Revising, then re-revising

For my current project I’m re-reading the opening lines again and again, and revising, then re-revising.

With each draft I go a little further, adding voices, taking out stanzas, finding words malleable, nothing set in stone.

It’s liberating, this way of revising, but also terrifying. Everything keeps changing. And the implication of such changes (in my mind, at least) is that whatever I wrote to begin with must have been wrong … or not good enough. 

I have to remind myself that each draft is in a state of becoming. 

I have to tell myself it may not be good enough yet, but it will become good enough if I keep revising it.

This doubt (about whether it’s good enough, about whether I’m good enough) only intensifies with each draft and becomes another obstacle that I have to overcome if I want to return to the page each day. 

What’s critical is that I learn to ignore this voice saying I’m not good enough. (Or why bother? Or you’ll never succeed.)

To succeed I need to keep working on the draft. 

I need to keep revising. 

I need to keep alive the curiosity that wants to know what happens next… and what might happen if I add this word or take away this phrase… and how the poem or story might change… and how the reader’s understanding of the story might deepen.

So I keep revising, waiting with hope for the puzzle pieces to fall into place. 

It feels like I’m working without a net.

And on some days I wonder why I do this.

Maybe it’s because I feel such pleasure discovering what might happen, creating something new, something never seen before. 

Maybe it’s because I enjoy carving a path where there never was a path before.

You know the feeling, too, I’m guessing. 

How following your own path leads to moments of discovery that are a source of joy. (Maybe I should call them moments of revelation.) 

Suddenly, the page opens in ways I never could have predicted, and a source of light illuminates the darkness.

This is what I love most about writing.

How the words flow from my pen each morning, how the ink appears on the page, how the lines form into stanzas, paragraphs, poems, stories.

How writing lets me feel as if I’m part of a larger story that I’m trying to tell (and trying to figure out at the same time).

And, most of all, how I can look back after a day or week or month at the pages that have accumulated and feel that I am where I belong, here, with paper and pen in hand, part of an ongoing mystery.

The Paths We Follow

Each day I sit down to write wondering what I'll discover on the page, not knowing what words will come or where they'll lead me. 

I remember days when I used to sit at my desk in my college dorm room staring at a blank sheet of paper and wanting to write, doubting I could write at all. 

I stared at the typewriter trying to find where the words were hiding, wondering if they'd ever come out to play. It was as if the words were shy mice or rabbits frozen in fear.

I didn't yet know how to let go of fear, how to let my thoughts go free, how to reach in and pull a strand of thought and follow it without knowing where it might lead, without worrying if it would dissolve and leave me stranded on a distant shore with no way of getting back.

Some writers rely on outlines as a way to get past their fear. But outlines inspire a different kind of fear in me--a fear of constraint, of pushing a circle into a square, or a square into a circle. With an outline, I fear that I won't be able to follow my thoughts wherever they might lead. 

I don't want anything to cut me off from the thrill of spontaneous writing, from the joy and magic of seeing my thoughts emerge on the page as they appear in my mind. 

That's why I prefer opening my journal to a blank page and seeing where the words take me. 

There's no path to follow because it doesn't exist. 

I can only see a path after I finish writing and look back to see where I've come from.

Only then can I see the distance I've traveled, and the path I carved to get here.

What about you? 

What paths do you take into your stories?

And what obstacles are standing in your way?

And how do you make your way past them?

Swimming against the current

There are some days when writing can feel like we're swimming against the current, and we have to acknowledge we aren't able to make any headway. 

It can feel like we're caught in a riptide pulling us further and further from shore, and even though we keep trying to swim toward our destination, swimming only gets harder.

And the harder we try to return to shore, the more fatigued we become... and the more impossible it is to keep swimming.  

Each stroke leaves us weaker, and each effort we make to keep writing feels more and more futile.

What are we supposed to do? 

Do we stay in the water and keep trying to swim against the current? 

Or do we try to get out?

In such a situation, the first thing we might need to do, I suspect, is to recognize that we're caught in the riptide.

And then we need to stop struggling, stop trying to swim back toward shore. 

I know it sounds counterintuitive, but on days when it feels like we're swimming against the current, we need to let go of what we want to do and allow the current to take us where it wants to take us. 

Only then, when the current begins to slack off and loses its power, can we slip out of its grip and start swimming again-- parallel to shore rather than directly toward it--until we've escaped the current's clutches entirely and can swim back towards shore unimpeded. 

It may take a while when we're swimming against the current to realize “this isn’t working,” and it takes courage to be willing to let go of what we're trying to write, to stop struggling, put down our pen, and refrain from pushing on.

But in order to keep writing, we need to figure out another route, a different path, to reach our destination. 

There is a fear in all of us, I suspect, that if we stop writing, we’ll sink to the bottom of the sea and never return to the surface again. 

Writing is what keeps us afloat, after all.

But here's the thing: when we stop writing, we don’t sink.

We keep floating, sustained by the desire to write, our love of words, our need for stories and poems.

And floating--that stage when we're still in the water but not swimming in a particular direction-- can give us the perspective we need to regain our bearings and see where we are and where we need to go.

Once we're able to stop swimming against the current, we can begin making our way towards home.

If you'd like to check out a few helpful articles on when writing is hard, visit:

https://www.well-storied.com/blog/hard-truths

https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/7-things-to-try-when-writing-is-hard/

https://writingcooperative.com/5-simple-reasons-why-writing-is-hard-really-hard-1cfee9ced1f5

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culturally-incorrect/201804/writing-when-its-hard

https://medium.com/the-brave-writer/if-youre-having-a-hard-time-writing-maybe-this-is-why-f1802a0b86b3

Pulled by an invisible undertow

How can I keep writing,

keep exploring the world

with my pen?

How can I keep the process going

with joy, with excitement, with

hope for the discoveries to come,

even when the unknown--

the not knowing what comes next--

feels overwhelming?

What keeps drawing me back 

to the page every morning,

even when my head feels empty,

my brain blank? 

Why do I sit at my desk

even when thought--when thinking--

feels like a twisted rubber-band

that's been tied into knots?

Why don't I stop, 

put down my pen,

and close my journal

when I feel the tension building

in my shoulders and neck?

But, no, even then 

I still come to the page,

pen in hand,

pulled by some

invisible undertow,

and write.

I write just to see,

perhaps,

what words 

will come today.

I write just to see

what wisdom,

if any,

I will find

inside myself

to inspire my pen

to keep writing.

Falling In Love With Stories

Do you remember when you first fell in love with stories?

When I was a young boy—before I fell in love with reading, before I sat in front of the TV for hours watching movies—I loved sitting in the kitchen on Sunday mornings listening to my grandfather tell stories about his life growing up in a tiny village on the outskirts of Warsaw.

It wasn’t just his stories that drew me into the tales. It was the sound of his voice, the smell of his clothes (he was a baker), and the way his hands held his cup of coffee or drew invisible landscapes in the air. How I loved him, and it was this love, I suspect, that helped shape my love of stories.

In his presence, the suburbs of northern New Jersey where I grew up seemed to fade away. All I heard in the kitchen on those Sunday mornings was the sound of his voice. I’d enter another world, a world that was so different from the everyday world that I inhabited.

He told stories about skating on frozen rivers until the leather on the soles of his shoes was worn away and about stealing cucumbers from the priest’s garden and getting a “clop” from the priest who caught him.

He told me how he used to run through the village delivering rolls that his father baked in their bakery, and how, on the way home, he teased the village girls by throwing brambles into the their hair.

And when he was older, he told me, he ran away from the village and hid on a train to Berlin without a ticket and began his journey to America.

Pacing, tone, plot were all wrapped in the gentle tone of his voice, and it was his voice that gave me a sense of what stories sounded like, and how a storyteller could shape and re-shape them, trying this, then that, as if each story was a recipe that could be changed again and again.

Every Sunday morning in our kitchen my grandfather told me the same stories with only the slightest variations. I’m convinced that listening to him tell these stories so many times was what helped me understand the structure of stories. In time, I learned to anticipate what would happen next and began to see how a story could flow from beginning to middle and then on to an end, and how my expectations changed depending on the way the story was revealed.

My grandfather was a baker. He never taught me how to bake. He never shared any of his recipes. But he shared his stories.

They’ve proven as rich and as sustaining over the years as the apple pies, apple and fruit strudels, cupcakes, and chocolate layer cakes that I remember him making for us and which I can still taste in my imagination.

Remembering those Sunday mornings when I sat with him and listened to his stories helps remind me of what I love about stories.

And on days when writing is hard, when words and stories won’t come, it’s the echo of my grandfather’s voice that draws me back to stories and what I love about them so I can find the emotional strength to keep writing.

Do you remember when you first fell in love with stories? Do you recall the person who first introduced you to stories?

Let us know if you get a chance and perhaps your story about falling in love with stories can inspire others to keep writing.

Staying Afloat

"No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit." - Helen Keller

Each of us faces some kind of obstacle each day in our work as well as in our lives, and the way we view these obstacles can help or hinder our efforts to get words down on paper and tell our stories.

There are writers among us who have full schedules working and caring for children or aging parents with little time (or energy) left for writing at the end of the day.

There are writers in the water with us who have lost their jobs and have to face the growing anxiety of supporting a family as their savings dwindle and their money runs out.

If you look to your right or left, you'll see writers swimming beside us who have to face emotional challenges–a recent divorce, a death in the family, the loss of a close friend.

And others who must face daunting physical challenges or the prospect of a life-threatening illness. (This past week I was relieved to learn that the tumor pressing on my 12th cranial nerve was benign.)

Life can be hard, but other writers have surmounted personal and professional obstacles and managed to stay afloat and continue writing despite these difficulties.

Hans Christian Anderson overcame dyslexia.

Isaac Asimov wrote and wrote and wrote despite being autistic.

Christy Brown wrote “My Left Foot” despite cerebral palsy.

Byron penned poems and Dickens wrote his novels despite epilepsy.

H.G. Wells gave us his stories despite diabetes.

"Pain,” writes Lois McMaster Bujold, “seems to me an insufficient reason not to embrace life. Being dead is quite painless. Pain, like time, is going to come on regardless. Question is, what glorious moments can you win from life in addition to the pain?"

As I faced my own obstacles and demons these past four months, I found it helpful to remember that other writers have conquered their demons and managed to overcome obstacles in order to stay in the water and continue writing.

The next time that you find yourself facing a daunting obstacle and wondering how you can keep swimming and putting words on paper, try to remember what James Baldwin wrote: "Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."

Keep the faith. Keep writing.

And when you come up for air, let us know how you're doing.

On Resistance

Since hearing about the death of Robert B. Parker a few months ago, I’ve eased the pain of losing one of my favorite mystery writers by going to my shelf and taking down a stack of his books and immersing myself again in the worlds that he spent his life creating.

His novels about a private detective named Spenser have captivated me over the years with Spenser’s brashness, his wise-guy humor, and his tough exterior hiding a sensitive (and highly literate) soul. Only in Parker’s novels will you find a sharp-shooting hulk quoting lines from writers like e.e. cummings, T.S. Eliot, or Henry David Thoreau as well as being conversant in the nuances of Freudian psychology.

Spenser is a bit of a modern-day knight, chivalrous to a fault (even while being unapologetically sexist), as well as a combination of Philip Marlowe, Sherlock Holmes (with Hawk, his African-American cohort in detection in place of Watson), and Humphrey Bogart, all mixed into one.

Add to the mix Parker’s dexterity at constructing plot-lines that keep the pacing quick, the reader’s curiosity high, and the tension taut, and you’ve got all the ingredients for the successful writing career that Parker carved out for himself after publishing his first novel more than thirty years ago.

After reading almost a dozen of Parker’s books in the past few weeks, I started thinking about why I find myself so drawn to his work (aside from the reasons listed above), and I believe it has to do with a concept that, for lack of a better term, I’ll call resistance (in keeping with our water and swimming metaphor).

If you read enough books on writing, you know that for a plot to work successfully, the author has to offer the main character a number of obstacles to stand in the character’s path and keep that character from easily attaining his or her goal.

It was while re-reading Spenser that I began to see how these obstacles function in relation to the character. They don’t simply stand in his way like a parking meter or a lamp post that he can simply walk around. No, the obstacles themselves are obstacles precisely because they keep Spenser from obtaining the knowledge that he needs to solve the crime.

In other words, these obstacles offer him resistance. They give Spenser something to push against (and, often, they push back) while giving the reader a sense of Spenser’s courage and determination and fortitude to keep pursuing what he needs. They are obstacles because they require Spenser to push past them –and to keep pushing harder and harder until he can overcome their resistance– in order to move forward and get closer to understanding the mystery that he’s been hired to solve.

What constitutes an obstacle strong enough to offer resistance to Spenser? Well, often, it’s simply his own ignorance, not knowing how to move forward to solve a particular case. He’ll know someone is dead but not why, or he’ll know someone is skimming money but not why, or he’ll learn someone is blackmailing someone... but not why. And as the story unfolds he has to come up with a plan to overcome his ignorance (move past this resistance) to learn more.

But ignorance isn’t the only obstacle he faces. Often, he’ll face a thug or gang of thugs who have orders to keep him from finding out what he wants to find out. And his personality, naturally, resists such suggestions, even when resistance might end up getting him killed, because his job requires that he not be afraid or turn away from danger. So he needs to push hard against the thugs, needs to conquer them (and the resistance that they provide) in order to maintain his own integrity, not merely gain the knowledge that he seeks to solve the crime.

Time–or lack of time–to solve a crime is sometimes a point of resistance, an element that may prevent Spenser from gaining his goal. Lies–or lack of truthfulness–from witnesses or from people hiring him or from dishonest lawyers or cops are also elements that stand in his way, offering resistance.

What I’ve learned from Parker’s novels over the past few weeks is that as a reader I need to feel this resistance in my bones, need to feel part of the action as Spenser goes about his business of trying to overcome the various obstacles that stand in his way of solving the crime. And I've learned that if I feel strongly about Spenser and his knight’s quest, it’s as much because of how he responds to the resistance as the things offering resistance.

Resistance is essential if you want to keep your character afloat... and your reader turning the pages... from the first page to the last.

For more on resistance and the connection between characters, obstacles and plot, visit:
http://killzoneauthors.blogspot.com/2010/02/plot-thickens.html
http://www.writing-world.com/children/obstacles.shtml
http://thereadingzone.wordpress.com/2010/02/07/character-wants-vs-obstacles-minilesson/
http://www.danbarden.com/?page_id=18
http://www.blairhurley.com/2009/08/do-you-deny-or-accept-obstacles.html

And for more on Robert B. Parker, visit:
http://www.robertbparker.net/
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/books/20parker.html

Long-Distance Swimming

One of the results of writing a novel versus writing a short story is that, aside from the loneliness of the extended stretches of time that you work on your own, you begin to take--by necessity--a longer view of the process.

You can't look to finishing your novel as a form of gratification because the end is too far away. But you can reach a certain number of words or pages each day. You can celebrate crafting a chapter or a scene or a paragraph or a sentence.

Small things add up to larger things over time.

Still, it's easy to lose sight of the long view and forget the goal.

It's easy, too, to mistake the loneliness and silence that accompany the long stretches of isolation as indifference, disdain, and dislike for your work when, really, it's only silence... and, perhaps, your own negative feelings rising to the surface.

Inner critics.

Negative voices.

These critical voices often reflect the belief that unless you have something to show for your effort, the effort itself is worthless.

These are the times when you need to pause and re-examine your goals.

Look up from your desk to double-check the longitude and latitude of where you are in the process.

Sometimes the only way to drown out these voices, these feelings, is to put your head back in the water and keep swimming toward the opposite shore that you set out to reach weeks or months or years before.

But I can't help wonder what it is that keeps you going.

Is it curiosity... or something else... that sustains you over the long distance swim of a novel?

When you get a chance, write and let us know how you manage to swim long distances.

For more on overcoming the obstacles to long-distance swimming, visit:
http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2008/01/11/my-first-sale-by-jennifer-donnelly-just-keep-writing/
http://www.ralphkeyes.com/pages/books/hope/excerpt.htm
http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/books/excerpts.php?id=16458
http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=145942
http://sinsofourfathers.com/blog/?tag=novel
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/living/books/s_487051.html