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.

Making the Words Disappear

It's been a hard work week so far with too many other things I have to do getting in the way of my five pages a day quota to make sure I meet my summer deadline. I've been writing and maybe almost getting my pages, but at the end of the day I sometimes end up thinking that I'm going to have to cut most of those words in the final draft. But I tell myself to just get the words out there where I can cut them or improve them, where I can tell the story I'm trying to tell. In the best way I can.

I got a kind e-mail from a writer friend saying she got so into my stories that she didn't do any critiquing as she read. That's something a lot of us writers do as we're reading. Maybe because we're wanting to think we could have written it better, or maybe just because we can't turn off the editor in our head so that we can enjoy the story. Anyway, she said she was able to turn off her editor mode and just enjoy my stories. That's something a writer likes to hear. Right up there with "I couldn't put it down." That has to be the favorite comment most writers hear.

Actually what I'm trying to do - when I think about it - is make the words on the page disappear. That is, I want to make my characters and their stories become so real to the readers that they forget they are reading and just live the story along with the people in the book. I've read stories by other writers where I felt like that, and I can only hope I am sometimes successful with my own stories. So how does a writer make the words disappear? Good writing. Careful editing. And more rewriting. You have to try to take everything out that might jar the reader from your story and make him or her notice the words sentence by sentence instead of just flowing along the river of words living your story.

Here are a few quotes from writers on writing. If you are a writer, I hope they inspire you to write so well that your words disappear. I hope they inspire me to do the same.

• A good style should show no signs of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident. ~W. Somerset Maugham, Summing Up, 1938
• As to the adjective, when in doubt, strike it out. ~Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson, 1894
• Write your first draft with your heart. Re-write with your head. ~From the movie Finding Forrester
• One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper pattern at the right moment. ~Hart Crane
• Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart. ~William Wordsworth

Oh, yeah, and they say it's going to be 70 degrees here on Saturday. Zero windchill last Monday and 70 by the weekend. Kentucky weather can be interesting in March. But we are so ready for some warmer temps.

If you haven't already, don't forget to send me an e-mail from my website to get in on the drawing for the free books on March 22. I'm doing the drawing the day I get back from Texas after the big Book Expo.

Bumpy Sledding and Writing

Hope all of you had a very good Wednesday. Halfway through the work week and on the downhill slide to Friday. I often wish I had an extra day especially when I'm getting started on a new book. Of course I took today off to spend a snow day with a couple of my grandkids. We haven't had a lot of snow, just flurries spread out over several days that has kept a skiff of snow on the ground. My daughter-in-law said it was like we were in a giant snow globe that somebody kept turning over to make it snow. Anyway, the little snow we had is almost gone except in the shade, but with those plastic smooth bottomed sleds, you can still do some sledding even when the snow is disappearing. So we walked all over the farm looking for enough snow cover to take a ride downhill. The two and a half year old was quite happy to let me pull her down those hills and then back up. Needless to say, this gramma is dragging tonight after a lot of trips up and down. At least I was smart enough to pick very short hills. The nine year old just had fun sliding although he did admit that the frozen ground with only a bare skiff of snow made for some pretty bumpy sledding.

I'm feeling as if I'm having some "bumpy sledding" as I try to get my new story off the ground, but I'm hanging on and absorbing the bumps because I think the story is there. I just have to find the best way to tell it. So here are some quotes to encourage you if you're a writer and help you understand some of what writers struggle with if you're a reader.

• A writer and nothing else: a man alone in a room with the English language, trying to get human feelings right. --John K. Hutchens (A woman alone in a room, too. I do work much better when I'm alone.)
• Writing is no trouble: you just jot down ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself-it is the occurring which is difficult. -Stephen Leacock
• I think it's bad to talk about one's present work, for it spoils something at the root of the creative act. It discharges the tension. -Norman Mailer (I couldn't agree more. I simply cannot talk about my story in progress. One author I read suggested that if a writer tells her story, there's no need for her to write it.)
• Make 'em laugh; make 'em cry; make 'em wait. - Charles Reade

That last one is advice I want to follow. I think I'll write those words in red on my desk calendar where I can see it every day when I start writing. I'll put it right beside the Proverb about how laughter works good for us like a medicine. Hope you have good days and good nights along with much laughter and good stories.