The Writing Life: June 2007 Archives

I haven't made much progress on the novel this past week, as things have gotten in my way at every step.

Someone always wants your time and your creative energies. If you're supposed to be putting some of your best efforts into your artistic creation, but you're siphoning off that best time and energy into other things and letting the art get the leavings, is it any wonder you're not happy with the result?

Sometimes, you can't get around it. Saturday, we started re-roofing the house. The shingles have to be torn off and new shingles laid down. It's just me and my dad doing the work. I'm still stiff and sore since sitting in an office all day, every day, doesn't really prepare one for that kind of work. It's something that must be done, though, since the old roof is, quite literally, falling apart.

As justified as many of the other demands on your time are, its difficult to see your work withering as you're forced to spend the best part of the day, the best part of yourself, and most of your energy on other things. If you try and steal away some of that and spend it on your creative endeavors, you feel like you're either robbing a convenience store or being a sneaky little weasel who's not paying his taxes. If you steal it from work, you get in trouble and if you steal from anyone else, they get mad at you.

I'm not a morning person, but I think I'll have to become one. It's the only part of the day that isn't otherwise spoken for. An early morning, with the sun just coming up, a shower and a cup of strong coffee, and I think I might actually start to make some progress. That doesn't mean I won't still find ways to siphon off some of my best creative energies into the novel as I find opportunity (I've heard that William Carlos Williams wrote between seeing patients, which is why his prose works are mostly short and why he concentrated mostly on poetry).

Your life outside of writing is important too, but can you really expect anyone to want to pay you for the work you do in your spare time, with your spare energy? If you have a full-time employer, they want the best part of you, the best part of the day, and the best part of your creative output. Why should the potential readers of your novel be any different? Don't they deserve the best part of you too?

Relief: A Quarterly Christian Expression Issue #3 is now hitting newstands and mailboxes. If you're not familiar with it yet, then shame on you. It's a fantastic literary journal. This issue features my short story "Sins of the Fathers" (which, I am humbled to note, won this issue's Editor's Choice award) as well as lots of great fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction. I haven't read the whole thing yet, but what I have read of it is very, very good.

I read my story again and I have to admit, I'm not sure I like the way an artist gets to see his own work. When I read that story, I see all the flaws in it and ways that it could be improved. Things that could be made more clear without forcing a second or third reading. I'm still not very comfortable with it, even though others seem to like it.

Something I wrestle with as a writer is being able to judge my own work. I often simply can't tell if it's any good or not. I was re-reading a section of my novel-in-progress the other day and I got a little discouraged. Is this any good, I keep asking myself. I know I should just put off those judgements until the thing is more fully-formed, but I revise as I go, so I'm always having to judge the quality of the writing for the purposes of revision.

Writing is hard, that's all there is to it. That's why so few people do it well. I can, however, take solace in the fact that persistence pays off in this game. If I just keep with it, force the little demons in my head that try to undermine my work to just shut up, then I'm confident that I will have a novel worth a reader's significant investment of money and time. It won't win any awards, but that's not why I do this, anyway.

For me, the process of writing is uphill both ways (in the snow) and a piece of coal for Christmas.

Then: a nap.