I've been too distracted to write here. Or maybe too scattered. Or afraid. I'm not really sure. There are 11 unfinished posts in my draft folder. But I have been writing....
My current WIP is almost two years old. I've been working on fairly consistently, taking a few breaks to recharge and to explore other sides of the same characters. It's the longest I've ever stayed with a project.
So now we've entered the Terrible Twos. And I'm stuck.
One of my most favorite people in the world gave me a book for Christmas called A Year of Writing Dangerously: 365 Days of Inspiration & Encouragement by Barbara Abercrombie. The perfectionist in me said to start reading it on January 1st, and I did. I'm also sharing its passages with my writing group. I didn't expect to gain much insight. However, to put it bluntly, at Day 4, shit got real.
On Day 4, she hints that we are free to write the truth, or whatever we believe the truth to be (insert Trump joke here). She encourages us to basically just write it down because no one will read it until it is actually presented. Rewrites and purging are always options. We're free to lock it away in the depths of our file cabinets or clouds. Whatever is typed onto a screen or scribbled on actual paper, only sees the light of day if we choose. If I choose.
Nice. Ok. Just get it down. 249 words. Ok. Better than the previous days.
Day 5 stopped me in my tracks. Here is the full passage:
I asked a group of students once if writing felt dangerous to them. They all nodded vigorously, so I asked them to write why.
One student wrote, “Writing is dangerous because you might get caught.”Caught, found out, exposed. The stuff of nightmares.Is this why writing feels so scary sometimes? We’re caught like a fish on a hook of our own words, our secrets exposed, out inner life and imagination up for inspection.Anxiety is not only an inevitable part of the writing process but a necessary part. If you’re not scared, you’re not writing. ~~ Ralph Keyes
And I've figured out why I'm stuck.
My WIP is a complete work of fiction when you look at it as a whole. I've borrowed names, descriptions, places, speech patterns, and so forth from a number of sources. None match enough to pull a whole person together and say "OMG, x is y!!!" (Except maybe for whoever owns or lives at the property in Catskill where I've set my world.... They might find it a little creepy.) But fiction is rarely that perfect little world of pure imagination. We all have a point of reference, something that anchors even the most outrageous storyline to something solid in our lives.
Oddly, writing fiction with a touch of truth doesn't scare me. Isn't that crazy? Nearly 18 years of psychotherapy has wiped out a good part of my timidity. Up until now, whatever I've written has had some real connection, some modicum of truth. It may be stretched out so far that only I can see the connection, but, dig deep enough, and you'll find the speck of something real. Someone reading it can ask "Did ____ happen to you or someone you know?" and I can answer "No," with complete honesty. But there's also a yes in there somewhere, if they pick the exact right thing to ask. I can easily lie on the pages I write if I can defend that it's both fact and fiction. The closer my words are to "a truth," the easier they've been to write.
I know the reason for this: I tend to shy away from decisions and debates without knowing what I'm talking about. I never buy something without researching it. I will not argue a political opinion without exploring the opposite side. Unless I have a generous amount of information, I rather ask questions and listen to others.
It's not that I'm afraid to be wrong-- not in the sense of being misinformed. That's a learning experience. I'm afraid to disappoint, to be misunderstood, to mislead. I know where that fear comes from and I'm doing what I can to confront it. It'll never go away; it's too much of a human trait. But it is a fear that paralyzes me and lack of movement isn't acceptable.
I am at a section of the story that is "filler-but-not." I need to bridge a gap in time where a few relevant things happen, but... I can't feel the truth in it. I don't think there actually *is* a truth in it and that means I need to make it up. Fiction in its truest form where my only defense is: I made that up, and it makes sense to me.
That's what "writing dangerously" means to me.
OCD is the doubting disease. Couple that with decades of reinforcement that I'm not doing ___ right, and my confidence level is so far down it can keep America's reputation company.
My writing has no real-world consequences, making it a logical place to take some chances. Take some chances to make some changes.
Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good.– William Faulkner
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