I Knew More When I Knew Nothing
Or at least sometimes I believe that. One of my downfalls is that I’m constantly looking back. I believe it has more to do with seeing where I am now and how far I’ve come.
Today, I feel like I knew more about writing when I didn’t know what I was doing. Yes, I suffered from headhopping, lack of sub-genre, the business of getting published, but I knew and believed in authentic storytelling. I didn’t put myself into the story and try to be clever, because there was this story to tell and it was bursting out of me and I couldn’t catch up to it.
Now it takes several hours logged into the story before the story gets ahead of me and then I spend the next few weeks trying to catch up to it. Before it was natural and in certain ways I was a better writer because of it. NOW I have to find that place again in order to write. NOW I spend hours editing to make the story seem like I was in the “place” to begin with.
I find this conundrum akeen to coloring. You really don’t know how to color, but you’ve got this crayon in your hand. You go berserk and the page looks like a massacre of color. Then someone comes along and says “You have to color within the lines.” For months or years you try to keep everything within those lines. You mentally berate yourself when you go outside of them. You stop thinking about coloring and only focus on staying within the lines. One day you can stay within the lines without really thinking about it. You once again start to color the picture. If you are one of those steady hand type of people you can jump into coloring. Or, like me, you outline the lines and then start to color within very carefully.
The sad thing is some people never re-learn how to color i.e. write with that abandon. Because it is re-learning. Once again you have to find that place were the stories are told even within the lines.
How have you found it? Are you still struggling?
Then someone comes along and says “You have to color within the lines.”
The only good thing about being a self-taught writer who had no contact with other writers until after signing the first contract was not having to listen to this. By the time all the “You have to . . . ” people converged on me I had finished twenty-eight coloring books with exactly what I wanted, how I wanted, no lines except the ones I drew in myself.
I think the trick is to be very selective about who you let meddle with your writing process, and why. What advice out there resonates with an ongoing problem of mine? Who is offering it, and why? I’m always interested in a method a writer has come up with to address a specific problem versus all that global-sounding advice. Then even if it sounds interesting enough to try, it has to pass a practical application test while I test drive it and see if it works for me. Most of the time the advice sounds great but it generally falls apart when I try to put it in action.
The only good thing about being a self-taught writer who had no contact with other writers until after signing the first contract was not having to listen to this.
Sadly, I invited everyone in when I first started writing. I was very insecure and wanted to make sure I was doing it “right”. So I gobbled up “how to” books until I couldn’t write anymore. I learned very quickly there is a DON’T for everything and then those DON’Ts are contradicted with DOs of the same kind.
I think the trick is to be very selective about who you let meddle with your writing process, and why.
Exactly. The mantra I try to go by is don’t put the rule before the story. That way when I finally take a step back I can see whether or not the rule is working against the story.
Most of the time the advice sounds great but it generally falls apart when I try to put it in action.
I’m nodding. I think that comes from knowing how you work and accepting it.
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