Old-Fashioned Fruitcake
Keeping score:
Wednesday: 690 blog words
Thursday: 213 WIP words and 288 Morning Page words
Friday: 304 letter words
Saturday: nowt
Sunday: Day Off
Monday: nowt again
Tuesday: 196 Morning Page words and 554 blog words.
No, I will not be counting Word-Count-Update posts. No Weaselling.
Can you write under any conditions?
Or are you like me, fettered by rules you don’t consciously understand? (I started writing this on a bus, which is Okay, but rather messy. NZ bus drivers…)
Writing at the Dreaded Day Job is, for some reason, Not Okay. It’s not the DDJ that has the problem, I hasten to add – although I’m sure it would if I was writing ‘on the clock’ – but me.
It just doesn’t feel right.
Perhaps it’s a dread of curiosity – a co-worker is bound to ask what I’m doing (leaping from branch to branch of a young oak tree, if you must know), and then the questions follow on.
It’s not that I’m ashamed or embarrassed of my writing, it’s just that it’s usually too soon to share it.
And it’s always too soon to share the dream of ditching the DDJ in favour of writing full-time. Pretty near top of the list of Awkward Conversations To Have With Co-Workers is discussing the steps you are taking to be able to shake the dust of your 40 hours a week with them from your feet.
Talking about wanting to shake the dust is one thing, especially when people are digging out their contribution to the weekly lottery pool. (I don’t.) But to reveal that you are actually taking steps, however small, is Not Done.
The Done Thing is to endure (while grumbling) as long as possible, and then present them with a fait accompli – preferably a new job which can be seen as a step down in either pay or status, so your co-workers can feel faintly smug about sticking it out a bit longer.
But I digress.
To return to the subject originally raised, some conditions assist with writing, and some don’t.
I don’t think I’m a particularly finicky writer – as previously mentioned, I can write on the bus (although whether I can subsequently read what I wrote is less certain). As long as the brain-batteries haven’t gone flat, I can puddle along. But not at the DDJ.
Some famous writers have worked under unhelpful conditions – or even sought them out.
Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin while raising seven children and sheltering fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad.
J. K. Rowling wrote the first draft of The Philosopher’s Stone in cafés – according to rumour, because she was too poor to heat her flat; according to her, because taking the baby for a walk was the best way to get her to fall asleep.
A number of writers have turned to alcohol or other drugs to help them along. A number have also died before their time. Take my advice: save the booze for the launch party.
Some write in bed, others in the bath – which didn’t work out too well for Jean-Paul Marat:
Some write lying down, others standing up. Some will only write with a pencil, others insist on a fountain pen. (Some still use typewriters.) Some compose directly on the computer.
Myself, I find I write faster on the keys, but I think better when I write by hand – it gives my mind time to see what happens next.
What about you?
Are there places you like to write? Are there places you can’t write? And how?
Not, I hasten to add, the military sort. (“Conscription is slavery, and I don’t think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called.” Robert Heinlein).
Since my present WIP is the first draft of what for want of a better title I am calling Tsifira, the difficulties of the first draft loom large in my mind.
So I thought I’d share with you the wisdom of a few other writers on the gnarliness that is the first draft.
I love this analogy from Shannon Hale: “I’m writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.”
Sir Terry Pratchett has gems on both the first draft:
“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”
and on where the first draft stands in relation to the redrafting (at least for him):
“First draft: let it run. Turn all the knobs up to 11. Second draft: hell. Cut it down and cut it into shape. Third draft: comb its nose and blow its hair. I usually find that most of the book will have handed itself to me on that first draft.”
The writing/sculpture analogy is one that has been around for a while, but here is one of my favourite versions of it, from Anne Pillsworth: “The first draft is a huge pile of clay that you’ve laboriously heaped on your table, patting it into a rough shape as you go along. From the second draft onward, you’ll cut away chunks, add bits, pat and punch and pinch, until you finally have a gorgeous figure of, oh, Marcus Aurelius. Or a duck. But a damn fine duck.”
Jennifer Egan puts her finger on a leading cause of first-draft writer’s block, one that I struggle greatly with:
“I haven’t had trouble with writer’s block. I think it’s because my process involves writing very badly. My first drafts are filled with lurching, clichéd writing, outright flailing around. Writing that doesn’t have a good voice or any voice. But then there will be good moments. It seems writer’s block is often a dislike of writing badly and waiting for writing better to happen.”
So what’s the solution? Just sit down and write it. (Just!) Dare to be awful – just get it down. Write it.
Easier to say than do, I know, but the only way to come out the other end is to keep plugging away at it.
And this is where the Duty element comes in. We do it because we must, not because we find this moment, just now, to be enjoyable.
As the good book says, they who go out weeping to sow the seed will return with shouts of joy, bringing the harvest with them. (Psalm 126.6).
Or as Steven Pressfield, somewhat less poetically puts it, “love being miserable”.
But this is not to say that the process will always and necessarily be an unpleasant one. As the Mother Superior in W. Somerset Maugham’s The Painted Veil puts it: “Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash your hands when they are dirty; the only thing that counts is the love of duty; when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding.” Or as writers call it, flow. (More on that in a later post.)
Side note: who is better at loving the misery: Marines or nuns?
Not to suggest that either are masochistic, but when it comes to the All-Time Hacking-The-Nasty Tougher-Than-Thou contest, who’s got the edge? Those who face death (although quite possibly someone else’s), or those who die daily? Who would like to see that contest? Show of hands?
But the final word on Duty, Discipline and Devotion is brought to you by the letter D the late great Pavarotti: “People think I’m disciplined. It is not discipline. It is devotion. There is a great difference.”