I’ve been thinking about this. A lot. It seems everything I read about writing (and, as you know, I read about writing. A lot.) talks about what an awful, tedious, nerve-wracking, sticking-nails-in-your-eyes process it is. In fact, I have a whole book called The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend Fear by Ralph Keyes, which is comprised of stories about the lengths that the great writers of our time (Carver, Didion, Cheever, Updike, etc.) go/went to get over their fear of writing and make themselves just sit down and write.
And it seems like every interview I hear with an author, he talks about what a slog it is most of the time, and that only very rarely does the writing come easy and gracefully.
A few days ago, Jane Friedman’s great blog for Writer’s Digest was promoting Book in a Month by Victoria Schmidt, which is kind of like less-hip, printed & bound NaNoWriMo, and filled with all kinds of advice for applying your butt to a chair and getting your book done. The author even gives you a contract where you commit to “making the necessary changes in my life to accommodate this goal” and so forth and then sign so that you hold yourself accountable.
Now, I’m not dissing this book (in fact, I’m mildly tempted to buy it); I’m all about strategies and techniques to make yourself write by any means necessary. That’s one reason I started this blog, so I would be accountable, to some degree, about my writing.
But I have to wonder: Do other creative types (painters, filmmakers, musicians, photographers, etc.) have such a problem with working on their craft?
I find it hard to believe there’s a “Painting in a Month” book or a book where Rothko and Koons and Mapplethorpe spill their guts about their procrastination techniques.
Of course, I could go and find out. But that would be just another procrastination technique to avoid my own writing.
And I’ve had enough of those lately, as you might have surmised by how little I’ve been talking about writing lately here.
I am writing. Hitting about 300-350 words a day. So slower than I was before. I think it’s because I’m realizing I’m not being honest enough in the novel. I’m too distanced from my characters, which makes them distanced from themselves; it’s a regular hall-of-mirrors detachment festival going on.
So now I’m trying to figure out if I have, in the words of my recent post about where we’re going to live, the courage to commit.
The alternative is to admit that I’m just not that into my novel and do the admirable thing and break it off before we both get hurt.
I’m not scared of hard work. But shouldn’t it all be less of a slog…and just a little bit more fun?
To answer your question, “Do other creative types (painters, filmmakers, musicians, photographers, etc.) have such a problem with working on their craft?”
You only have to see the success of The Artist’s Way to see that the answer for many is yes.
For some reason these (often crass) timeframe systems resonate with writers; it’s an interesting question as to why.
Jane,
Thanks for reading and commenting…I’m so honored you’re here!
I was thinking perhaps that more people try to write than try to paint (since everyone knows how to write to some degree already), so there’s a bigger audience of people who get stuck when they realize it’s not as easy as it seems.
And I still feel like there’s something different about writing, esp. in the long form (novel), that feels more like “work” than other creative pursuits. But that may be just me in my cranky, muse-less phase talking.
I’ll keep pondering. And writing.
Thanks again for stopping by!