Disposing of the fear
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Disposing of the fear
when did writing become so scary?
We are ~6 months out from the publication of Women of Good Fortune! Ahhhh! It’s still a long time away, but I got my copies of the ARCs and have popped into a few bookstores, and it’s such an amazing experience to talk to booksellers about the book and get to see their excitement too. If you haven’t pre-ordered yet, get it from your local bookstore!
Anyway, that’s the update about WOGF, but today’s newsletter is about my second book. I can’t share anything about it yet, but it has been a schlep of epic proportions, and I’m going to be talking about the difficulty of writing it, and why it has been harder than drafting my debut.
There’s an innocence and a hope that comes with drafting without an agent, without an editor, without anything but the dream of maybe one day giving your book to someone to read. Knowing that there is a world of possibility you’ve barely dipped your toe in gives you the courage to write like nobody is watching. I don’t mean to idealize this period; there were many days where I felt like I had just put myself on a treadmill where nobody cared how many miles I walked. I thought that feeling would go away with each book I wrote, as I grew more confident in filling out the bones of a story, but I was surprised at how much I have struggled with my second book, the days where I hit my word count but still felt terrible. That horrible feeling, I’ve realized, is self doubt, and it has hit me so much harder this time around, because I have unlocked a new channel for self-doubt: comparing me, to me.
Everything I have done for this second book, I have compared to my first. I wonder if the writing is as good. If the characters feel too similar. If I am following the same plot, just with different accoutrements. I worry about not being “high concept” or marketable enough, things I had never concerned myself much with until I started reading about traditional publishing. When I had to submit a pitch to my editor, it added a whole layer of complexity and doubt. I used to just come up with something then run with it, but now I needed approval before I could move forward with my ideas.
The only way I ever make it through the first draft of a book is by pushing aside the fear, or just flat-out ignoring it. I am not the same person that I was when I wrote Women of Good Fortune, and the themes and characters I’m exploring this time around are different. I also think that tonally, I am exploring new areas and finding excitement in another world that is not Shanghai, but just as fascinating and complex.
I don’t have a ton of good advice for dealing with fear when it comes to your craft. But I think the way to deal with it is the same as it is for any other fear (except maybe phobias). You keep doing that thing you’re afraid of until it’s not so scary anymore. For me, it meant getting my butt in front of my laptop every morning for 60 days and writing even if I didn’t feel like it. It also has meant leaning on other people to give me the motivation that I need. This time around, I feel like the stakes are even higher, but some of the things that have helped:
Having a routine: this summer, I got up at 7am each day and wrote for 1-2 hours. By the end of it, I had rewritten my book twice. Sometimes it sucked and I couldn’t come up with anything, but I forced myself in front of my computer and got the words out, and I think my brain started expecting to be forced to work in the mornings. The nice part is that if you fulfill this part of the routine, it’s a box you’ve checked, and there’s no need to worry about writing for the rest of the day.
Getting energy from others: I ran my idea by many friends. It is not a necessity to get positive reinforcement from others, but I found that even being asked questions about my premise or “what about this?” made me approach my work from another direction and helped me develop new ideas. Of course, I tried to run it by people who I knew would actually be receptive, and not someone who’d just add to my pile of doubt.
BELIEVING IN YOURSELF: this is so cheesy but there is so much about this process that is mental. I had a long period where I just stopped believing in myself. I didn’t think I had it in me to write another book that was any good. I think self-confidence is the hardest thing for me to have, and yet it is the top thing that drives my ability to write and my passion to continue. At some point I got annoyed with myself for being so freaked out about everything and was like “SHUT UP AND JUST WRITE THE BEST THING YOU CAN” to that overanalyzing part of my brain.
The other thing? Don’t worry that everything is a waste. You will delete, often and probably in large quantities. I was carving away time on vacations to write something that I ended up scrapping. But it’s also a process of elimination and exploration, and it helped me figure out the shape of the story I wanted.
I’m off to revise now. Wish me luck.
Something I wrote today:
They look nothing alike; Stacy is statuesque with a body sculpted by daily pilates and a peaceful smile no doubt lovingly cultivated with her meditation coach. There is probably more uncontrolled wrath in Maggie’s pinky than there is in her entire body.