SELF-DOUBT and GUILT

 

Self-doubt is not only an important part of an artist’s toolkit; it’s an essential aspect of being a good person, striving to do better. I think guilt serves a similar function.

 

Where both get a bad rap is when they exceed the boundaries of righting function and become wrecking balls. Being wrecked with self-doubt or wrecked by guilt deserves the boot.

Not helpful, get outta here, you’re only doing damage.

 

This post on the usefulness of self-doubt got me thinking. I was amid second drafting a novel and experiencing something I hadn’t before at that stage. I was liking my first draft.

It read well. How can this be? First drafts are not supposed to read this well. Have I lost my whatever it is that makes writers able to improve on what is, let’s face it, only the first draft?

 

 I was having self-doubts about not having self-doubts.

 

No worries. About a third way in, my first draft showed itself to be a mess in need of urgent triage and surgical repair. I was back to normal self-doubting me, and both breathing and heart rate stabilized.

 

Self-examination, acknowledging wrongs, attempting repairs and trying to do better are great tools. Just don’t let them go amok, because then they think they are the boss and will, if you let them, kill you.

 

Everything in moderation, Maimonides said. This eight-hundred- and fifty-year-old advice has aged well.

Hardest Scenes to Write?

 

It’s different for every writer.

 

Some writers struggle with dialogue. It’s easy for me, because I hear the characters talk, and I often have to tell them it’s time to be quiet.

 

I’ve had writing friends who said it’s the scenes that are the most wrenching for their characters. For some reason, these flow for me. Maybe because I feel the internal urge to plow through and get the characters out and away from the pickle barrels I threw them into.

 

For me, it’s the quiet descriptive passages I have the hardest time putting into words. Almost every editor I have worked with has suggested I add more to expand and enrich these quiet moments of physical observations.

 

I’ve had dialogue cuts suggested and whole scenes eliminated. But I have yet to have feedback that said “cut description.”

 

Could it be because I began with picture book writing, where description should be left to the art? Maybe, but no matter. I know this is where my storytelling needs help.

 

And this is the point. It’s important to know one’s Achilles heel.

THE THREE QUESTIONS, or MAKE IT FOUR

 

As I’m about to embark on the sixth draft of my current work-in-progress, (=WIP) I’m mulling over this post that highlights three questions one should ask about the story while drafting:

Is there a character arc?

Does the plot hold casual progression?

Are characters’ motivations convincing?

 

While this is important to do when evaluating a novel and also when giving feedback to others, it is just as valid for a picture book text if the picture book isn’t a concept text  (i.e. lists of shapes, or ABC and such)—Any story of any length will be compelling if a writer can strongly sign on as having checked these three marks.

But I’d add a fourth, which is a duh sort of pillar:

Is it entertaining? It’s best to enlist another’s eyes for this, but even the writer can tell if they themselves are yawning. If you are snoozing at your own writing, others would have been snoring by that point.

Great storytelling is both an innate talent and also a craft mastered with care.

DRAFTING DRAFTS

 

I was mulling over the strange creatures called Second Drafts.

(Full disclosure, my WIP is now on its fifth draft, which is not nearly as interesting)

 

So, if first drafts are the first-time words typed onto a document (or penned on a page) and subsequent drafts are re-visioning aspects of the story to a neater, shinier polish, what in the plumb-cake is worth noting about draft number two?

 

To me, it turns out to be the very first time I meet the story, as in, “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Story.”

 

Yeah, I wrote it. But while first drafting I was not fully conscious, and I was not “other.” I lived it, suffered it, rejoiced with it, and finally collapsed on my bed to rest when the whole adventure ended, hopefully in a fine resolution.

 

I try to neither look nor think of the story for a month after first drafting. I am catching my breath the way one does after a race, waiting for the steady pace of ordinary breathing and life to return. Only after that happens, will I embark on the next stage, where I meet the story.

 

It’s an interesting experience. In the best case, I have to force myself to stop after a daily portion of polish/add/strike out, usually not exceeding two thousand words or so. When the story (which I had written, so you’d think I should know how it goes) is riveting, it means that it’s working.

When it isn’t, I mull over why. Both happen even in the same manuscript.

 

It’s a heady thing to be surprised by one’s own creative choices. Think of it as a rare opportunity to make one’s own acquaintance. Friends who are not writers have described something like it when remembering something they had done or said which they long forgot. A friend to whom I quoted a letter she had sent long ago put it this way: “Did I say this? That was very insightful of me.”

 

Yes, second drafts are interesting. It’s worth first drafting just to have the second draft experience.

REFLECTIONS ON THE UMPTEENTH DRAFT

 

There is a truth universally proclaimed, that artists are never happy with their own work.

For writers, this means feelings of loathsomeness when reading their own writing.

So, what is one supposed to think if when revising draft number (take your pick: three, thirteen, thirty-three) you find yourself liking your own writing?

There is no place to put such a feeling. You feel like a freak. But there it is.

Me likey!

Wishes of joy to all who make things. It’s allowed. Even the greatest creator of all gave themselves this permission:

“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” Genesis 1:31

*For more on how not to buy into the myth of the self-immolating creative and how to enjoy the writing journey, I wholeheartedly recommend Jane Yolen’s TAKE JOY