“Every few weeks she would shut herself up in her room, put on her scribbling suit, and ‘fall into a vortex’, as she expressed it, writing away at her novel with all her heart and soul, for till that was finished she could find no peace… She did not think herself a genius by any means, but when the writing fit came on, she gave herself up to it with entire abandon, and led a blissful life, unconscious of want, care, or bad weather, while she sat safe and happy in an imaginary world, full of friends almost as real and dear to her as any in the flesh… The divine afflatus usually lasted a week or two, and then she emerged from her ‘vortex’, hungry, sleepy, cross, or despondent.”
Sooner or later, every writer comes face to face and does battle with the vicious monster known as perfectionism. Now, I know that you’re probably shaking your head at your messy apartment, your half-finished novel, and your stained coffee mug, thinking, “I’m anything but perfect.” Read on, my friend. Read on.
When I think of perfect, I think of a beautiful Hollywood actress or that kid we all hated in school that seemed to be in every single club photo. I absolutely don’t think of my writing, or what there actually is of it. Every New Year, tons of writers swear to anyone who is listening that they will Write More and Write Better, but our own desire to write amazing works can be what hampers our progress.
Let’s face it, not many people love to write. What we love is having written. When you look back at the beautifully typed, flawless sheet of prose that sprung out of the depths of your mind, you feel awesome. You don’t think about how it felt to stare at that blank screen, utterly convinced that everything you want to write about is boring or unoriginal. You just can’t believe what a bubbling well of genius you are, you sexy writer you.
With so many different styles of writing in the world, it’s completely possible that two people can call themselves writers and not even be in the same ballpark. There are poets, essayists, journalists, novelists and bloggers, not to mention reporters, short-story writers, reviewers, and playwrights.
Everyone has strengths and weaknesses; I personally love writing fiction, although it’s sometimes difficult for me to create it. My sister is excellent at writing blurbs. Another friend of mine is great at spoken word poems. I consider myself to be good at a few things, but blurbs and spoken word poetry aren’t part of them.
But it’s the new year, and we’re all about challenges! So, I want to know what your literary kryptonite is.
What writing style makes you curl up with fear and cry?
Your challenge (if you choose to accept it) is to come up with something in that style and post it below. I’m going to come up with something too. Winner gets my love, and the satisfaction of knowing that you are awesome enough to break through everything you ever thought about yourself. Right on!
Someone said that art reveals much more of the artist than it ever does of the subject. That is especially true when it comes down to writers. Being that literature is not a visual art, every sentence that we read or write, every place, every character is ultimately filtered through the author’s own unique perspective. We may look at a painting and find it ugly, boring, or see no meaning in it whatsoever. However, in literature, we find whatever the author describes as beautiful, beautiful. No matter how plain the thing may actually be, once it is put into words, we have never known or experienced it any other way. As words are laid out on the page, the writer has exposed a piece of their own heart, by showing us the things that they find are the most valuable.
For that reason, writing is the truest, most direct form of communication. Every single person who has read Lord of the Rings knows Frodo’s exhaustion as he climbs Mount Doom, and every Harry Potter fan knows the slippery, silky feel of an invisibility cloak. Even if you’ve never had Turkish Delight, you know after reading The Chronicles of Narnia that it’s pretty much the most delicious thing ever. Writing is the great equalizer in art; it creates an experience that everyone can share, something that we can all understand the same way. Most importantly, it connects our hearts to everyone who has ever held the same book in their hands. So while writing, as an art, does expose the heart and mind of the writer, it also provides an experience that connects all of its readers. The subject, the truth of the story itself, lies somewhere between the perception of the writer and the interpretation of the reader.
One of my favorite procrastinators of all time is Leonardo da Vinci. This same man who painted The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa also laid plans for aircraft and submarines hundreds of years before their time. In addition being a painter and inventor, he was also a sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. He was as talented as he was distractable, but I’m inclined to believe the latter was just as vital as the former.
If he had been better able to focus on one field and one field only, we might only have known him as, say, Leonardo da Vinci, the cartographer, or Leonardo da Vinci, the botanist. I’m sure he would have been a super cartographer or botanist, but had Leonardo da Vinci actually been able to focus, our culture just wouldn’t be the same. Other famous procrastinators include Albert Einstein, Marcel Proust, and Douglas Adams, who famously once said, “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”
So here’s to procrastination, the destroyer of time but also great mother to creativity. Because, as we’ve discussed before and will inevitably discuss again, the time during which you are not creating is just as important as when you are. Read more »
Imagine you are a doctor. Let’s say you have known you wanted to be a doctor ever since you were a little kid, attended many years of school to become a doctor, and experience the greatest possible level of joy and fulfillment in your life when you are practicing medicine. However, let’s say that the society in which you live expects doctors to work for free. Occasionally doctors can secure gigs that pay, but it’s normal for doctors to hold down other jobs so that they can support themselves enough to practice medicine. As such, a typical day for a doctor could include: getting up early, enduring a long commute, spending 8 hours in an office working a job that consumes energy yet doesn’t stimulate intellectually, grabbing some dinner after work, and THEN performing open heart surgery at night.
This is what it can feel like to be an artist, especially in New York City.
Of course we need doctors and they perform a very important job…but so do artists. And we need artists, too. Yet it has become the accepted norm that most artists must work a support job in order to survive. This reality can be frustrating, depressing, and is something I think about a lot when I realize that yet another week has passed and I have poured far more energy into my “support job” than I have into my writing. I recently ran across a great article by Emily St. John Mandel on The Millions that explores this very topic.
The claims set forth in Robert McGuire’s recent post on The Millions present a way of thinking about the creative (and healing) process that really gets my goat. McGuire challenges the commonly held belief that the writing/creative process provides catharsis and healing and instead asserts that “writing is a process of degrading one’s emotional state.” He cites his experience of writing his first novel as an example of the dangers of emotional exploration in the name of art and clings to his shrink’s “fake it till you make it” cognitive theory mantra as a way to illustrate and prove his bold thesis statement. While I can appreciate McGuire’s boldness and honesty, I take umbrage with his thesis. And my thesis is more than ready to duke it out: Writing is a process of being present with one’s emotional state, and part of being a healthy professional is knowing: a) where to impose boundaries; and b) when to ask for help. Read more »
I have a longstanding love affair with words. Truth be told, I can’t get enough of ‘em. I love long n’ languid complex sentences, extended metaphors, adverbs and adjectives and gerunds…oh my! I like to read a lot of words and I like to use a lot of words, and I live in constant fear that I am a member of a dying breed. I have long assumed that the pillars of eloquence have been crumbling down around us as “text speak” rapes the English language and inane Facebook status updates stunt the intellectual growth of the young. But I recently read an article by Clive Thompson in Wired Magazine that gives me new hope and urges me to see the evolution of language in a fresh light. Read more »
How would you feel if the deepest recesses of your soul became material for your therapist’s next novel? I suppose it’s possible you would feel honored – hey, at least it means your life is in some way interesting (unless your therapist’s next novel is entitled, The Biggest Wastes of Blood and Tissue I’ve Ever Counseled). I suppose it’s possible you would feel betrayed – the sacred secrets spilled on your therapist’s couch/chair/zafu are the building blocks of your life and not sources of creative inspiration. Yes, both reactions would be valid and understandable. But stop for a moment and think about the life of a therapist/analyst/healer. Day after day they are inundated with human dramas. Whether tragic, hilarious or frustrating, these human dramas are all real…and therefore inherently compelling. I imagine your therapist leaves her office every day filled to the brim with the joy, pain and universality of the human experience. So, what does she do with it all? If she lives in Manhattan, she very well may be writing about it. Read more »
Sometimes not writing is just as important as writing, and when I don’t want to write I remind myself of this simple and profound Buddhist principle: “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.” There is value in embracing emptiness rather than just trying to fill it with random available crap. Of course sometimes I’m just deluding myself and procrastinating….screwing around with half-strangers on Facebook. But sometimes something really is working inside of me that isn’t ready to take form quite yet, and if I try to tell it what its form is supposed to be then I don’t like the result. It’s false. Forced. Awkward. Like trying to shove a 20-pound cat into a 5-pound box. Read more »
One of my favorite procrastinators of all time is Leonardo da Vinci. This same man who painted The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa also laid plans for aircraft and submarines hundreds of years before their time. In addition being a painter and inventor, he was also a sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. He was as talented as he was distractable, but I’m inclined to believe the latter was just as vital as the former.
Imagine you are a doctor. Let’s say you have known you wanted to be a doctor ever since you were a little kid, attended many years of school to become a doctor, and experience the greatest possible level of joy and fulfillment in your life when you are practicing medicine. However, let’s say that the society in which you live expects doctors to work for free. Occasionally doctors can secure gigs that pay, but it’s normal for doctors to hold down other jobs so that they can support themselves enough to practice medicine. As such, a typical day for a doctor could include: getting up early, enduring a long commute, spending 8 hours in an office working a job that consumes energy yet doesn’t stimulate intellectually, grabbing some dinner after work, and THEN performing open heart surgery at night.
The claims set forth in Robert McGuire’s 
How would you feel if the deepest recesses of your soul became material for your therapist’s next novel? I suppose it’s possible you would feel honored – hey, at least it means your life is in some way interesting (unless your therapist’s next novel is entitled, 
