“… Falsely straining yourself to put something into a book where it doesn’t really belong, it’s not doing anybody any favors. And the reader can tell.”
—Margaret Atwood
I may be an intrinsic writer, but I'm not an intrinsic revisionist. The act of writing doesn't frighten me. If everything I ever wrote came out perfectly the first time, I'd have endless material, stacks of paper up to the sky. Revision, though, terrifies me. It's what holds me back. I'm not sure what exactly bothers me so much about cleaning up text--maybe the irrational despair of having to do 'the whole thing over again.' I think it's this notion of running out of time. Writing can be a blissfully painstaking process (yes, I'm aware of the oxymoron I've just provided, but any intrinsic writer knows what I'm talking about). The idea of starting from scratch, the idea of something "not working" in my writing sends me into lunatic mode. I start thinking of the months, years, even it'll take to complete, and that, who knows, by that time, maybe no one will read anymore...
Senseless thinking? Yes. Absolutely. But this is what keeps me up at night. This is what depresses me as I listlessly cruise through my daily activities. I've started my thesis seminar. It's me, the professor (my adviser) and two classmates. Last Thursday, for the first time ever, I got a response to the opening pages of my novel. I expected criticism. I knew it wasn't perfect. I've been in many writing workshop situations before, so I knew the drill. What I didn't expect was to feel so...discouraged...at the end of the night. They said my structuring was off, and that I needed to shed some light on the time period I was writing in. Excellent points. Very true, I know that now, I knew that then. But I spiraled into a sort frenzied depression for two days. I refused to look at the novel. On Friday afternoon, instead of writing, I took personality quizzes online. I felt, well, completely doomed.
Then on Friday night I had a dream. My fiance and I were on some kind of vacation with his siblings. We were in this cabin on top of a huge mountain, covered in snow. We played this game with each other, or we challenged each other...I don't know, but these were the circumstances of the dream...to climb first down the mountain, and then back up. I walked all the way down the mountain in the freezing cold. I doubted I could make it back up and wind up in the same place. I feared veering off into a totally new direction and never finding my way back. But I ascended anyhow, and when I made it to the top, I saw my fiance's brother smoking a cigar (weird, I know) and I knew I'd reached the right place.
Yesterday morning I sat down and rewrote/restructured the opening pages to my novel. And it looks...well, better. In fact, in some ways, I have a whole new feeling about it. My professor had stressed the importance of the opening pages. She said now that I'd gone through and written the entire story, I know the focus of the novel, the purpose of the novel. The opening pages have to express that. Are they perfect yet? Probably not. But I'll find my way back up the mountain.
That dreams sounds like it was just the ticket! Can you tell me how to tune in to the inspiration channel ;)
ReplyDeleteI'm glad things worked out. As you said, you know what the experience will be, but it still doesn't make it easy. It can down you. But the way you fight that, is through activity! Put those comments to action, somehow, quickly, and keep the enthusiasm up.
There is a reason I'm not writing my responses to my alphas immediately in my blog. First brush sometimes I'm not so happy, but once I figure out where it fits in, I feel better, and sometimes even laugh.