I’ve started working on a new thing (I’m hesitant to call it a novel yet) and I had a mini breakdown about it this weekend. I’m having all these “Can I pull this off?” thoughts. I’m overwhelmed by the task of piecing together the story, which has come to me in disjointed segments. It’s like a puzzle.
Thankfully, I happen to be reading Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert. I tend to pick up just the right books at just the right time (I think that’s what Gilbert means by “magic”). Anyway, it’s important to notice that the title is not “Creative Living Without Fear.” Gilbert talks about how fear is a very normal and natural part of the creative process, and I agree with that. The goal isn’t to write fearlessly, but to write in spite of inevitable fear.
A quote from the book:
“Your fear will always be triggered by your creativity, because creativity asks you to enter into realms of uncertain outcome, and fear hates uncertain outcome.”
Yes. This is where I’m at with this new project. I’m uncertain of where it’s going. Truly, I feel like I’m in over my head. I have to keep reminding myself that isn’t a bad thing.
On this subject, author Lee Martin says:
“We should all feel as if we’re in over our heads when we write; that’s how we know we’re writing about something that really matters. So it takes either courage, self-deception, ignorance, or some of all three, to knowingly put ourselves in this position. It takes an endless supply of hope. Writing anything is ultimately an act of faith and love.”
And:
“Eventually, we have to find out how tall we are. We have to jump in, trusting that through craft and courage we’ll find a way to stand up, not to tower over the behemoth, but to look it in the eye, to know we’ve given it the sort of treatment that respects but also contains its strength.”
Continuing the magic, I recently read an article called “Writing Dangerously” by Tom Spanbauer in Poets & Writers magazine. This took a different look at the fear that accompanies writing. This fear isn’t of the “Holy hell, how am I going to accomplish this?” variety, but more of the “This stuff I’m writing is bringing up all kinds of uncomfortable feelings” variety.
Spanbauer writes:
“To write dangerously is to go to parts of ourselves that we know exist but try to ignore–parts that are sad, sore; parts that are silent, heavy. Taboo. Things that won’t leave us alone.”
Fear, of all kinds, is what makes writing exhilarating. Fear is what makes many things exhilarating–roller coasters, love, sky diving. You face it and, sometimes, you get those days of flow, when the story seems to write itself.
Gilbert describes this magic:
“I feel like I am suddenly walking on one of those moving sidewalks that you find in a big airport terminal; I still have a long slog to my gate, and my baggage is still heavy, but I can feel myself being gently propelled by some exterior force. Something is carrying me along–something powerful and generous–and that something is decidedly not me.”
Writers live for those moments. And they almost always come about because of initial fear.