you George, and all your readers who share themselves so freely to help fellow writers.
ahahaha I love this! Sometimes I tell my students to write an assignment as an email directly to me and 100% of the time they’re just a bit more magical
When I was a child, I decided to become a saint. In my 20s I realized that was naive, so I decided to become a writer. In my 50s, with thirty years teaching under my belt, I realized that goal was unrealistic, I decided I would work on a few good stories to share with friends and family. Now that I am 81 I am doing just that. Without threat of pressure or rejection, I carry on.
So--even after Geroge's kind and gentle response, I suggest you might write a story using the email which you say is better than your novel as its basic plot line. A story about not writing THE story and eventually after LIFE's distractions ensue (rich details), writing the email. Just a little story.
This resonates — I have been thinking a lot about pleasure — the pleasure of reading and writing . In my online poetry group, Maya Popa quoted Samuel Johnson “poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth”. I have spent so much of my life beating myself to be better, and then not writing because I didn’t think I would be very good. So to write for pleasure — because it gives me joy to find the right word, rhythm, rhyme — is a liberation.
Thank you, questioner, for the charming admission of your ambivalence about writing. Thank you, George, for not only an answer we can all use and refer back to, but like others have said, you are so kind and compassionate in your advice.
I have no writing advice or commiseration, but would like to offer a physical viewpoint that may help someone.
Our bodies have memory. Like muscle memory for athletes, our cells have memory. When we are in the physical position to write, this is usually a position we have spent our lives in to be receptive--school for example.
Is it possible for you to "write" in other ways, like using a voice recorder? Rarely are we receptive when we are talking. Talking requires output.
Another thing for creativity (although admittedly hard to write this way) is putting yourself in unusual places or body positions (sit on the floor, lie crosswise on the bed, lie on your stomach, go for a walk). How many of us get great ideas in the shower when we can't write it down? That's an example of an "expressive" body position. It makes your body not default to "oh, I'm in the position to learn." Finding out what alternate body activity/position works for you (if anything) is fun.
Oh thank you George and to the author of this question- drowning under the weight and years of my ambivalence. I suddenly feel less alone and as if I could be carried home to my computer, story or self today and maybe even take a few deep breaths.
Love the question, love the answer. Dear Ambivalent from Norway, I get everything you say, particularly the fear and expectation part. To add to what George says about those 100 words a day, I picture my imagination as a kind of muscle in the back of my head (I know, I know, it's not scientific). After decades of not writing fiction, my imagination was weak and flabby and kinda grey. The effect of (mostly) daily bursts of writing, is that muscle now feels fat and juicy and pumped up with blood. For the first time recently one of my characters lifted up off the page, and started doing things I did not plan or expect and do not entirely approve of. This is terrifying but also the thing I have dreamed of for years. Daily writing, daily words, even if you don't love them, supply blood to your creativity. Be kind to yourself. You're walking around the block, doing a couple of sit-ups, not doing an Olympic Decathalon:) Also Roddy Doyle famously wrote Ha Ha Paddy Clarke! in 20 min bursts, with the little finger of one hand in his baby's mouth. When I had three young kids at home and was working and exhausted and trying to write, that story made me very happy.
Such good advice. A bit like one of my best editors (now passed away, sadly) who used to say, just pretend you're writing a long letter to a good friend who is abroad, who has written and asked you to tell them what it's all about.
Such great advice... I think part of the fun of writing is the discovery, so if you know too much in advance, the writing comes too rote... going through the motions. I just had the same problem, wrote a first scene to a novel, and then got stuck... so I jumped ahead and wrote some scenes that excited me, and then I realized how I could make the scene I got stuck on more interesting (to me, so hopefully, also to the reader.) I think with a first draft, it's just a matter of doing it, not worrying about what a mess it is, and go back later for revisions.
Love the question and the responses from George and the many thoughtful commenters. Just adding an echo to everyone else saying how helpful it is to have small, achievable goals. I'm finishing up my first novel and have two kids + job, etc. I made the daily bar so low that it was impossible not to hit my goal.
Just one new sentence. That was it. If I could just open the laptop, click on the file, read the previous paragraph and add one sentence, then I was off the hook. Buuuut, almost always, I would end up writing two sentences, or a whole new paragraph or a series of pages. By making the bar incredibly low, it's been easy to avoid the mental stress of not writing often enough.
First time commenter, but the question really resonated with me.
I have a just turned one year old, another baby on the way, but I’ve written for 333 days in a row, without fail, including birthdays, Christmas, sleepless nights, you name it.
I’ve felt the exasperation the questioner has in the past, and I’ve set myself 500 word goals, 1,000 word goals and stuck with it for a while, but then life gets in the way and I would beat myself up.
So I set up a tiny goal, one was so achievable, I almost couldn’t fail. I set a habit tracker, and said that I would write something, anything, as long as I had put something down in a doc or on paper. Anything. A sentence, a word, whatever. One night I even had to pull over in my car at 23:58 to write a sentence that meant nothing.
Have I got very far in those 333 days? I would say so. Because one sentence is very rarely one sentence. That sentence wants to be followed by another, and another, and all of a sudden a paragraph appears, and that joy of writing sparks back into life. I’ve written thousands of words, and hell, there may even be a couple of good ones in there! But I’ve felt more in touch with my writing self than I ever have before, more accomplished, and more like a writer.
Like George says, keep it so simple and don’t sweat it. Though maybe my late night screeching car tyres to write “it was a cold night by the roundabout” was sweating it a little.
Anyway, I need to go and write a sentence in my WIP to make it day 334! Good night.
That part of me that believes I must write great literature is insinuating. Even if I'm totally disciplined, writing every morning, it can still take over. I don't like it, it feels dark, grim, and noble--heading for the Nobel. Inevitably it gets stuck, it prevents progress, and then brings a sense of failure. It smothers the part of me that would rather laugh, amuse, charm my readers. I have a short story about a woman who, estranged from her daughter, goes to visit her on the bus and takes, for sustenance, smoked almonds and a thermos of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. I was advised to remove those details. Stories about terrible estrangements between mothers and daughters are supposed to be dark, grim, agonized etc etc, right? But George's comments, and the questioner, and all of yours, remind me that there can be a lightness even in the saddest stories. It may be time for me to go back to that story and look into why I was so delighted to be writing about this woman's food choices (she also likes tv dinners). To go explore the mood, to capture it again, to decide that it's my true writing self. I'm more than 65, and still learning. Bravo everybody!
I love your creativity to deal with a complex relationship. I learning and still writing at 86. Thank you. Ilana
So good to read this, Ilana! You have inspired me to keep on keeping on. I just celebrated my 80th. With so little published, and so little time left, I am easily discouraged. Thanks for sharing.
I love that quirky detail! It makes her come alive!
The mushroom campbells soup draws me right in.
I'd like to ask "advised by who?" because surely the campbell's cream of mushroom soup is one of the striking things we all will remember from this paragraph!
This is also my first time commenting! It's so reassuring to know that so many of us feel this way. Thanks to the questioner and to George - this was just what I needed to read today.
I recently set myself a similar goal William - write a short story, based on a random three-sentence prompt from friends, every day for 100 days. Initially my rules were: 1. Only write the next three sentences of the story each day. 2. Don't go back and change anything you have previously written. Bad sentences were allowed.
The point was to get back into the habit of writing every day. I forced myself to focus only on writing the next sentence, rather than falling into the trap of beating myself up for not being productive enough (since I'd already ruled out writing more than three lines), or trying to perfect it before the first draft was done.
Now I'm on the home stretch, and often writing far more than three sentences a day. Since Day 50, (when my friends introduced another random prompt to change the course of the story), I've introduced another rule - don't use any verb more than twice (other than 'said' and ask'). I've learned so much!
As George said, I like the sentences I'm writing now much more than the ones I wrote in the first 50 days. And when the 100 days is up, I can go back and apply what I've learned to those early lines in the story. Keep going everyone!
"Focus only on writing the next sentence"!! What a good idea, thank you.
You have created a structure that has some playfulness in it.
Some of this discussion seems to be about self consciousness intruding on writing. I wonder if some playfulness is an antidote to that.
I saw the Gertrude Stein story as playful, besides seeing it as more serious and painful than most of us did.
I wholly relate to the questioner.
I've felt compelled to write since a young boy, really, and started out wanting to be a renowned poet.
Early on I read Sartre and Camus and wrote some dark and stormy stuff I hid in my bookcase so my mother wouldn't find it. She found it.
Anyway, for many years I wanted to write and wanted my writing to be great. During those years I was pretty miserable and didn't even like writing the much. Over the years the feelings of inadequacy and failure morphed to demons and nightmares and fear and loathing of bookstores, because going into one and seeing all those published books was too painful.
Then something happened, I'm not sure what. Somehow I started not caring about greatness, well, mostly, and due to some surprise successes in public speaking, which used to be a phobia, I discovered I was funny, or people thought I was, and suddenly I was having a good time. I had other good times, but sometimes things take a while to sink in. :) Somewhat coincident with joining Story Club, and starting a Substack I had no idea what to do with, I started writing short somethings, they don't always meet the proscribed definitions of "short story", but so what. And I just threw stuff out there without a lot of editing or hair tearing, just letting things land where they will. Some people have liked it, and I've made many new wonderful friends here who are a big part of my life. Sounds like success to me.
So grateful to George for his sincere generosity and caring about people, and people as writers.
Hope i'm one of those wonderful new friends of yours! I've so much enjoyed your short pieces on your substack (and on mine).
Indeed you are Mary.
I too went through that, avoiding bookstores because it was such a painful reminder that I hadn’t published anything. It took about thirty years to finally reach that milestone. Even though it was through a hybrid publisher (SparkPress, the sister imprint to She Writes Press), with some costs involved, I’m so happy to have my first novel out in the world (and have made back publishing costs) and am working on my second. I’m much less concerned with HOW I’m published. I just want to produce something I’m proud of, and humbled, for others to read.
I'm really liking the efficiency of publishing on Substack. Sometimes it seems a little too easy to get something out there, so I try to be careful. Still sentimental for printed pages though, and might do a story collection. Come to think of it, I rarely finish reading a novel. What makes me think writing one is a good idea? Congratulations on your achievements.
I'm publishing my second book with She Writes Press, Jody. It's good to hear that you made back your publishing costs. Any tips?? Please email me at judylev45@gmail.com
Followed.
Brilliant, George, just brilliant. And so loving.
I have to agree.
Love this question—love your answer. During a long career teaching great literature, I became absolutely paralyzed as a writer. “The world already has a Milton, a Shakespeare, a Joyce, a Woolf, a [fill in the blank]—so much great writing. It doesn’t need my mediocre efforts.” But after a long time, I realized: “But no. I’m the one who needs my mediocre efforts. Me. So I can make them better. I love those writers. But I’m not competing with them. If I’m competing with anyone, it’s with myself—and not competing so much as exercising that amazing muscle that belongs only to me, to make it stronger and myself healthier and happier. If a reader happens on it and likes it too—well, great—and I want to share the feeling.” That’s what helped me out of the rut, but it took a long time to get there.
Hi Jane, read what Jean Rhys had to say about great writing/mediocre efforts: "All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. And then there are mere trickles, like Jean Rhys. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don’t matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake."
Well Portia, if I'm true to my contrarian self I have to take issue with Rhys statement. It's a problem for me academia exalts a few writers proclaimed great ( by themselves, no less) at the expense of so much else that's good in the world, and worthwhile. "I don't matter," just doesn't cut it for me, and the lake, what is that? Isn't Story Club about, in part anyway, finding one's voice ( in the wilderness?) and in so doing, finding meaning on one's own terms, which for me at least, matters a lot.
Hi Tod, maybe Ms. Rhys meant that we should neither be afraid, nor easily distracted by an arbitrarily defined, perceived as never achievable, elusive "greatness." I don't think a great writer's ever aware of his/her greatness, but they sure write to find their voice, and meaning, in their own terms.
That's lovely.
Beautiful.
You suit your name!
and another thing. . . ( is it weird to reply to my own post?) as a poet friend always tells me, quoting Robert Creeley: “You got a song, man, sing it. You got a bell, man, ring it.”
I love this.
In visual art, most mid level artists create some works that are great. My guess is that is true of writers as well.
I agree with Jane. There's plenty of great writing to read, no one needs mine. At the same time, from a different perspective, the best of mine may be just what someone... Wants to play with, at some time. It may be perfect, in some context.
Tuesday, there was a rare morning rainbow that arched from one side of this valley to the other.
I spent years trying to write a memoir. (I always had a working title like “If You Don’t Like Me, It’s Your Fault and If I Don’t Like You, It’s Your Fault.”) I could not get beyond an OK first chapter and a totally lame second chapter. I have several abandoned efforts buried somewhere in my hard drive. Then I started to write a book on how to write an essay for high school seniors. At 65 I finally found my voice. I hated writing about my life. It really just doesn’t interest me. I love working on my book now. I can’t wait to get to my desk. I think I love my book because I am not writing for and about myself. I am writing for the many students I saw struggling to write. I want to help them learn to write a very short story that illuminates who they are. The book is a story I’m dying to tell.
I can relate--I always wanted to write the Great American Novel-- turns out in my 8th decade I become a published poet in some 220 lit mags! Go figure!
Writing for the readers is profoundly satisfying. You did that to me just now. I am 86 and trying to write about my experiences that might touch someone. Thank you.
I'd like to take a sec and offer the writer a really big long hug. I really understand this on so many levels. The outline, the grit, the failure. Writing something without expections is a hell of a lot more fun than with enormous expectations. An email is more accessible, a really short story about something funny that happened is easier. I started doing a little 10-minute meditation before writing, which let all the stress and expectations go. I then write for 30 minutes and have fun without knowing where it will go. And boy, it's so much more fun and entertaining than when I tried to follow that damn outline rigidly. I went in places I never dreamed of, which was so fitting for the character. Please be gentle with yourself. You can always use an eraser and backspace. Relax and allow that part in you to take you by the hand and lead you to the land of surprise and delight.
P.S - This was written without an outline or pants.
Maybe that’s the best idea: writing with your pants off…
That means something very different in British English. (And I say: good for you for being so bold)
Wowza. This line completely disarmed me, I choked up: "So, why add to that list of chores: 'Feel bad for not writing novel.'" I suspect many people feel guilty for not writing a novel, not even trying to, not at least writing a bit of poetry like we used to--or not doing whatever grand thing it is we suspect or once suspected we had the ability to do. George's response is so gracious and generous, with the power to replace our wilted ambitions with actual joy.
Me too. That’s the line that started my tears flowing; they’re flowing again reading your comment. George is such a warm and insightful writer he can seem to be able to see into the hearts of others, especially others who at trying — or failing even to try — to take their first, or ninth, nine hundredth steps on their own writing.
George’s posts are always such an affirming place to come to be reassured, intrigued, stimulated, and challenged. I just wish there’d been something like it forty years ago when I began to give myself permission to be a writer as I’d always assumed I would be when I’d finished growing up, which I also assumed would come when I was about thirty. Turns out you never really finish growing up, not if you have any sense — or any potential to be a writer.
It’s wonderful to come here and meet other writers who are just as scared, just as self-doubting and just as self-defeating because of all that. Like other self-help groups a huge part of the ‘help’ is in discovering you’re not the only freak! And George’s wise and supportive counsel is the remaining, and most important, part.
Thank you George, and all your readers who share themselves so freely to help fellow writers.
I love your “you never finish growing up.”.
And I love your writing of who George is…i feel the same about goerge.
ahahaha I love this! Sometimes I tell my students to write an assignment as an email directly to me and 100% of the time they’re just a bit more magical
When I was a child, I decided to become a saint. In my 20s I realized that was naive, so I decided to become a writer. In my 50s, with thirty years teaching under my belt, I realized that goal was unrealistic, I decided I would work on a few good stories to share with friends and family. Now that I am 81 I am doing just that. Without threat of pressure or rejection, I carry on.
So--even after Geroge's kind and gentle response, I suggest you might write a story using the email which you say is better than your novel as its basic plot line. A story about not writing THE story and eventually after LIFE's distractions ensue (rich details), writing the email. Just a little story.
This resonates — I have been thinking a lot about pleasure — the pleasure of reading and writing . In my online poetry group, Maya Popa quoted Samuel Johnson “poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth”. I have spent so much of my life beating myself to be better, and then not writing because I didn’t think I would be very good. So to write for pleasure — because it gives me joy to find the right word, rhythm, rhyme — is a liberation.
Thank you, questioner, for the charming admission of your ambivalence about writing. Thank you, George, for not only an answer we can all use and refer back to, but like others have said, you are so kind and compassionate in your advice.
I have no writing advice or commiseration, but would like to offer a physical viewpoint that may help someone.
Our bodies have memory. Like muscle memory for athletes, our cells have memory. When we are in the physical position to write, this is usually a position we have spent our lives in to be receptive--school for example.
Is it possible for you to "write" in other ways, like using a voice recorder? Rarely are we receptive when we are talking. Talking requires output.
Another thing for creativity (although admittedly hard to write this way) is putting yourself in unusual places or body positions (sit on the floor, lie crosswise on the bed, lie on your stomach, go for a walk). How many of us get great ideas in the shower when we can't write it down? That's an example of an "expressive" body position. It makes your body not default to "oh, I'm in the position to learn." Finding out what alternate body activity/position works for you (if anything) is fun.
Good stuff. I'll try this.
Oh thank you George and to the author of this question- drowning under the weight and years of my ambivalence. I suddenly feel less alone and as if I could be carried home to my computer, story or self today and maybe even take a few deep breaths.
Love the question, love the answer. Dear Ambivalent from Norway, I get everything you say, particularly the fear and expectation part. To add to what George says about those 100 words a day, I picture my imagination as a kind of muscle in the back of my head (I know, I know, it's not scientific). After decades of not writing fiction, my imagination was weak and flabby and kinda grey. The effect of (mostly) daily bursts of writing, is that muscle now feels fat and juicy and pumped up with blood. For the first time recently one of my characters lifted up off the page, and started doing things I did not plan or expect and do not entirely approve of. This is terrifying but also the thing I have dreamed of for years. Daily writing, daily words, even if you don't love them, supply blood to your creativity. Be kind to yourself. You're walking around the block, doing a couple of sit-ups, not doing an Olympic Decathalon:) Also Roddy Doyle famously wrote Ha Ha Paddy Clarke! in 20 min bursts, with the little finger of one hand in his baby's mouth. When I had three young kids at home and was working and exhausted and trying to write, that story made me very happy.
Such good advice. A bit like one of my best editors (now passed away, sadly) who used to say, just pretend you're writing a long letter to a good friend who is abroad, who has written and asked you to tell them what it's all about.
Such great advice... I think part of the fun of writing is the discovery, so if you know too much in advance, the writing comes too rote... going through the motions. I just had the same problem, wrote a first scene to a novel, and then got stuck... so I jumped ahead and wrote some scenes that excited me, and then I realized how I could make the scene I got stuck on more interesting (to me, so hopefully, also to the reader.) I think with a first draft, it's just a matter of doing it, not worrying about what a mess it is, and go back later for revisions.
Love the question and the responses from George and the many thoughtful commenters. Just adding an echo to everyone else saying how helpful it is to have small, achievable goals. I'm finishing up my first novel and have two kids + job, etc. I made the daily bar so low that it was impossible not to hit my goal.
Just one new sentence. That was it. If I could just open the laptop, click on the file, read the previous paragraph and add one sentence, then I was off the hook. Buuuut, almost always, I would end up writing two sentences, or a whole new paragraph or a series of pages. By making the bar incredibly low, it's been easy to avoid the mental stress of not writing often enough.
Good luck to everyone slogging away!