The Struggle of the Blank Page

 

"If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word."  (Margaret Atwood)

I’m struggling to write a story now. I love to write. I have always wanted to write. I have always been writing something since I was ten years old and maybe before. I like the feel of a pen in my hand, a notebook open in front of me. I like my fingers perched over a keyboard ready to record whatever words pop into my head. I like filling the blank page. And yet, I often struggle to write. I put it off. I delay the hard work of getting the words of a story out of my head and onto this blank screen.

I don’t struggle to write here in my on-line journal. These words come easy. I grab a picture off my phone or out of my photo files and write something that matches. Or not, as it turns out tonight. This picture is just one I really like and that I took last spring when the tree was blooming. That doesn’t have much to do with the struggle to write a book. But then, maybe it does. Maybe that’s what a writer needs – the seed of an idea that buds out into words that bloom into scenes on branches that lead back to the entire story or trunk of the tree and down into the roots of what the story is really about. Now that was reaching, wasn’t it?

Ah, but pulling those words out of my head is what I’ve always done. I do my best to make my characters get up off the black and white page of my imagination and explode out into the colorful pages, alive and ready to live their stories. Then comes the worry that the story is not going to be right. That’s a worry I have had to overcome with nearly every book I’ve ever written. Somewhere between the excitement of typing Chapter 1 and finally finding the end, I nearly always hit a slippery spot where the doubts bombard me and make me lose my confidence in the story. Then it’s good to remember what James Thurber said. "Don't get it right, just get it written."

I can’t make anything better until I have it written. And after writing dozens of books, I know I’ve done it before and that perhaps, just perhaps, I’ll be able to do it again. I’ll be able to tell the story I set out to tell. Or if not that one, the one my characters reveal to me along the story road.

Here's more great writing advice from Barbara Kingsolver. "Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer."

I tell myself now that my problem is time. My problem has always been time. Every writer struggles for the time to block away their everyday world of chores and duties to go off into their fictional world. And then to use that time wisely. It’s easier to read. Every writer needs to read. It’s easier to write in a journal. Every writer needs to organize his thoughts and keep in touch with her inner self. It’s easier to check messages or post on Facebook and all writers want to connect with their readers.

But here is the advice I’m going to have to keep in mind in the next few weeks as I look at a deadline headed my way with life pulling at me on every side.

"Planning to write is not writing. Outlining--researching--talking to people about what you’re doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing." (E. L. Doctorow)

And writing is what I’m going to do. As soon as I get this blog post finished - and check my messages - and...

Thanks for reading. I so appreciate each and every one of you who read this and those of you who take the time to leave a comment. For those of you curious about my post on Facebook that went viral, it has gotten over a million likes and nearly 12 million views. I have been moved by the many people who have wanted to celebrate with this one child who has defeated cancer. Many have shared their own fights against cancer or those of others in their families. I’ve scanned hundreds of the comments and have been impressed with the joyfulness of the comments. I’ve only seen two or three that were in any way negative. People are ready to hear good news.

Expert Writing Advice

"An expert is someone who tells you why you can't do something." Alec Issigonis

One afternoon last week I was working away in my office with everything humming along. Then I went for a walk and when I got back the electricity to my office and all that part of the house was off. We tripped all the breakers in the box on and off. Nothing happened. Except I had to reset every clock in the house. But still no juice getting to my computer and lights in my office. It seemed a sign. A higher power in control of the power had turned me off. No ice had downed any lines. The front part of the house still glowed with light. The t.v. was playing. But my office was dead. I couldn't write.

Of course I think it's a little sad that the loss of electricity so disturbs my writing world. Whatever happened to the inkpen and wirebound notebooks where I scribbled my first stories? Well, I don't know about the ink pen, but I have to admit I know exactly where those notebooks are. I would probably cringe to read them now, but I kept them. Will keep them forever. My children can cringe if they read them right before they pitch them in the garbage after I pass on. There are some things a writer can't throw away even when she should.

Words. That's the hardest thing for us to throw away. Our words. It's hard to slice and dice our beautiful words. I find it even harder to slice and dice other people's words. Aspiring writers come to me wanting encouragement. I want to give encouragement, but I'm far from an expert editor on anybody else's work. My own words - those I can edit. Ruthlessly.

But I have to be in the story to do editing and to immerse myself into other people's stories requires far too much creative energy. I need whatever creative energy I can catch hold of to make my own story hunt. And I don't want to be the kind of expert who just tells somebody they can't do what they want to do. Because I don't know how good they can be.

I learned this lesson years ago when I was asked to teach a class on fiction writing and prior to the class, I critiqued the first chapters of the participants' novels. One of the writers seemed to be completely off base and to have no handle on how to put together a story. But then we had a read aloud session. She brought something else to read and what she read that day was the best in the class. I still worry that my comments on her writing weren't as encouraging as she needed them to be. But she was a writer something like me. I sensed it in the way she rejected my what I hoped was positive criticisms. She knew she could write and she wasn't about to let a little upstart of a writer who had lucked into publishing a novel tell her any different. I'm glad. Because I'm not an expert just because I've managed to publish a few books. That makes me blessed and perhaps a stubborn hard-working writer, but not an expert about anybody else's writing.

The best advice I could have gotten early in my quest for publication was "Write." That's still the best advice for up and coming writers. You know that might still be the best advice for me. "Write." Then again that might be the second best advice for wanna be writers. The best will always be to read. Or maybe you have a different idea? What is the best writing advice you've ever gotten or read or maybe given someone?