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

[pegkerr]

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.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Hi

You don't know me, and I hope you don't mind me chiming in -- I found your LJ through several odd jumps, but I've continued to read it because I find your Glare Reports and other related posts strangely reassuring. I'm also a writer and a mom, have also published two novels and am working on a third which is kicking my ass, and I also feel just about every day of my life that I am a terrible writer and should just give up. Honestly, finding someone else whose life has these resonances with mine is a bit of a treat.

About the decision trees -- as splagxna said, you CAN do it over. This is something I learned to some degree with my second novel, and am learning much more with the current one. You can go all the way back to where you made a decision, take the other road and start again, and yeah it's an awful wrench and makes you feel that you've wasted months/years of your life, but I've seen stories that I thought were dying on me jump to life again when I've done this, and that makes it worthwhile. I have tended to want to have a finished book on the first or second draft -- the first time through I did. But the longer we write, the more complex the challenges we set for ourselves, and the longer and harder the process can become. (Someone who's working on her first novel asked me last month if it got easier as you went along, and I regretfully had to tell her that, no, in my experience it just got harder and harder). I made a wrong decision partway into the current book -- not impossibly wrong, but a decision that took the story in the direction of being less interesting than it might -- and I've had to go back to that point and start again, and there's been a lot of throwing out of material that is, in and of itself, not bad; but also a new jolt of energy, which can only be a good thing.

The other thing I do, which may or may not work for you, is play scenarios in my head a lot. Walk along the different branches of the decision tree and see which one feels the best. The good thing about this is that I can do it while cleaning house or buying groceries or riding the subway or doing any other kind of routine chores that don't engage too much of my mind; it's not confined to the hours that I can get at my desk. It does mean that at certain points I'm living more in a world of fantasy than in the real world, and I have to pull myself out of it pretty forcibly to do things that _do_ require thought. But it's helpful.

Anyway, all I really have to say is, best of luck, and as long as writing these entries helps you, please do, because it helps me to read them.

maggie h

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Hi, Maggie! So pleased you spoke up! I'm agog to learn about you and your books, since I like to compare experiences with other writers who are also mothers. Do you balance a day job outside of the house, or is the writing and the mothering your only work? How old are your kids?

Glad you found my journal. Will you be setting up a LJ yourself? I'd like to learn about your situation and your books--if you're shy to post about it here, e-mail me at peg@pegkerr.com to tell me about them. Thanks!