I got
my first bug to be a writer in junior high school because I spent the summer
with my godmother who writes period era Harlequin Romance novels. Yes, I know I
thought the same thing everyone initially thinks when they hear this, “How
cheesy” and then I spent the summer researching Scotland during the 1890’s and
realized how much time, energy, effort and dedication it took for her to write
one novel. Although I’m not a fan of romance novels, the challenge of writing intrigued
me, and she told me one of the best pieces of advice, which is that in order to
be a writer, you had to learn to love what you write even if you don’t love it
in the beginning.
My next
great piece of advice about writing came as a freshman in college, when I had a
professor give me a D on a paper after she said my revision was lacking. She
told me, “Revision isn’t just about structure, it’s
about revising your brilliant ideas.” It became my personal challenge that when
I wrote, to try and write brilliant ideas, preferably the first time, but if
need be, the fiftieth (which tends to be more realistic) as long as I got them
written down.
I think for this reason, I’m not bothered by the concept of bad
writing. Where the fear kicks in for me is two-fold, first having to share that
bad writing with someone else who could pass judgment, and secondly, having to
figure out what to do with the bad writing once it’s written. I feel like
everything I write should be improved on, the type-a personality in me takes
over and I want to make it better, worthy of the page it sits upon, and I tend
to look at my bad writing like the dog hit by the car. If we take it to the
vet, poor money, time, and effort into it eventually it will get better. When
in reality, that’s not the case – I have a hard time pulling the plug,
sometimes learning to let go and realize it’s just bad and has no hope of ever
improving is really difficult if not close to impossible for me.
I really found the idea in Murray’s piece about the resistance
to writing interesting and connected with it. I think often having that
resistance is important and I find myself with it often because sometimes I
feel like I have to really let something stew, and simmer and toil over it,
resist the urge to write and have an aversion to wanting to write about it
because it’s like I’m waiting on that moment of clarity, when I know how I
really feel about whatever the topic is, or I get to the point where I’m
running out of time and have to force myself to really search my own knowledge
and emotional base to see how I feel and what I want to say. I think naturally
in academics especially we struggle with this as students because the idea of
procrastination and writers block can and does feel like failure, whether you’re
failing yourself, or failing your assignment.
Ultimately the writing tends to not be what plagues me, it’s the
endings. It’s finding the perfect thing to say when I want to say and making
sure my message is heard the way I think it should sound in my head. I think
that’s always been my biggest struggle with the workshop process is sometimes I
think I’ve said what I need to and want to and yet when those around me read my
piece they have no idea what I’m talking about. I have a love/hate relationship
with writing, a lot of times, that relationship is like an over caffeinated
four year old on a sugar high and I can’t decide what I’m doing, how I got
here, and what made me think I could write in the first place – but it’s the
love that keeps me coming back and wanting to make my writing better and
experiment and push myself and see where it will take me.
Thanks for your post, blogger. Interesting story about your Godmother. It sounds like you learned to be a true writer through learning and accepting the process of revision, regardless or how many revisions are necessary. I too worry about sharing shitty writing sometimes, but am less worried about it these days as I've noticed folks aren't too judgy anyway, at least early on. I want my writing to be the kind where I'm worried about sharing the vulnerable content, rather than the potentially shitty writing. We shouldn't be worried about the shitty writing early because its early writing and most likely crap for everyone, at least in areas. This reminds me that writing wouldn't be fun or rewarding if we easily produced good writing in the first go. Interesting point of discussion where you mention concern of whether your writing will be interpreted by your reader the way you intended it to. I think that is an important thing to consider in revision. I like a balance, although its hard to get right and I'm working on it, between getting my feeling across, but letting the reader develop some sense of mystery or jump to some conclusions or imagination of their own because I think that is fun for the reader and is one of the things that can make reading enjoyable. Keep pushing and keep writing.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I hope we talk about today is what to do with bad writing, a question you raise here: "I tend to look at by bad writing like a dog hit by a car." Sometimes, you say, the dog simply dies. What do we do with the dead dog? I love this question because it's obvious that much of the writing we generate doesn't really go anywhere. Is it wasted? Or is there something in the mere act of putting down words that somehow makes us better, even if the words are "useless?"
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I find it so interesting that you can clearly trace where your interest in writing came from, when in my case the urge to write has been around for longer than most of my freckles and just as presently stubborn. That dead dog analogy is genius, if not a little sad, but I think it speaks to your tenacity as a writer and person; just because you wrote it, it has value, and therefore cannot be totally neglected.
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