Ugh! Yesterday was rough. I’m just so stuck on Chapter 2. My chapter 1 (draft 2) is being critiqued this Saturday by the Boulder Writer’s Meetup Group. I’ve attended a couple of times now. It’s a good group. The critiques are hard, but solid and thoughtful.
I’ve been writing a ton and reading a ton. I’m currently devouring Lucky, by Alice Sebold. It’s an amazing story--her first, her memoir. Wow, my own sad tale pales in comparison!
I’ve been reading a lot of first books/novels/memoirs and then the same author’s second novel and third and so on. It’s fun to see the progression, the development of their voices, the evolution of their skills. But somewhere in me, I think my first novel has to be this amazingly brilliant work, and the truth is—I don’t have that skill yet. Ugh!
Winston Churchill once said, ''Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.''
So, I believe I’m somewhere between my book being my lover and my master. I love it and I am a slave to it. I dream about it (literally and figuratively). I loathe it. The process of writing, of trying to craft something for which I have little skill, is both a marvelous journey into the souls of these characters, who are asking me to tell their story, and a mad obsession to dance with the monster.
I’m relying on my experience as an avid reader, the fact that I have a story to tell and that I’m a talker (verbal story teller), but writing and writing well is an entirely different thing. I'll never be a Margaret Atwood or Joyce Carol Oates. And I’m trying to do this on top of a full time job/career (which I love and love spending time doing), the family, blah, blah, blah!
A part of me (big part of me) would love to be able to write full time; to spend my early mornings like I do now sitting peacefully (although the brain storm in my mind the last two days hasn’t been any fun) for a few hours; then go for a run; then come back and write/edit for a few more hours; then have lunch with a girlfriend; then come home and read, maybe clean the house (on second thought, no); then have dinner with Kevin make a few phone calls to family and friends; read; then off to sleep. Yes, I would love my days to be filled this way.
But, in order to do the above, a writer has to be published, so there’s an income. The mortgage, utilities, car payment and student loan debt demand their due. And in order to become published, a writer has to have a completed book. And in order to have a completed book, a writer has to carefully craft the book. And then, here I am all over again, back at the beginning. I doubt that I have the skill to craft this monster.
I’m in a master mind group and we’re reading Think and Grow Rich. As I was lamenting my current state as a failing writer yesterday morning to Kevin, he reminded me of the story about Darby (an interesting sign and a story for another time) and his gold mine. The story goes that this character named RH Darby had a dream of finding gold ”out west” and heads for Colorado. He gets some equipment and a small crew and has a little success—he finds GOLD. But the vein dries up quickly and he abandons his dream and sells the equipment to the junk man. Well, the junk man is no dummy. So, he finds himself a mining engineer, uses the equipment he purchased dirt cheap from ol’ Darby and strikes it BIG. The junk man takes millions of dollars of ore from the mine. As it turns out, Darby was only three feet from the mother lode, but he didn't know it.
The moral of story: never, never, never give up. Find an expert if need be (the mining engineer steered to junk man to the fault line where the gold was). Before success comes, most people are met with temporary defeat.
I’m listening to Kevin and thinking to myself--ok, this is good, I know this, I’ve had this experience before, on all my fingers and toes a hundred times over--I know this experience of defeat and doubt.
I’ve been given a second chance at life that most people do not have. I’ve had to persevere through some of the roughest things life can throw at someone. And if I had given up, well, this story would never have been told.
I guess that damn fault line is right around here somewhere—I’m only a mere three feet from success!
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