Losing Your Writing Religion
Losing Your Writing Religion
And How to Get it Back
And How to Get it Back
I’m dating myself here, but remember that R.E.M. song called Losing My Religion?
The lyrics go: “that’s me in the corner, that’s me in the spotlight, losing my religion…”
I’ve had that song on repeat in my head the last few days. (And, sorry, now you probably will, too.) Because it’s how I’ve felt about my writing.
My writing is, in many ways my religion.
Here are two definitions of the word from the online dictionary:
a particular system of faith and worship.
a pursuit or interest to which someone ascribes supreme importance.
Hello. My writing totally fits into both those categories. And moreover, I practice it diligently, much as a priest or lama might pray or chant.
At least most of the time.
The last couple of weeks, not so much.
When A Writer Isn’t Writing
The Misery of Not Putting Pen to Paper (And Cures)medium.com
Because, you see, I have not been writing much.
I finished the draft of a novel at the end of June and told myself I could take a break before I started re-reading the next project. (It had been a while since I’d worked on it, so I needed to reread it before writing on it again.)
Problem is, that break stretched waaaay longer than it should have.
I wasn’t sure why.
But then I finally strong-armed myself to start re-reading. I’d abandoned the novel last fall, after writing about three-quarters of it. As so often happens, I forgot why I had quit writing it.
I just knew that it wasn’t working. And that it wasn’t good.
However, I am a believer in finishing, so I knew I needed to go back to it.
I finished reading it this morning.
And here’s the deal: it’s good.
It’s rough (it is, after all, a first draft). It needs rearranging. There are vital protagonist character traits and backstory that need adding.
But mostly, I was amazed at how much I liked it. How, at one point, I was racing to turn the pages to see what happened next. (Yes, I forgot. But cut me some slack — I wrote a whole other novel in the past six months.)
When I finished re-reading I pushed back from my desk and sat, staring off into space again, as I realized what had happened.
I’d lost confidence.
I’d lost my writing religion.
A Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway
Everybody Gets Nervousmedium.com
This novel had started in the best of ways — as a project I wrote on a month-long writing retreat in Ceret, France. I had fond memories of it for that reason alone.
But somewhere along the line I convinced myself it was bad. That the characters were weak, the plot strained.
None of that is true.
So the question that remains is: how am I going to prevent this from happening again? How am I going to maintain my writing religion? With this project — and with future projects?
The funny thing is, I know the answer to this question. I coach and teach writers on these questions all the time! In this case, I didn’t apply the answers to myself.
But maybe I can help you before you abandon a decent writing project for nearly a year.
To wit, some suggestions:
Take a Break
Yeah, I know. Counter-intuitive. Especially since I took a break and ended up wandering away from my writing for longer than I would have liked. But if you’re too close to your work, sometimes you can’t see it for what it is. And then you start to get cranky, and tired, and nothing looks good when you are cranky and tired.
A client of mine emailed with an SOS last week. She was starting to hate the novel she’s working on, and I know, because I’m reading it, that it’s terrific. I told her to take a few days off. She was putting too much pressure on herself to meet a self-imposed deadline. And I’m happy to say, it worked like a charm. She’s back at it, more enthusiastic than ever.
Find Things You Love About Your Project
All I could remember about my novel was that it didn’t hang together and the characters were weak. Both needed plumping up, but neither flaws were fatal. But all I remembered was the negative. I didn’t recall the aspects of the characters that did work, how they surprised me on the page. I couldn’t recollect that the plot had a few twists in it that made the pages fly by. And that’s because I was too focused on what didn’t work.
Our brains have a built-in negative bias. It is our tendency to go to the negative, always, so hewing toward the positive is something you’re going to need to fight for. But it is worth it. If I’d allowed myself to dwell on the things that worked in my novel, I’d probably be done with this draft.
Our Brain's Negative Bias
Why do insults once hurled at us stick inside our skull, sometimes for decades? Why do some people have to work extra…www.psychologytoday.com
Go Back and Read From the Start
I don’t know about you, but when I’m hellbent on finishing a draft, I don’t reread a lot of what I’ve written. I want to avoid getting bogged down in editing when I’m in a creating stage. So I read just enough of the last chapter, usually a paragraph or two, to get me re-oriented before I start writing. (This works best when you are writing regularly, as in as close to daily as you can manage.)
But if, when I’d started despairing over the awfulness of the work, I’d gone back to reread, I’d probably have realized how wrong I was. That I was indulging in negative bias thinking. That the work had merit. And so if you’re feeling like all you want to do is cash in your writing chips, go back and read from the beginning again. Please.
Remember, This, Too, Shall Pass
It really will. Tomorrow you’ll be done with the horrible scene you are laboring over now and your writing world will look brighter and cheerier. So much of writing is a stage — and you’ll experience good stages and bad stages.
The trick is to keep going, no matter what.
Because tomorrow — or even today, as you step away from the desk — you might get a brilliant idea for the book. You might suddenly realize what’s been missing from the plot, or figure out something that happened to the heroine in her backstory that cements her motivation.
And that will change everything. But you have to give yourself the chance to let it happen.
Make Like a Superhero
And remember that you are freaking awesome. Okay? And so is your writing. So keep at it. Keep those fingers moving past this awkward stage and go forth and finish!
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