(no subject)

Here's an appalling story I got from anglachel1. Are you a Democrat who thinks you've registered to vote? Well, you may be in for rude surprise on Election Day.

Glare Report 10/13/04: Research continues; mulling decision trees and (lack of) self-confidence

Again, I didn't use my slice of time tonight for writing, but for watching the debate. It was hard on my blood pressure, but I refuse to feel guilty for doing that instead of writing.

I continued reading the Moira Harris book today, finishing the chapter on ice palaces. Never got around to calling the Historical Society about the Olsen book.

I was thinking about decision trees today. I have never had much confidence about plotting; it's the area of writing about which I feel the most hesitancy. I think that one thing that makes writing seem so difficult for me is that I have a hard time a) thinking of plot solutions and b) successfully deciding between plot solutions. Once you decide what you're going to do on a certain plot point, you close off all the other solutions. If I make Jack an architect, it's a different book than if he is the structural engineer. Today, I started actually thinking, well, maybe he doesn't work for the architectural firm at all. Maybe he's, I dunno, an ice carver that Solveig meets.

I know that I increase my angst and increase the work for myself by going back and second-guessing decisions that I've made months ago. I guess this is part of my problem of having an inner critic that is so much more muscular than the inner cheerleader. I think of an idea, and I can see so much more easily what is wrong or cliche or stupid about it than I can see how I have the skill to write it and make it shine, make it speak truth, make it solid and convincing and boffo and the best damned thing I could do to solve that plot problem.

I think I know that my biggest handicap as a writer is lack of self-confidence. I say this with hesitation (with lack of self-confidence!) because it seems somehow . . . unseemly for a writer who has sold books professionally to admit this. But it's absolutely true. It's such a hassle that I doubt myself so much. It makes not just plotting but writing in general so much more difficult. It slows down my production, it causes me endless angst, which after a while gets sooooooo tiresome, it makes me (sometimes) rather agonized and tongue-tied about interacting with other writers and editors, people with whom I should be rights feel comfortable. And I fear (in my worst moments) that after a while it's a tremendous bore to the people who know me, not only to those who love me, but to those who know me only as a friend, or who interact with me as just a fellow writer.

I have been thinking about what I have been mulling over this past month, that I simply have to face the blank page, posting these Glare Reports, admitting that I don't know what the hell I am doing but sitting down every day to do it anyway. If my angsting gets tiresome, as I suspect it does, well, sorry. Feel free to go visit instead the journals of other writers who have a better idea of what they are doing. Come back in a year, and I might not be much further along. But I'm going to keep being honest about it, even this part of myself and my own process that I don't admire at all. And I'll keep trying to write. kijjohnson has said several times that she can hardly believe how nakedly honest I'm being about the whole process in this journal, and I suppose that's true. It may look vulnerable, even ridiculous at times, but being honest here has at least gotten me back to my slow, stumbling process of writing, instead of sitting mute with my hands folded. I hope you will be satisfied with that modest achievement, for now.