I get really frustrated with my writing process. It makes me wonder if I'm the only person who writes like this or if it's a common thing among writers. And if it's not common it makes me wonder if there is any one process that most successful writer's share or if it's all just up in the air for the taking. I find myself trying to imagine if some of my favorites spend their time torturing themselves over a single draft in the same way I do, or if I somehow have it all completely wrong and am spending countless unnecessary hours doing something that should be saved for a time when I have some 'bigger picture' perspective on the whole thing. You hear all this talk of your first draft not having to be anything special, that it only needs to be the skeleton of what will eventually become a beautiful, fully fleshed out creature with wings wide enough to soar into the night sky and take you right along with it. Well what if you spend all your time fleshing out the feet before you even know if the creature will be male of female? You see, every time I go to continue work on my latest venture, in order to bring myself to a place of comfort and confidence that the next thing I write will go along in tone and style with everything that I've written before it, I must first read everything that came before in order to be able to continue. And herein lies the problem, you see, because every time I read what I've already written, I end up changing a lot of what's there. I'm constantly making revisions to a single draft while slowly and painfully pushing further along with the speed of... well of me trying to construct the perfect sentence for example. (Cut to me staring blankly at the computer screen for several minutes before suddenly bursting into uncontrollable sobs... you get the picture.) Even now as I'm writing this blog entry, the very same process is taking place. I finish a sentence, decide I need to read the whole piece for the 1000th time before continuing any further, and end up changing what's already there before adding on a couple more sentences and repeating the process all over again. Sound frustrating? Maddening even? People keep telling me to leave it alone, to only focus on what comes next, and to save my editing for a second draft, but no matter how hard I try, this just isn't the way that I write. So is there something wrong with this? Am I setting myself up for doom every time I start to write and rewrite? I can't fully tell you that this hasn't worked to my advantage a lot of the time either which makes it even more frustrating and confusing. Often some of my greatest thoughts and ideas come through this process and I don't think my writing would be the same without it... but it does make me wonder at the fact that since I haven't been completely satisfied with any BIG writing ventures I've pursued for quite a long time now, is there something I'm doing wrong? Is there even such a thing as a right way and a wrong way to create something worthy of creation? Or is it completely silly of me to assume that all the brilliant artists out there somehow share the same or at least a similar creative process?
I wish so badly that I could sit behind Wally Lamb, Elizabeth Gilbert, or Anne Rice as they stare at their computer screens and work away. That I could see them scream and yell at their work before writing and rewriting a paragraph over and over again until it becomes the brilliance that we know and love so much. If only for a second to see that they don't just sit and let the creativity flow through them gracefully with wide, knowing smiles on their faces and glowing auras around their bodies until they reach the end. Maybe if I could catch just a glimpse of this, I could let my process continue to work through me instead of trying to figure out how to work it so much. But still I can't help wondering, do these authors know everything about their characters before they write them? Or do the character's voices shift and change as they write? Do they start as blocks of stone that slowly get chiseled away into fully formed people that have to be constantly adjusted and readjusted as they go along? Or do they already exist inside their brilliant minds with fully formed personalities and flaws and vices and character arcs that guide them along to their beautiful and perfect endings before they even sit down and pick up a pen? How much do writers know of what will happen in their stories before they actually start writing? Who taught these people how to sit down and create such complex art without killing themselves in the process? Am I thinking about this too much? Should I just trust my process instead of questioning whether what I'm doing is right or wrong so much? The only reason I have a hard time doing this I guess is because I spent a lot of time over the last year of my life working on a play that I was hoping to produce this summer, only to take a few weeks away from it to discover that I'm not really all that in love with it anymore. Something about my original vision seemed to go astray somewhere. Something just doesn't feel right anymore and so now I'm left with months of work that I have no idea what to do with, and I want to do everything I can to avoid having this happen again.
It boggles my mind that any artist can ever really look at their work and see it as something complete and whole and not just a giant mess of endless self indulgent imperfection. But that's why I'm using this blog right? To work through my insecurities and finally find a way to use the voice I hear inside me to create something coherent, meaningful, and beautiful. Even if in the end it is only any of those things to me. I have to believe that when Stephen King first started writing Carrie, that it was actually called Carl, and that The Grapes of Wrath was originally written about apples. I have to believe that the writing process is an evolving one and that everything that ends as brilliance begins as a pile of shit with only a glimpse of what it will become glowing from within it. (I hope you have a mental image of that one :-) I have to believe that every failure I have is only leading me one step closer to my success. And I have to believe that all writers, even Shakespeare, existed in a world full of doubt, insecurity and constant creative madness. And because I don't have anyone to tell me any different... I have to trust my process to guide me to where it wants to go. I have to trust that this time around, i'll finish writing, sigh peacefully and give myself a pat on the back for the beautiful work I've just created and am so, so proud of. Can you imagine?
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There is an old cliche that may help you out sir; "Writing is re-writing". I used to torture myself with trying to write exactly what I had in my head off the bat but ended up just becoming frustrated and eventually bored with what I was working on.
ReplyDeleteRecently I have been keeping a notebook of project specific ideas and using those notes to create an outline. This way I will have at least some idea of where the project is going even if I decide to change it along the way. Once the outline is complete I then power through the first draft and never look back until I am finished. I find it too easy to worry about what was written the day before and the time spent worrying would be better put to use thinking about what comes next. Once you have a first draft completed you can then step back and decide what you want the finished product to look like. You can change characters, dialogue, removes scenes, add new scenes, etc, etc, etc until you have something that you are proud of. The rewriting of the script is often where the best ideas come into play because you are no longer worried about finishing the thing and you can just step back and be a little more objective.
That's just what I do buddy. Everybody has their own process but it's good to know what works for others.
Cam! Thanks so much for not only reading my blog, but for your wise and inspiring words. I really want to be able to write like this, so I'm going to post that quote at my desk and try to power through to the end without looking back. Here goes nothing :-)
ReplyDeleteNo probs Matt, hope it helps.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. Except I still haven't managed to do it - part of my process is weeks of agonizing over the shit that I write - then I finally get everything horrible out of me and remember that I just need to get that first draft done. Once I get that done then, like Cam, I go back. But there is a process I have to go through before I am actually able to do that. Of course I"d love to cut the process down or eliminate it entirely, still working on that... maybe for my dissertation.
ReplyDeleteFor instance the chapter I'm working on right now - I've been technically working on it since the beginning of February. But really I've only written what's in front of me in the past five days because I struggled to write, deleted (well actually I no longer delete, I cut and paste on a separate document because I often go back to that stuff - which I recommend you do, if you're not already) and then write again. And like you I'm agonizing over the sentences, the word choices - ugh.
ReplyDeleteAnd then about five days ago I got really mad at myself, lay in bed for two hours feeling the adrenaline pounding and the stress crashing in as my deadline comes and goes - and then I get up and write. And write and write and write. And that's where I'm at. But of course this chapter will be finished in the next couple of days and then I'll go through the same shitty process next week with the start of the next chapter. Like I said, if you can cut out that process then I think you've figured it out. I have been writing various pieces of work over the past 6.5 years of university and I haven't managed to cut down my process. And to be honest, the more insecure I'm feeling (which grows with every year in academia and every year I get older) the longer the process gets. Haha this is depressing.
Listen to Cam. Maybe his method will work for you!