Alisa M. Libby

I was thinking about the self-created issues that get in the way of writing. I don’t mean life issues or even a day job that take me away from my book, but stuff I make up in my head that gets in the way. Here are a few:

* Procrastination/Distraction (aka, Netflix)
* Impatience (leads to inefficient use of time and general crazy head)
* Boredom (you’re bored with your book? well fix it. you’re boring yourself.)
* Ignoring the blessings of the muse (yes there is a lot of work to do and it looks ugly right now, but there might be some very lovely things about this book if you would just sit down and WRITE IT already.)
* Envy (yes, I know, it’s in the Big Seven but I think it belongs here, too. We do harm to ourselves as writers when we compare our in-progress work to the finished, polished, published works of other writers. It’s not fair to us or our works in progress.)
* Avoidance (Just sit down, just sit down in the chair and write. Just do it. Pretty please. No–no more internet research! No more note-taking or outlining! No!)
* Giving up

They are all thematically linked, of course. I was thinking of procrastination lately (most likely while procrastinating). I came across a meditation CD that would supposedly cure a person of this sin. But it begs the question – how would I not procrastinate from actually listening to the CD? It’s a conundrum.

I think I’ve been suffering most keenly from…wait, from ALL OF THESE. SIMULTANEOUSLY. The one that I realized recently was Avoidance, which is vaguely different from Procrastination. For me, Procrastination is “okay, time to write. Oh, but I’m hungry, why don’t I have a snack first. And while I have my snack, I’ll watch Angel on Netflix. And when I’m done with that, I’ll get another snack and browse Netflix for random movies.”

While procrastination is obviously bad, avoidance can be just as insidious – though it is dressed up in the best intentions. For example, I have a strong urge to scour library shelves and online catalogs in search for books to read to “research” my book. This results in a stockpile of books that I intended to read for research – which I have yet to do. I haven’t had time, I’m too busy trolling the internet for other books I must read! If I were actually reading these books, that would be called research, fair enough. But the endless searching is Avoidance – maybe even Resistance to sitting down and getting any work done? It creates real problems – it takes time away from writing, it adds these to-read books to my already-overwhelming to do list, AND – most dangerous of all – I’m convincing myself that I CAN’T write this book right now. Apparently I just don’t have the correct words or information or something or other in me, and I need to spend time SEARCHING for it before I start writing. I could search forever. I could find the most perfect research books. But even if I were to read these illuminating volumes, that still leaves the writing of my book. Which I have been avoiding.

So what am I going to do about this? I’ll report my plan of attack in my next post.

I’ve been here, writing. For the most part. There were some holidays scattered in there, and snacks, and frittering away time on Netflix. But I have done a bit of writing. One week in I hit a wall: “I hate this book, it’s no good, I don’t want to write it any more.” I could feel myself giving up, and it wasn’t just a sad feeling, it was scary. Will I give up on every book? Will I never finish another novel?

So I took a little break. Did the aforementioned snacking and reading and whatnot. Then I went back to it and yes, it has some problems, some still unanswered questions. But it isn’t all bad, I don’t think. Not all of it. There’s something here I can work with.

I could continue down the path of “Writing is hard! This is stupid! It’s not good enough I hate it I quit!” That path is wide open and all too easy to take (along with drowning in Netflix and ice cream and my own misery). But perhaps for now I will choose optimism. You can choose these things, you know. The book is far from perfect, far from done. Far from even figured out yet. I really don’t know what it will be. But I’m ready to stick around for a while and find out.

In other news, I visited the MFA yesterday. I’m now a huge fan of Odilon Redon and Randolphe Bresdin – very beautiful black and white fantastical etchings, a few of Redon’s are dedicated to Edgar Allan Poe (that’s the sound of worlds colliding). Above is The Reader, Redon’s portrait of his teacher, Bresdin. So peaceful, so thoughtful…It’s a relatively small exhibit of their work (along with a million other things that I loved there which I will talk more of later) but it’s only there for a few more days so if you are in the neighborhood I highly recommend it.

This is how it happens: this is the moment where I become disillusioned and cranky and worried and doubtful, and I break up with a book. Or, if not a complete break up, something even more insidious: I take a break from it. “I think I’ll put this project aside for a while and work on something else.” But that hasn’t worked for me! Why should I think it will work, now?

I have a big revision ahead of me, is the thing. Staring me in my scared little face. I don’t really know what I can salvage from this draft, and I feel so thwarted; it feels so much like starting over. And then there are those other ideas, just waiting for some attention…perhaps I should attend to them?

But I can’t. I won’t. I made a commitment to focus on one project. Now is not the time for weakness or doubt or a wandering creative eye. Am I a woman or am I a mouse?