The Writing Life -- Chapter 1: Anxiety

There are some writers who are so fantastically good they immobilize me. Do you know what I mean?

I read their books or essays or magazine articles or what-have-you and I'm floored, amazed, enthralled at their ability to write dialogue that stings and zings, their talent at creating (and juggling) compelling characters, their skill at keeping a plot moving smoothly, seamlessly along. I read them and think Wow. How cool is this. How tremendous to have such gifts. How lucky to be able to just do this.

Then I get depressed.

I look at my own paltry attempts and think, Idiot. What made you think you could ever do what this writer does? You who never finished college. Who can hardly keep a job for more than three years. Who could lose a few pounds and should floss more often.

At the recommendation of a friend--I mean "on"--"on the recommendation of a friend" (See? This is what I'm talking about) I've been reading Anne Lamott's Bird By Bird, a book that is by turns reassuring (sometimes), informative (plenty), and hilarious (always). There is a point where Lamott quotes the writer John Gardner as saying "the writer is creating a dream into which he or she invites the reader, and that the dream must be vivid and continuous." Lamott says that when she teaches she always has her class write that part down: the dream must be vivid and continuous. She reminds you that you won't after all be able to sit next to every reader of your work and explain all the details you left out, the stuff that would have made the story more interesting, and the characters more believable. Your story has to work on its own, and the dream must be vivid and continuous.

I try to remember that.

She also says--and this is in some ways the scariest part--to find someone to bounce your material off of, someone "who can bring a colder eye and a certain detachment" to your effort. This is definitely the hard part for me. I suppose it's the hard part for anyone who writes and wants to be published.

Although--wait a sec. I have already done this, sort of. Several times now I've shown some stuff to a writer friend who's been very encouraging, although so far this has been an extremely informal arrangement; he's not my teacher or editor or anything remotely official like that. I just send him a few things from time to time, and what he likes, he praises. Maybe if I were taking a class with him he'd be a lot tougher on my work? I don't know. But Lamott does make the excellent point that the writer is usually too close to her material to see it objectively enough to know either when to leave it alone already or when it really, really, really needs more work.

This may strike you as grandiose, but suddenly I'm thinking of The Beatles. Not by way of comparison; I just had the thought that it might help if once in awhile I keep Lennon and McCartney in mind, how they would write songs individually and show them to each other for feedback. Paul McCartney once told an interviewer that he wrote a lyric and showed it to John Lennon not sure what the hell it all meant, half-apologizing as Lennon looked it over, and hastily assuring him that he would change things: "I know; don't worry; I'll take that out..." but Lennon looked at him and said "Why? That's the best part."

That's what a good teacher or editor or friend with a "cold eye and certain detachment" does, I guess--he (or she) is your John Lennon, keeping you from taking out the best parts.