Later, I reread my stories and realized that I was a
terrible writer. I decided to spare the world any more attempts at authorial
fame and stopped my creative writing efforts.
The older I got, the more the idea of writing a novel seemed
absurd. I was far too practical for that. The odds of getting published were
slim to none. The odds that I had talent even slimmer and I didn’t like the
idea of doing of something that I was bad at. Sadly, this attitude has stopped
me from doing many things in my life, from taking many risks that could have potentially
been rewarded, and from learning things that would have helped me grow as a
person.
I am not sure at what pivotal moment I started writing
fiction again. I think one of my friends started talking about her own creative
writing pursuits and in a nostalgic fit I broke out the laptop and tapped out
some fairly decent – or at least not completely abysmal – prose. Then NaNoWriMo
happened. I heard about NaNoWriMo from this same friend and was instantly
intrigued – write a novel in a month? What’s more, write a novel in my FAVORITE
month (November)? Why not! I made it to 22,000 words that month on a goal of
50,000. It was much harder than I’d anticipated. But the damage had been done
and I was officially writing again. Not only that, I had two (TWO!) different
story ideas bouncing around.
This was momentarily delightful, but soon writing began to
seem like a waste of time – what purpose did it serve, after all? I certainly
wasn’t going to be able to make a career out of it. The more research I did,
the more evident it became that unless I was fast friends with someone in New
York who happened to be an agent, it was unlikely that I would ever get
published. So why rack up outrageous word counts on sub-par novels only to have
them sit in a file on my computer?
My enthusiasm waned.
I trudged through a few different novel ideas, always
running out of steam quickly once I reread my prose (once I was over 30,000
into a novel when I realized it was utter garbage and stopped the draft).
And therein lies my dilemma. I cannot separate the creative
act of writing from my skill. I have the mistaken notion that art must
well-done to be worth doing – a theory that complete ignores the artistic and
creative process. A theory that ignores the pleasure derived from creating
something out of your own head, with your own hands. A theory that claims that
art is only worthwhile if it makes it out into the light to be appreciated (or
despised) by others.
Recently however, I believe I discovered a cure to this debilitating viewpoint. I read Chris Baty’s No
Plot, No Problem, a manual on inspiration, the writing process, and quarantining
your inner editor. Baty assures his readers that the joy of writing novels is
found in using your imagination to tell stories, no matter how terrible, and
just because you can. In short, writing is about the joy it brings you, not
about any hoped for material gain or fame – and therefore, it doesn’t matter
how good your novel is, it only matters that you wrote it.
And so, dear readers, I will henceforth no longer regard my
writing as just verbal spewing on a page, but MY verbal spewing on a page, the
spewing of which I very much enjoyed. I will find joy and entertainment in
writing my novel instead of pride, which is far too fickle, and I will view
novel writing as a new kind of literary therapy, as rewarding and entertaining as
reading a book.
If you are lucky, perhaps I will treat you to a sample of my
latest caper…it is about a young, dynamite blonde named Beth who works as an
editor for Webster’s dictionary and therefore has an absurdly large vocabulary,
but alas! her evil boss has it out for her and never lets her leave, which is
why she has no love life -- until she decides to overthrow her boss and start her
own dictionary!
Happy noveling to you all.
