Many writers make all sorts of analogies about the process of finishing a manuscript. It’s like fighting dragons, we say. Or birthing babies. Or combating venereal disease you picked up from a love one that you now want to spread to your unsuspecting readers. We laugh about the tears and the blood and the existential crises that result from the process, because that helps us with clarity and maybe a bit of distance. Helps with the pain.
Other writers disagree and say that you don’t need all that shit to make art. To that I say–great! Art is lovely in all shapes and forms, and to be able to create it without half killing yourself is the dream. Art and mental/emotional instability often go hand-in-hand, but causation does not equal correlation and there are way too many artistes who create pain out of nowhere in the hopes of making their work seem more poignant than it really is. Waxing and waning about the beauty of a flower as it sheds a single tear gets old.
The biggest irony about writing for me is that I am most mentally stable when I’m writing, but it also confronts me with some of my biggest neuroses, so I feel like at best they cancel each other out.
At worst I feel like a waste of breathing air, a feeling expounded by staring at blank pages and hearing people talk about other books. An illogical feeling, I know. But imagine you’re dating and you’re sitting there alone watching all the other people pair off into the sunset (you actually don’t even notice all the *other* people sitting on the sidelines with you). If you do make a connection, the sensation is fleeting; no matter how intense the love affair, by the end of the week they’re off on dates with other people. And we do this all the damn time–an endless rollercoaster, all the while wondering when our big “break” will come (of course not, not in that sense. There is always a higher ceiling to smash your head against).
A friend told me once that if one of the skills in learning how to manage this is in ignoring the criticisms, then learning to get beyond lies in ignoring the praise. Enjoy it for a moment or two and then move on. Novels have to get written, and we always start from scratch with those. Always.
So it’s a constant dilemma, one which you realize too many are wrestling with once you learn to read between the lines. Writers talk about writing even more often than they write books. Even the fastest writers don’t churn out as much as a person is physically capable of typing–none of us are machines. We need to rest. To refresh. To put on our best battle face, because out there is a warzone, and most of your readers don’t even realize it. “I loved your book,” a reader might say, trying to be helpful and kind, “just not that part where X happened, but overall…” sounds like, “I fucking hated it.”
The true goal, as always, lies in the craft. In constantly improving, tweaking, and aiming for your best work. Every project is a puzzle you have to solve. Every single story, in its own little bubble (not compared to so and so, not better than that or good for what it is) should be able to stand on its own and get as close as possible to the experience you were going for. But that is easier said than done, and sometimes I look up at the writers I love and wonder if there even is an answer, in the end. This whole thing exhausts the best of us.
And yet we do it anyway. That silver lining we need to focus on–that despite all of this, despite how hard it all is and how underpaid and overworked most of us are, we somehow get it done. We churn out book after book after book, giving each other knowing glances while the readers stumble over each other for the next big rush. And if we do it right, our books make magic, and for a moment in time we get a taste of heaven in that blood-soaked hell. Is it worth it? I can’t say. But I think it’s safe to say most of us will keep doing it anyway.
