Lilith Saintcrow

Watching Wile E. Coyote cartoons while thinking about the Friday writing post is probably not good for me. I’m just sayin’.

I am now in that part of the novel–a quarter to a third through, basically–where I realize I have been wrong for 20-odd thousand words and now I know the real way everything should go. This feeling is deep and panic-laden, and it is the bane of many a good writer.

The seduction, of course, is to go back over what you’ve written and rewrite it according to the New Shiny Idea. This is all very well, but it doesn’t get one any further toward the finish line.

My solution is to just start at that point, assume that I can fix the front end of the book later, and write the rest of the story according to the New Shiny Idea. A zero draft does not have to be perfect, and it’s a lot easier to go back and tweak the initial 20K than it is to rewrite the first 20K five times and then get discouraged and toss the whole work, which usually ends up happening.

Constantly reworking the front of your novel according to the New Shiny Idea is 98% of the time an avoidance tactic dressed up as something you could conceivably think is good writing habit. It feels like you’re making progress, you end up writing 70-100K or so, but you do not have a finished work to show for it. You have an overchewed piece of steak. It is a trick to keep you from finishing, because finishing is scary.

Finishing is scary because it is only the first step in submitting, getting rejected or published, etc. It represents a whole new set of problems, chief among them is the ever-famous Internal Censor screaming you finished this and it’s still a piece of crap! Who told you that you could do this!

I can’t say it often enough. Do yourself a favor and get the whole corpse up on the table before you start operating on it, trimming and tweaking and making it pretty enough to bury. (Hey, all metaphors break down sooner or later. So sue me.) Do not worry if you get a great idea of blinding flash of light a third or a quarter or half of the way there. Incorporate that idea at the point you get it, and keep forging ahead.

Believe me, you will revise a finished work often enough to get sick of it, and enough times to fully meld that shiny idea seamlessly with the beginning.

Just don’t obsessively rework the front end of the story. Of all the avoidance behaviors new (and even experienced) writers display, this is one of the worst and most seductive because it feels like you’re doing actual work when you’re really…not.

It’s hard just to keep on keepin’ on. Believe me. I am right now trying my damndest not to go back and fiddle with a few important things that ABSOLUTELY MUST go in the front of the story–but if they ABSOLUTELY MUST, I will catch them in revision. So will my beta, and my editor, and my agent. There will be no shortage of opportunities to shoehorn. Right now, though, my job is to get this whole thing out of my head and onto the page.

Time to get back to work.

First drafts–what I call a zero draft, because to me a first draft is one you can let someone else see–suck.

This is a law of writing. I feel confident in asserting that there has never been a first draft that has not sucked. Hemingway and Kerouac rewrote. So did Trollope, Dickens, Salinger, Wolfe, Eliot, and anyone else you care to name. Zero drafts suck, world without end, amen.

So why keep going? Why keep plowing through this thing if it ends up being a messy, untidy, nasty little pile of adverbs and passive voice? (There. I wrote passive voice instead of passive verbs. Proud of me yet? It was a struggle, I tell you.)

Because you kind of have to go through the suckage to get to the good part. Zero drafts are where you’re so excited by what you’re doing that you’re gabbling, your hands are moving around a lot, you’re so jazzed you’re actually spitting while you speak. It takes a while to get everything you’re excited about OUT, so you can start the process of trimming and shaping.

I suspect this happens in movies too. I’ve seen enough “Director’s Cuts” to think that the editing room, just like the revision process, is a boon. They are different parts of the creative process–sketching and practicing before you paint. Doing daily ballet class and choreography runs over and over again before the dress rehearsal, before you get onstage. Practicing a speech in the mirror before you give it.

I don’t know why writers think that the book has to be perfect the instant it falls out of your head. Mostly, I suspect, because we only see the finished book on the shelves and publishing holds onto that air of mystique with claws and toenails. The mystique serves a number of purposes–but that’s (say it with me) another blog post.

And there is the biggest hurdle, the one I want to talk to you about. It’s the Inner Censor, telling you to quit this writing thing, you suck, nothing will ever get better and you’ll never finish and oh, by the way, you’re ugly too and nobody loves you.

Well, I have three little words for that. I can’t say it any more simply than this:

F!CK THAT NOISE.

The Censor’s job is not to make your writing better. The Censor’s job is to make you feel bad. Sometimes the Censor has something valuable to say–once in a blue moon, when the planets align and the right virgin sacrifices have been made and the armies have massed to conquer. (In other words, almost never.) The Censor is not your Editor or your Conscience. It is the voice of everyone who ever told you that you were Not Good Enough, and as such it does not deserve to see the Zero Draft before everyone else does. Send Sven and Oleg after the Censor. I promise thee it shall do thee no harm, dearest fellow Writer.

Let me tell you a little story.

When I was learning to ride a bicycle, they tried to tell me to pedal backward to stop. (It was one of those Huffy Pink Princesses with the chain-brake, not a hand-brake.) It didn’t make any sense to me, so to stop, I would just pick something and run into it. Much injury (that I am now old enough to regard as hilarity) ensued. They would keep telling me to pedal backward, but it just didn’t connect inside my head.

For those of you just joining us: Yes, I have always been this goddamn stubborn. I don’t think it will change at this late date.

One day, something happened. It was like something lit up in another corner of my brain. I snapped the pedals back and stood on them, and produced a long, admirable skid mark. As if I’d been practicing braking all this time. It suddenly made sense to me.

Hang with me here.

I find a lot of motivation in stubbornly telling my Inner Censor that I’m going to do it DESPITE. Or just to spite, whichever. (Hey, you take it where you find it.) Writing a zero draft is like being on that bicycle and having to run into things to stop. Getting tipped off and skinning various body parts. Being so excited by the sound of wind in your ears and the motion that you’re not very good at first.

But one day, the goddamn thing is finished. You snap the brakes back, produce a skid, and stand there for a second, smelling the good smell of outside on a sunny day and breathing deep, your whole body tingling.

That’s when you start riding the bicycle for revisions. The finished book is when you’re in the effing Tour de France. Only you’re not riding to dope yourself up and beat out everyone. You’re riding because of the wind in your ears and the feeling of the ribbon of the road unreeling under your tires.

The sucky thing is, each time you start a new project you have to learn how to hit the brakes all over again. It doesn’t get much easier, but there is a certain amount of comfort in knowing the process. Knowing that eventually that click in your head will happen.

Falling off the bike and running into things to stop sucks. It leaves bruises and it’s hard. Zero drafts are messy and they suck. It leaves bruises too, and it’s mega hard.

But please don’t stop. Learning to really ride that beast of a bicycle is worth it. The zero drafts suck, but it gets made up for later, I promise.

Now get out there and ride.

I never truckled; I never took off the hat to Fashion and held it out for pennies. By God, I told them the truth. –Frank Norris, author of McTeague

Synchronicity gave me my Friday post this week. I read the above quote in a book of Stephen King’s essays on writing, and thought huh, I agree with that. Then, yesterday morning, my sister called. In the course of an hour-long chat she asked if I ever felt like I was, well, exposing myself too much in my books. If I ever felt scared that I was showing too much and that people would know me too well in them.

Last night after tacos were eaten and the kitchen (mostly) cleaned, my friend TrashGlam[1] and I got on the subject of JT Leroy and the Love and Consequences hoax. During the consumption of a bottle of very good red, we moved on to the importance of Truth in fiction, what constituted Truth, what did not, and various other things.

Voila. A Friday writing post is born.

The job of any writer is to be as true as possible. A memoir writer needs to stick closely to the Truth as we think of it in our daily lives–the seasoning of personal myth or personal perception of events should not be larger than the serving of actual events that could theoretically be verified. This sneaks up on a tricky question of human memory and personal mythologizing, which is not the point of this post. For the purposes of this essay, I am going to be using the word “truth” in several ways, and I’m going to be talking about the writing of fiction, not memoirs.

Okay, disclaimers done.

In V for Vendetta, Evie says “Artists use lies to tell the truth; politicians use lies to cover truth up.” I agree with this wholeheartedly. The appeal of a novel or a character is largely how far the author permits herself[2] to tell the truth.

Of course I do not believe I am Dante Valentine, or Jill Kismet, or any other character of mine. On that path lies madness. But Dante, Jill, Japh, Perry, Kaia, Darik, and all the rest are true people to me. They are characters with flaws and strong points, and the things that happen to them are “real” and “true” insofar as I thought seriously about the world I had created, the consequences of such a world, and the consequences of their actions and personalities inside that world.

These people are as real as I can make them, and they get hurt. They are also, in some ways, aspects of questions and issues that concern me very much. Dante Valentine is on some level about my fear of abandonment and my issues with childhood abuse, not to mention religion, minorities, “chosen” family, and a host of other things. The Watchers and the Society series are me thinking about the problems of love, power, protection, drug addiction, and the justification (if any) of violence. Jill Kismet is about vigilantism, childhood abuse, prostitution, justification of violence–you get the idea. And all my stories hinge somehow on redemption. Even when I am writing to spec, writing with specific guidelines or saleability in mind, I am writing about these issues and themes because they concern me as a human being. So much of writing is, for me, a way to think about these issues, to hold a conversation with myself.

But there is a deeper truth in here.

The ending of Working For The Devil was so hard to write. I knew what the ending had to be, of course–I was pretty sure I was working on a series and had the framework in my head. The only way the framework would hold up is if a Certain Character died.

I did not want that Certain Character to die. My editor did not want that Certain Character to die. My agent, my readers, nobody wanted that Certain Character to kick the bucket.

But he had to. Because it was the essential truth of the story, and I had made a bargain with the Muse and the story. The bargain was I would not truckle. The bargain was that I would tell the truth as best as I knew how, and the truth was that character had to die. There was no way around it. That was the way the story went.

I firmly believe writing is an act of faith, of magic, and of submission. The faith is that this thing, the work, is going to catch you when you fling yourself out into space. Committing wholeheartedly brings out a similar commitment from the work itself. It is an act of magic because every act of creation is an act of magic, with all the power and mystery and danger that holds.

It is an act of submission because you have to trust the work to know what it wants to be, and you cannot force what you think will sell better onto it. Forcing, let’s say, a happy ending onto a story that doesn’t have one is the height of bullshit, and readers will NOT stand for bullshit.

There is an implicit compact between me and the Reader when I set out. I commit to telling the story the best way I know how, and telling it truly. The Reader commits to suspending disbelief for a little while in order to be entertained, in order to enter my imagination and see this new world.

But there are dangers here. It is no less dangerous than the real world, “fiction” notwithstanding. People get hurt. There are monsters under the bed. To write a story is to call into service all the wonder and danger a human being is capable of, and Truth is not only the shield that protects but the blade that cuts.

This is entirely separate from the question of whether or not a Reader will like your book/story/whatever. We’re not talking about personal tastes here. You can tell the story well and truly and there will still be people who don’t like it. That’s normal and natural.

But the chances of you reaching Readers who will like it goes up exponentially when you tell the truth. For the one thing Readers hate is to be bullshitted. To be lied to. BSing your Readers insults their intelligence, and when you’ve asked them to shell out hard-earned cash for your work and given them a handful of bullshit, do you wonder at their fury?

If you tell the truth as best as you know how–staying true to the characters and the story–you will find your readers. A story with a ring of truth will find champions in the unlikeliest places. Your agent and editor will trust you and your story; their passion will get other people excited, and that’s just for starters.

But it is so easy to lie. Why?

Because, as I told my sister, any artistic creation is like stripping yourself naked and going out onto a busy street, screaming Look at me! Look at me! I am not saying it is exhibitionist. I am saying it is an act of marvelous emotional nakedness and vulnerability. I’m sure there are people who think they know me because of the subject matter of my books. I’m sure there are people who feel a shock of kinship with something I’ve described, because they’ve been there and they know what it feels like.

This is what I mean when I say “tell the truth.”

We are pressured to minimize or lie about several things in order to get along socially. In abusive families or relationships, we are outright forced to. It’s not that bad. It was your fault anyway. Quit crying. He doesn’t drink that much. She didn’t mean to break your arm. We are even shamed into feeling like we deserved it somehow, or like we will be ostracized if we dare to tell the things that happened to us.

Every human being is fundamentally alone, and I think this is a huge impetus for art. Art is communication to bridge the gap between our fleshly selves. It is the congress of souls; it is the singing of one consciousness to another and the act of listening all in one. This is what gives art its tremendous transgressive power. And this is why making art is so emotionally fraught.

We always think we are the only ones that have suffered this, or that (here’s the big thing) people will laugh.

I used to feel self-conscious in ballet class until I realized everyone else was equally self-conscious, and worrying about their own barre work to boot. Nobody would have time to worry about my jiggles or mistakes except the teacher, and it was the teacher’s job to worry about those so s/he could tell me how to get better.[3] Everyone was too busy doing their own thing to care about mine. I was worrying over something that was almost nothing.

Still, the feeling that one is going to be laughed at is a powerful deterrent to lowering our guard and getting emotionally naked on the page. To being vulnerable.

And make no mistake, there is vulnerability in art. I don’t worry that people will “know” me anymore. I’m a complex person, and a simple one at the same time. I am a mystery wrapped in several riddles and even more engimas–just like everyone else. Any ammunition someone is going to find in my books is a risk I’m willing to take, and one I’m not overly concerned about.[4]

However.

The Kismet books tear me up inside. Each one is a trip into a heart of darkness, and they require a lot of effort and work. I have to pay attention to them and really think about how to deal with this character and her world, how to tell her story honestly with no truckling…and when she is hit or hurt, I feel it. It exhausts me each time, and each time there comes a point in the story when I have to just let go and trust that the work is going to carry itself, that the book is going to finish itself, that all this will be worthwhile and not just wasted time and effort. that I haven’t just been running around in circles barking at my own tail, so to speak.

It is very hard to trust. Especially in the face of vulnerability, the idea that people will laugh at you, or the naysaying voices in your head that ask you who the hell you think you are anyway, this isn’t very good, it’s stupid and–again–everyone is going to laugh at you.

Getting technically better–getting your grammar down, dealing with copyedits and revisions, etc.–is the easy part. Learning to take off your clothes every time and run down the street screaming is the not-so-easy part. Learning to take the risk of people pointing and laughing, learning to fling yourself out into space and hope like hell the story catches you…

It’s no wonder we’re afraid.

But the feeling of having gotten to the end of the book, having done it honestly with no truckling, of having flung yourself out into space and had the strong and gentle hands of the divine work catch you and bring you safely to a landing on the other side…

…that, my friends, is the purest magic. It requires much, but it gives so much more in return. And each time we stand on the other side of the work, breathing heavily and knowing we have finished, the glory of it is so big that we look back and think well, that wasn’t so bad, I worried for nothing.

Then we forget until next time. Throwing yourself out there never gets any easier, but the joy of being caught never gets any less either. I guess there’s a metaphor for life in there, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit around wondering about it.

Not when there’s work to be done. *grin*

So, dear Reader and dearest fellow writers, here comes the most important part of this long rambling post. It’s summed up in four little words.

What do you think?

[1] Yes, this is a pseudonym, in keeping with my commitment to privacy.
[2] Himself, herself, whatever.
[3] The feeling got better, but it has never entirely gone away. I do not think it ever will.
[4] For a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I’m writing fiction. Heh.

Yep, you read that right. I’m participating in NaNoWriMo, which is National Novel-Writing Month. I need to knock out the second book in the YA series, so this is a tailor-made opportunity for me to get some motivation. Hey, every little bit helps.

If you’re doing NaNo too, you can find me here. I encourage people to try NaNo all the time, mostly because it’s a great way to get used to the idea of just having to get some words out. Of course, sometimes there’s also a lot of pressure, and people flame out under the burden of that pressure. But…if you’re going to flame out under the pressure of a self-chosen thing like NaNo, it may be that you want to reconsider writing under deadline for things like, oh, you know, money. I think NaNo is a great idea and a great way to get used to the feeling of deadlines, which pretty much every serious writer I know talks about.

And I have a couple months to finish that book, so the pressure to finish is more like a guideline than a hard and fast rule. But I really did have to stick to my guns over having enough time to finish all the projects I’m signed up for. It was hard to do.

Anyway, the chicken for tacos is simmering, all the other taco fixins are ready, and I’m going to spend a little time getting to know one of the short stories I need to turn in soon.

Life is good.

Just a short writing post today, since I’m busier than a one-legged urban fantasy heroine in a leather-clad asskicking contest. (There are pumpkins to buy, after all.)

There’s a new biography of Rimbaud out, which kind of got me thinking about what Julia Cameron calls (it may not be exact, but it’s as I recall) the myth of the destructive artist. This is the cultural narrative that says artists are self-destructive, alcoholic, drug-addicted, or otherwise emotionally toxic. This narrative shows up in the way we talk about creativity, biographies of creative people, and in the destruction some creatives seem to helplessly play out despite themselves.

It seems against some sort of law to be a happy, healthy, reasonably well-adjusted creative. I think a lot of this stems from the idea that creativity or making a living at creative pursuits is somehow a violation of the Protestant work ethic. The creative life supplies “luxuries”, this way of thinking goes, so it is evil and sinful and if you engage in it, you are evil and sinful too. The tension of this unconscious assumption is large enough to indeed drive you to drink.

The flip side to this is the idea that since you’re already damned as an artist, you might as well go whole hog. And a lot of artists/creatives do. There is also the implicit assumption that “all artists are like that”, which excuses a lot of unhealthy interpersonal behavior–malignant narcissism, manipulation, double-dealing–all helped along by the idea that there are finite resources out there and artists have to fight tooth and nail for the lion’s share of them, because otherwise they’ll “lose”.

If you want to be a productive creative over a long period of time–which is, to me, the point–I think you should take a look at this unspoken assumption and a very hard look at how it affects your own assumptions about the creative life.

Creativity is not a “luxury”. It is a human birthright and a human need. You have a right to be creative, and you have a right to be a healthy, happy creative.

You also have a responsibility to take care of yourself so you can be one. Being a creative doesn’t give you a “pass” when it comes to being a decent person. It’s hard to let go of the myth of the automatically self-destructive artist, and equally hard to let go of the “oh poor me, I’m an artist so I can be an asshole to people.” Both are stumbling-blocks that get in the way of doing your (perhaps self-chosen, but no less valid) job, which is producing art.

Being self-destructive doesn’t make you an artist or a genius. It just makes you self-destructive, and lowers your chances of a long productive creative life. Now, there are valid reasons why people are self-destructive–abuse, trauma, social pressure, you name it. Therapy might be a good answer for that, and I’m not a licensed therapist. Art can even help you work through some of those issues, and it’s a time-honored way to do so.

Blindly following the myth of the self-destructive artist not only cuts your chances of being a productive creative, it also cuts your chances of being a reasonably decent human being. It’s not that I think artists are under a higher constraint of decency[1] than everyone else–it’s just that, with the massive power art has to affect the world, its purveyors are necessarily concerned with doing it the best they can. The myth of the self-destructive artist gets in the way.

What do you think?

[1] And please note that I am not using the word “decent” in the way prudes do, to beat free expression over the head. I am using it in the sense of: reasonably ethical, reasonably well-adjusted, reasonably reasonable–you get the idea.