That’s me in the corner…
I guess I should talk about the fact that I am no longer writing about my writing here. Did I do it in Thailand? Yes. Am I doing it now? Sort of. It just doesn’t seem like it lacks any useful insight, so for now, my entries will just be about other randomness. It is part of a new thinking about everything, though. Hmm, we’ll get to that.
This weekend, Kirk and I got together to chat and a lot of it centered on writing. Moreso about the way I approach writing. It’s been something I’ve thought of since then, even though I don’t think my position has changed.
Kirk was either concerned about, or just pointing out, the way I seem to approach my writing. In a nutshell: my writing is very insular, in that I am surrounded by a large group of local writers, yet I avoid any notion of public readings, writing groups, or any sort of support from that community, whereas the writers I do tend to talk about are the Chuck Palahniuks, JT Leroys, and Stephen Kings of the world.
So, basically, why am I not tapping into this available resource, yet seem to have some perceived kinship and support with people I don’t really know.
Ultimately, I think this debate is sort of like the Matrix: it’s not about making a choice, it is about understanding why I made the choice I did.
My belief is that my writing approach is isolated and disconnected on purpose. My favorite time to write has always been the middle of the night, with just the quiet and stillness and the words appearing on the screen. I like to tinker, and the novel has just given me a much larger palette to try and get right. A lot of things that happen in the novel are like the proverbial butterfly wings fluttering in China that cause a hurricane on the other side of the world. Every change affects things that came before and will come after, and sometimes you don’t know if the change is for the better until you make it. Some days the end of the novel seems closer, other days it seems further and further away.
I did read from my novel twice this year, both times with Kirk, and I don’t see them as moments that aided the progress of the novel. Yes, it was good to finally let the words out into the world. It was nice that it was well-received. But in advance of each reading, I don’t think the frantic editing and preparations helped the chapters toward publication. I was merely preparing them to be read. Parts were clearly not ready, parts dragged, things got moved so that I didn’t have to do any set-up. But the goal was to get them as pretty as they could be in time to be performed. Afterward, sections that were added got ripped back out, and things were back in flux.
My takeaway was that readings were a distraction to completing the novel.
Now, many local writers read from works in progress on a regular basis. There are events and groups that are ready and available to writers who want that feedback. Now, I’m not crazy enough to think my book needs no feedback, I just don’t want premature feedback. If I am writing something that I know has a huge plot hole in it, or drags, or the pacing is off, or has a poor transition midway into it, then as far as I am concerned that piece needs to stay on my desktop and get fixed. It serves no purpose to read it to people and have anyone tell me there is a plot hole, it drags, there was something off with the pacing, etc.
Basically, I am dismissive of writing groups, although I’ve had no actual long-term experience with any. I see them as artificial deadlines and procrastination and feedback I already know, or feedback I don’t want. I mean, one of the reasons I think the book is taking so long is that I am learning the craft and writing the novel at the same time. If I had the writing skills in place prior, then I would have finished the novel, stepped back, and said, “Omigod, this whole thing is just a huge metaphor for…. the main character is just basically exploring how I need to… ” and all of this insight would have come when it was appropriate, after a draft was complete. But with all the tinkering and the false starts and the reworkings, basically I know what I am writing now, so finding my way in, getting myself lost enough to write it, has become more difficult.
When I took the writing class in Oregon, I wrote a piece about my mother. Well, it was like two or three pages, barely a piece, as they only wanted it to be a short scene. So, I wrote a tiny thing about how I used to pretend to be asleep when she would come home from work, she would eventually come in my room, call me a faker, and I would stay in bed to show I really wasn’t faking it, but then I eventually would fall asleep for real. Very simple, nothing too deep. They said it could only be two pages, so I tried to stay simple (unlike many people who went on for 12-15 pages). When it came time to review it, the piece was dissected to no end, with people hunting for image systems, hidden meanings in everything, why did I need my mother’s attention so badly anyway, what was I trying to say, and a lot of suggestions on how I can expand it into a larger piece, all basically pulling it in different directions.
Now, I really had no intention of working on that piece beyond that class. Still don’t. But I do think that very little of the feedback, if any, would help me expand it. And the drill-down grammar, style, and pacing stuff are all things I would have easily found had it not been a piece I jotted down the night before.
I did like the teacher showing how to change the piece to the minimalist style of the class, giving actions to things to move the piece (”my eyes moved around the room” instead of “I looked around”), etc., but very little else. Initially, I did like the emotional things people took away from the story, even the ones who read the piece all dark (largely due to the morbid tone set by the preceding pieces that were read), but if it were a larger piece, I wouldn’t want to know that yet. But the only useful feedback came from the teacher, not my peer group.
I’ve done that with my own writings, too. Getting excited by something, and quickly e-mailing people to share, but then the replies come back with things that shouldn’t be in my head yet.
So, the ruling I’ve been using for a while is that nothing I am writing now or have written will be read, e-mailed, printed, shared, or anything else from this point on until I think it is finished. Or until I am ready to open that door for feedback, whenever that might be. I do know that before that occurs a single draft that I adore will need to exist from beginning to end, and every chapter in that draft will have been scrubbed extensively by me.
Of course, a larger issue Kirk was interested in for me was that writing groups would be social. I would get out with people who were creating and beyond the “writery” aspects, I would just benefit from building relationships and such.
Now, on one hand, I completely agree. I do need to be more social. I do need to build a larger base of friends in San Francisco. And I do need to get out of the house more. I do need to date. And I do write that more than I take steps to do it, I know. But I just don’t see any benefits to doing any of that with writers, given how I am approaching my writing as outlined above.
If anything, I think my writing would benefit most by hanging out with people who don’t write. I’d rather hang out with waiters, bartenders, people with bad office jobs, anything, just chill out. Play cards, drink, play board games, talk about life, cook dinner together, whatever. I’m not saying I will avoid hanging out with writers, but I certainly want to avoid specifically seeking out settings where writers will be talking about writing as part of the plan. My relentless focus on writing certainly didn’t make the novel come out any faster when I was in monk mode last year. I think the less I focus, the more I will have to write when I do it. It’s kind of like that tired line about finding a relationship when you aren’t looking for one. But you can’t just intentionally not look for the sake of finding one, though, you have to actually not be looking (or something).
Which brings us to the other issue of the writers I quote (Chuck, JT, Stephen King) regularly as though I just ran into them on the street and not read online interviews, audio blogs, online diaries or other things from them instead. In a nutshell, this is the bar. This is who inspires me. Having met Chuck and talked to JT, I don’t see them differently. They just got to where I want to be before I did. If I was in a band, I would strive to be the unique combination of U2, REM, The White Stripes, and everything else that inspires me, all funneled through the lens of my chords and lyrics.
So, when Chuck says something about writing in an interview, my ears perk up. He’s actually going to be publishing regular updates on writing soon which he will later publish in a more polished form as a book, and I guarantee you I will devour every single one. Stephen King’s On Writing book is never far away. I did my best writing in Thailand while reading Nabokov and knowing I will never write anything a third as perfect. Hell, hoping someday I could achieve writing something a third as perfect!
As much as I conceptually like the “group of young artists all coming up out of the trenches together” thing, inspiring each other, supporting each other, with that undercurrent of competition that keeps you all pushing further, getting better, strengthening your game… it’s not a place I see myself.
Last week, Kirk hosted a reading, and at one point someone was onstage and said something that was pleasant, but I didn’t think too much of it, and in that moment, Kirk, another author on the bill, Kirk’s boyfriend, and a few others in the room all sighed because what the person said hit some spot in them. There was a connection. I’m not saying it isn’t real, or that it wasn’t genuine, or that the writing wasn’t up to snuff.
Just that in that same moment, I wasn’t sighing. It was just a nice night out for me. A live substitute for not having Friends or Will & Grace pumping into my living room. A pleasant distraction.
I go to readings regularly enough to say that the only writers who have ever made me want to run home and write are Kirk, horehound stillpoint, and Michelle Tea. But, if I weren’t at the reading, I would probably already be home writing. So, if anything, it would just be reminding me what I should have been doing all along.
I do like how I started this entry by saying I’m not going to write about writing anymore. I guess I should amend that to mean I don’t plan to talk about the process anymore. Like today, I fell asleep in the evening, am awake now when i shouldn’t be, which will negatively affect me getting up early to bang it out. No more of that kind of nonsense. Starting now. I wasn’t going to write that stuff ever again, but I had to write it now so that you know what kind of nonsense to which I was referring. Now that you know, it’s all over.
