Writing Your Way Out of the Not Writing
Assorted bits of advice from agents and authors who know whereof they speak!
I know I’ve frequently encouraged you to read literary agent Kate McKean’s newsletter, “Agents and Editors,” and I’m about to do it again—her essays are just so consistently on point, and she’s been on a fantastic hot streak lately. It started a few weeks ago with her reminder that “hating what you write is totally normal,” and that just about everybody goes through that phase, especially with a new project. And yet, she adds, “no time spent actually writing, no matter how productive or not, is wasted time, and this feeling of being all trash is just a feeling, not reality.”
She continued to probe that feeling of frustration in her next newsletter, which was about why she’s started—and stopped—running a few different times in her life, and how she’s approaching it right now:
“I am not worried about my speed or time because it absolutely doesn’t matter. No one is watching me. No one cares. No one is judging me. I have done this before and I can do it again and I know my own pitfalls and the general pitfalls and I have survived them all before. I’m going to go running again this afternoon, if my inbox doesn’t explode. And it’s going to be great.”
It should not surprise you to learn she approaches her writing with a similar mindset.
I also want to mention her most recent newsletter, though, because it’ll eventually lead you to Alexander Chee talking about writer’s block, which is absolutely something you should be interested in reading. At first, Chee talks about fear, and though he doesn’t use the classic Dune line, “Fear is the mind killer,” the underlying spirit is much the same. So many times, we find ourselves stalled because we’re afraid—afraid we’re not good enough, afraid of what people will think, afraid “the market” will shut us down, afraid of something we haven’t even thought of yet.
“When you stop writing in order to protect yourself from that,” Chee says, “you are imagining that at least you won’t embarrass yourself. You imagine that stopping writing protects you, and you feel a little relief from the danger of whatever your idea is suggesting.” The problem is that while you think you’ve spared yourself, it won’t be long before you really will be miserable because you aren’t writing.
The way you resolve that dilemma, as Chee points out, is to write your way through it. Beyond that, he offers some very practical advice for dealing with writer’s block, such as the insight that a novel (or any piece of extended writing, really) is a series of decisions the writer makes; if you find yourself “stuck,” unable to see how the story can go any further forward, review the choices you’ve already made, and see if you can find moments where you’ve inadvertently constrained yourself by making a “safe” choice… or by avoiding a choice that needs to be made.
McKean and Chee both point out that you’re not likely to get things right the first time, and the important thing is to keep going, to get yourself used to working not with the expectation that you’ll create something perfect right now, but that you’ll create the thing only you can create eventually. Another literary agent whose newsletter I’ve recommended to you, DongWon Song, knows what that’s like, and he was happy to discuss his woodworking experience, which he described as “making shitty tables,” in a recent email:
“Building Shitty Tables was important to me. It helped me figure out my craft, my goals, and got me to a place where I can start building the things that live in my head. I can start learning new skills, discovering new designs, and practicing imperfect techniques. Shitty Tables was about a process, about a road to where I am now.”
You’ll never improve your technique by not working on it.
We should concede, though, that it is possible to work yourself too long and too hard, to the point of burnout—so my final recommendation for this newsletter is Charlie Jane Anders’ “In Praise of Burnout.” It’s actually more about her work in activist spaces than about writing, but of course to some degree it’s about writing, too. If you only take one point away from her essay, I hope it’s this: “Burnout doesn’t mean you gave up. Burnout means you gave something your all, and you feel proud of the work you did. But now you need to take a break.”
The work will wait patiently for your return. And because you are the only person who can write your book, you don’t have to worry that someone else will beat you to it.