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Author
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Comment
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denag
Registered User
(6/10/03 4:06 am)
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re: starting to write
I apologise now if what follows is incoherent. I'm getting all emotional reading everyone's comments.
I'm just starting to write, having lived with stories in my head my whole life and not recognised them until now. But starting to write is scary, and I am taking my time, tripping over all kinds of hurdles on the way.
Research, for example - how much to do, when to do it, whether to make it up instead (or is that just a get-out?). I began with fairytales, and have branched out into mythology, western philosophy (starting with the greeks, for now), history, geology etc...I love learning, but it's a bit daunting on this scale, and I've no idea at all how to pace myself.
And then there are those things that it might simply be impossible to research. Someone said, above (I paraphrase) you can't write about the feelings of a mother who's 3-year old child has been kidnapped, unless you've been on the inside. Now I really hope that most of my ideas never actually happen to me - some of them are altogether too exciting, or even downright horrible, and I am lucky to live a comfortable life. I have my share of minor trials, from which I try to imagine how it would feel if they were more extreme. But I may never really be able to capture the true feelings of an individual in a situation I've imagined. So I worry - do I still have the right to try and imagine the feelings?
As for outlining. I have no creative-writing experience, but a good friend told me to keep a notebook with me at all times. This book has become part-journal (when I experience anything interesting, in it goes), part scribbled record of dreams/feelings/story-fragments/characters etc. Sometimes, a fragment leads somewhere, and then I follow it, alternating between writing and sketching (I'm a scientist, and often resort to flow-diagrams at times of extreme excitement!). It all feels horribly random, but I can't help it, this is the way it is happening. And it's utterly intoxicating.
Before I run out of steam here, I just want to add: it is incredibly helpful to read all your insights, whether you are 13, or 130. I am beginning to feel that the way I write might be valid after all.
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Heidi
Anne Heiner
ezOP
(6/10/03 1:06 pm)
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Re: starting to write and a little about Take Joy
Denag,
All of your concerns and worries are valid and real, but I think it is best to just write and then figure out later if what you wrote is good, real, etc. Heaven knows I have spent too much time avoiding writing out of fear of failure, but now I do it for me and perhaps someday to be published.
Also, on a whim I picked up Jane's new book, Take Joy: A Book for Writers, and read it a few weeks ago. Jane, I enjoyed it and I recommend it to you, Denag. I try not to read many books on writing anymore because I find myself reading instead of writing, but I couldn't help myself since it was Jane's book. Here's a link to it on Amazon:
www.amazon.com/exec/obido...lalufairyt
Life certainly has enough pain without purposely trying to suffer for our art.
Heidi
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Laura
McCaffrey
Registered User
(6/10/03 3:43 pm)
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Re: starting to write and a little about Take Joy
Denag -
You certainly are not alone. I spent years not writing because I was terrified that I was a bad writer. Then I decided that it was worse not to try than to allow failure to stop me from doing something I wanted to do. My favorite characters never decided to avoid fighting the dragons because they were scared. They didn't stay home, avoiding the difficult journeys that stood before them.
To add to the book recs: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. The book's tone isn't for everyone, but I like to read it because it reminds me that someone else has the same fears I have.
LauraMc
Edited by: Laura McCaffrey at: 6/10/03 3:47 pm
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denag
Registered User
(6/10/03 11:39 pm)
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thank you
thank you, thank you. i will add these books to my birthday list!
It's truly heartening to dicsover that i'm not alone. There's a nasty little voice in my head that says "real writers always know they're doing good stuff" - it sounds so convincing, even though I'm sure it can't be true.
That being said, I don't think I could stop writing now, even if I was sure I was awful - it's a compulsion. Once an idea seeds, it tickles and itches and eventually SHOUTS in my head until I yield, and grab a pen. (I don't think my job is really getting the best of me at the moment!) And then I start bouncing off the walls with excitement (can last for several days), until I eventually calm down enough to eat, sleep, wash clothes and be normal for a bit. Then a new idea germinates and off we go again.
I just hope that I will be able to bring some point, be able to weave together the fragments into a whole Thing.
Laura - it's funny what you say about your favourite characters. Until very recently, I had built a barrier around my own life to protect it from my ideas - I was happy to dream up these characters and events, but very unhappy about getting too involved in case I lost the difference between fantasy and reality in my own life. I had a funny feeling this might stunt my writing, but I have a good life, and didn't want to screw it up. But then I took a (very little) risk, and thought about it. And hey presto! Nothing came crashing down, and I learned an awful lot about myself. So I will bear your remark in mind - perhaps I need not apportion ALL the adventures and fighting spirit to my characters.
Thanks a million for your thoughts - I think I will print this whole discussion out and stick it over the desk at home!
Dena
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denag
Registered User
(6/11/03 1:50 am)
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oops
umm, reading through the above, it seems I have lapsed into gibberish.
Anyone struggling through my post, please mentally edit out the words "bring some point" from the sentence "I just hope that I will be able to...weave together the fragments into a whole Thing"
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Gregor9
Registered User
(6/11/03 12:12 pm)
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Fear and writing
Heidi wrote: "Life certainly has enough pain without purposely trying to suffer for our art."
Or as songwriter Neil Innes put it to his audience: "I've suffered for my art, now it's your turn."
I don't think the fear of writing ever goes away. The fear of the blank page is the fear of the blank canvas. It's normal. And if you're looking at your work in progress and telling yourself that it's terrible, awful, you don't know what you're doing and who do you think you are to be trying to write in the first place....then you're behaving like a writer. Like Dostoevski, like Dickens. Which is not bad company.
From the middle of any creative endeavor, the view in either direction looks like crap. Trust your voice, and go on. In some sense this makes the act of writing very much like any quest narrative; and we all know that the stalwart heroines and heroes go on to the end of the journey.
Greg
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Fianna
Registered User
(6/14/03 6:22 pm)
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Re: Fear and writing
Geez, I never thought my original post would get this much of a response (even though it has branched out a bit)! Everything that has been said has been helpful and encouraging. I started outlining more before I posted the first time and found it hard. I've always done the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants style of writing. It's fun, but I end up with writer's block. A lot. I'm hoping that even a loose outline will help me get farther and give me a little discipline. But anways, thanks so much to everyone who responded!
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janeyolen
Unregistered User
(6/14/03 11:51 pm)
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Not me
Won't be at World Con till the Glasgow one. So someone else will have to be on the panel.
Jane
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Rosemary
Lake
Registered User
(6/15/03 3:44 pm)
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Re: Fear and writing
I've always done the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants style of writing. It's fun, but I end up with writer's block. A lot. I'm hoping that even a loose outline will help me get farther and give me a little discipline.
Outlines help many people with that, including me. But rather than change what's worked for you, maybe you could try having several stories going at once. Sometimes it isn't the writer that's blocked, but the story. She can work on another for a while, and then can come back to the blocked story with a fresh idea. (Piers Antony said he did this, had three in works at a time, so that when one would not 'go', another usuallly did.)
RL
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RymRytr1
Registered User
(6/17/03 7:18 am)
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Fear of writing
OK... I too, am not alone! I've been "writting" since
I finished High School in 1963 (Quick! Do the math.)
Never once did I try to publish (well, there was that one poem in some little journal/paper back in Florida somewhere), but other wise, I've let fear defeat me. Now, in a sort of compromise, I've built a web page and have a few of my items there.
I guess I'm hoping that the world will beat a path to my door, as it were and all will be well. As Dorothy's companions found, we already have Courage, Heart and Brains, if we'd just recognize them and make use of them.
So, my point is that even if you are afraid you are the worst author in existance, go ahead and write. What's the worst that can happen?
Really! What's the worst? Nobody is going to whip you are lock you
up or steal your 3 yr old! Give it your best shot. It is indeed,
better to do than to "wanna be" a do'er!
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