
Are you working on your first novel? Is this your first try? Fourth? Tenth? It’s tough, isn’t it? It’s like climbing a mountain, but there’s a heavy fog, so you can only see the two steps of the incline before you. You just know that somewhere up ahead is the summit.
Here’s a question you should ask yourself: do you want to write a book, or do you want to have written a book? It’s a subtle difference but an important one.
I think the idea of being a writer is romantic to some people. I picture Ernest Hemingway banging on a typewriter after wrestling a lion. A professional creative person. How fascinating! But the truth is . . .
Writing a Book Sucks
Or at least 80% of it. Writing requires long hours spent alone. There’s meticulous research that makes your browser history look like criminal evidence. Sometimes, you get stuck on one word. Just stuck.
What’s that word? The one that sounds pretty, but it’s not. Like, erg - it should describe something elegant, but that’s not actually elegant . . .
And then there’s editing. Editing is awful. It drains your soul and punishes you for trying to be creative. Editing takes forever, and there are no shortcuts. You will sit there and pay attention. Oh? Did you finish? Think again. Start over.
Writing comes with criticism. And that criticism comes from everywhere and at every point in the process. You will receive criticism during the rewrites and hear them after you publish. The worst critic I have found is myself. Critic me is so mean to creative me. One time, I made the mistake of reading Moby Dick before I started a draft. I couldn’t put two words together without having to talk myself out of throwing my laptop in the garbage.
It means like commotion but like noisy commotion. Like if you were to get jumped by the percussion section . . .
But that 20% . . .
Is a dream come true! You are creating something out of nothing. You are playing in the sandbox and daydreaming. There’s this sweet moment writing fiction where the story starts to tell itself. It feels very much like you’re a parent, holding your child’s handlebars, and suddenly, they peddle fast enough that you let go, and they’re riding around the school parking lot on their own.
In the early days of drafting They’re Not Here to Save Us, one of the main characters wasn’t supposed to be so important. I just needed some character to be at some place to do something. But as I wrote them, they made themselves essential and (worse) lovable. I had no choice but to keep them, and they are one of my favorite characters. (Can you guess who?)
And then you finally get to share your work. I’ll save that topic for another time, but I’ll just say there’s nothing like it.
Come on, I know this word. I know it! That guy on the show said it. What episode was it? I swear to God . . .
Is it For You?
I’ll share a story that my friend Jeremy told me that sums it up quite well. Jeremy was a local rapper in Chicago. He was decent enough that he got to open for some big names coming through the town. One night, he opened for <insert big name here>, and backstage after the show, Jeremy told the headliner that he would do anything to be a big rapper. And the headliner said, ‘Would you eat nothing but Ramen noodles? Would you live out of your car? Would you write for five hours a day?”
That’s an extreme example, granted, but it asks the question: do you want the process or just the result? How important is that 20% for you to endure the other 80%? Is it worth the raging cacophony (Ha! There it is!) of stress and self-doubt? If it is, then the job just got easier. Just do whatever you gotta do to get it done. If it’s not, you got your work cut out for you.
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