One of my favorite bits of recent writing advice comes from Sari Botton:
“FIRST DRAFTS ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD. They are not supposed to be final. They often don’t even vaguely resemble final drafts.”
It feels like particularly useful advice this year, when so many of us have told ourselves we should use “all this extra free time” from sheltering in place to work on our writing, only to find out that we couldn’t quite concentrate on what we were doing, because the world was falling apart around us, and so whatever it is we’d written didn’t even look all that good the next day. Well, guess what? That’s how it is under the best of circumstances, for a lot of writers! And it’s totally okay.
I saw another perfect description of this situation in a newsletter that I’d recently started reading, Caroline McCarthy’s The Firewood:
“Writing, for me, is about feeling like you’re standing in the middle of a massive room with a bunch of cans of paint and you have the freedom to hurl one of those cans of paint at the wall, see what kind of shape it makes, and then use that as a kind of writing prompt. But you need enough space to throw a lot of paint. And you need a lot of paint in the first place. And when you’re going through an enormous upheaval in your life, it is perfectly OK to suddenly not be able to write a profound or even cloying personal essay about it. Sometimes you find that you do not have enough paint. Or that you are not in a room large enough to hurl paint all over the walls.”
If you understand where McCarthy is coming from, take comfort in the knowledge that things can (and often do) improve with time. Often, the simple routine of showing up and putting in some effort will help bring clarity.
I’m going to fully nerd out momentarily and invoke an episode of Doctor Who, “Heaven Sent.” In it, the Doctor finds himself trapped in a mysterious castle, and eventually realizes that to escape, he must break through a wall of the most impenetrable substance there is, harder even than diamond… with his bare fists. And, the whole time, he’s being pursued by a mysterious deadly figure. Long story short, every time his tormentor has nearly killed him, the Doctor finds a way to reboot the castle, resurrecting himself, so he can eventually make his way back to the wall and punch it another time—so that, after an eternity, it finally shatters and he escapes.
Some days, that feels like a solid metaphor for creative writing.
I’ve mentioned Jeanna Kadlec’s Astrology for Writers newsletter before—whether or not you believe in astrology, Kadlec uses it very effectively as a framework to discuss the sorts of things you ought to be thinking about in your writing life. And now she’s taken that framework and built a month-long workshop around it, “an exploration of your birth chart elements in order to build a writing career that is sustainable and profitable — on your terms.” In other words, it doesn’t look like the sort of thing that will make you a better writer from a technical or artistic standpoint… but it could help you better navigate the professional side of a writing life. Getting stuff done, getting stuff sold, getting stuff read and, wouldn’t it be lovely, adored by millions.
I’m pretty sure I’ve also mentioned Hurley Winkler’s Lonely Victories, and if I haven’t then I’m mentioning it now. Winkler also has some workshops coming up in early 2021, the more traditional “let’s look at your work and see how we can draw out your unique voice more effectively” kind of workshop.
I’ve not worked with either of these writers before, and don’t have any particular relationship with them—I’m just a fan of what both of them have been doing with their newsletters, and it gives me confidence that there’s probably something in their workshops that will be of use to you. So telling them I sent you won’t get you any special treatment; on the other hand, it probably couldn’t hurt any.
On that note, I will see you again in 2021… unless you’re one of the premium subscribers to the newsletter, in which case you’ll receive another email from me sometime next week. (I haven’t done much exclusive content for the premium subscribers lately, because of the pandemic, but this seems like the right time.)
For those of you to whom tomorrow is significant, whether it’s because you’re celebrating Christmas or because you’ve made it to another Sabbath or another Jummah, I hope you find moments of pleasure in the occasion. It’s harder for many to do so this year, but perhaps not impossible. Such is my wish for you, at any rate!