writersguide

Diane Farr Reveals the Secret

The Big Secret: Why You Haven't Written That Novel

by Diane Farr

If you are reading this, you are doubtless a writer. Whether you have actually written anything or not, published or unpublished, world-famous or utterly unknown, you would not be reading this article if you did not feel that strange tug pulling at your soul. You know the one I mean. The urge to cover paper with your words. The urge to give form to the formless. The desire to capture, reveal, and communicate that which is nebulous, indeterminate and elusive. You are someone who snatches at the moments of your life as they fly by, trying to pin them on paper and preserve them like rare insects. You feel sure, somewhere deep within you, that you could not only stop Time, you could imprison it forever and pass it on to future generations like a quilt in a cedar chest—simply by creating, with the sheer power of your words, something solid, something concrete, something one can read.
You, my friend, are a control freak.
The problem with being a control freak—which you have probably noticed by now—is that so many things in life are outside your control. Perfection is not achievable. Intellectually, you know that; you've heard the platitude a million times. You've probably said it yourself. But in your heart, you don't believe it. If you are a writer (which you are), you will not be satisfied with anything less than perfection, at least in your writing. After all, it is your writing. Your very own. It is important to you in ways nobody else could possibly understand. Over this, if in no other area of your life, you should have power! And yet, somehow, you simply cannot master it. Why is that?
In response to the fire burning within you, or perhaps in an attempt to douse it (since it is, after all, an uncomfortable thing to live with), you have written many things. You can't help yourself. You probably started scribbling in childhood. And most of the things you wrote have wound up in the garbage can, haven't they? They were dreadful. Sophomoric. Maudlin. Dull. Embarrassing. Whatever they were, they weren't good enough. Perfection eluded you. And not only perfection—mere acceptability eluded you. Mediocrity was the highest mark you could hit. Your writing vaguely resembled the writing of ______ (fill in the blank with the name of a writer whom you intensely admire), but was nowhere near as good.
It is a terrible thing to want something that badly, try, and fail. It is worse when one feels, at the outset, that the thing one is attempting is something one ought to be good at. You know you can do this. Why can't you do this? Arrgh!
If you are a writer who felt drawn to read this particular article, one about "getting started," I would bet dollars to doughnuts that you haven't written anything in a while. Maybe a long while. Maybe you've never written anything at all (since you tell yourself the "kid stuff" doesn't count). But it's time. You feel the tug. Maybe you feel it so strongly that it keeps you up at night, or makes you cranky and restless, or infests your dreams with vivid, TechniCOLOR plots that evaporate when you awake. But despite the clamoring of the muse within you, you feel paralyzed. The enormity of the task overwhelms you. You are absolutely certain that if you begin, you will not finish, so what's the point? Or if you finish, your work will stink, so what's the point? Or if you finish, and the work is good, nobody else will think so, so what's the point?
I'll tell you what the point is. You're a writer. A writer writes. I know you don't have time to write. Nobody has time to write. Nevertheless, you will be miserable until you do. I know your work sucks, but I'll tell you a secret: everybody's work sucks. You know that writer you admire so intensely? The one whose voice you subconsciously borrowed early on? Somebody out there—probably lots of somebodies—can't stand that writer.
Every writer has a different magic charm, an incantation that makes the words flow. Here's mine (and God bless the writer who passed it on to me!): give yourself permission to write junk. Consider it a warmup. Promise yourself that whatever you are writing today, it doesn't count. You are simply exercising. After all, even Michael Jordan never went out on the court without a warmup. So get out there and lope around the track a time or two. Throw those air balls. Embarrass yourself. It doesn't matter. Spew out a few reams of unprintable trash. It's the Nike approach: Just Do It.
Now, I realize that this advice doesn't apply to your special circumstances. You've got talent. You're too good to waste your time in a silly warmup exercise. And the last thing you want to do is write reams of unprintable trash! You want to write a masterpiece or nothing at all. But that's why you've written nothing at all.
Hm. Okay. You decide to try it.
And you will immediately encounter the next hurdle: you will only pretend to do the exercise. You will pretend to give yourself permission to write junk. Secretly, you will still try to write something terrific. You just can't resist trying to control the outcome. You think/hope: "Oh, I get it. If I let go of the control thing, and stop trying to censor myself, I'll start writing and it will be wonderful."
Nope. Sorry. You will start writing, but what you write won't be wonderful. It probably will be, in fact, garbage. But did you notice the phrase that just slipped in there? "You will start writing . . . "
At the end of the day (or the week, or the month), instead of a stack of blank paper, you will have a stack of filled pages. Filled pages are an infinite improvement over blank pages, no matter what they are filled with. Don't look too closely at them; just riffle through them. Place them on the edge of your desk and admire their heft. Marvel at how much you've written. Even if its only five pages, or three, or two, it's that many more pages than you had before you started.
True, actually reading the pages will cause you to mutter, "Ouch." But as you glance at a paragraph or two, here and there you will see a spark of something that might be salvageable. And this is the big, important secret that eludes us control freaks in our quest for instant perfection: in writing, unlike basketball, you can analyze the shot you just missed, figure out exactly why and how you missed it, completely erase the sucker if you have to, and take your shot again. And again. For however many tries it takes. And the beauty of it is, only the final try matters! Nobody will ever know how long it took you to get it right. And when you finally hit the mark and move on, trying for the next shot, guess what? It's easier this time, because your game has magically improved.
It won't be perfect. But it'll be better. And the more you do it, the better you will get. Writing is hard work. But it does get easier. Your problem right now is, you're out of condition. That's why you stumble around, take feeble stabs at writing from time to time, and feel continually frustrated by your own ineptitude. That voice within you, telling you that you have a calling, is right. You do have talent. You may even have genius. All you need is to get yourself into condition.
You can't, you simply can't, go through life as one of those poor sods who meets writers at parties and tells them (lamely), "You know, I've always wanted to write." Trust me. You don't wanna be a wannabe. That's no epitaph for an immortal like yourself.
Okay, fine, I'll make it easy for you. I'll give you step-by-step instructions and walk you through the first part. But after that, you're on your own, okay? Okay. Ready?

Step One: Get off the Internet and open that word processing program.
Step Two: Go to the center of the page and type "Chapter One."
Step Three: Hit the return key twice.
Step Four: Hit the left tab key once.
Step Five: Give yourself permission to write junk.
Step Six: Type something.

You're on your way, kid. And you're gonna be great.

Diane Farr was first published at the age of eight when the Bakersfield Californian printed a sample of her poetry. She has spent most of her life with her nose in a book, sometimes reading, sometimes writing. When she comes up for air, she enjoys travel and theater. Diane is a published playwright and award-winning actress. Her critically-acclaimed debut novel is The Nobody (NAL Signet, Jan.'99)