Dealing with the inevitability of self-doubt as a writer.
I love the creative process of writing, especially when I'm in the groove where the story seems to be falling together all on its own. If writing was like that every time, there would be a lot more books in existence, I think. Some days, the words flow out like a frozen bottle of ketchup—you have to drag them out one drop at a time.
Chapter eight of the new book was like that earlier this week. Although I had a sense for my characters' destination, getting there was almost as slow and difficult as the trip I was describing. (It's the Renaissance, they're on horseback, it's slow going.) It took me several attempts to get to the end, and I experienced many false starts along the way.
This is the time as a writer when the voice of doubt replaces the voice of the Muse. Let's call this imaginary phantom the Antimuse. The Antimuse is not a friendly creature. It's perpetually cranky, critical, and discouraging. It likes to whisper things like, "You suck. This story stinks. You're never going to make it."
It's hard to write when the Antimuse has your attention. I begin to question every word choice, every bit of dialogue, every idea that comes up. Discoveries become doubts, and new directions start to look like dead ends. I begin to second-guess every sentence, hitting the backspace key repeatedly as I try to find my way back to loving my work again.
The most important fact for me (or you, if you're a writer) to remember is that the Antimuse is a liar. That voice of doubt isn't limited to writers and other artists. It tries to discourage anyone who attempts to accomplish something monumental, from climbing a mountain to hitting a baseball to starting an online company, we are all plagued by doubts that we will fail.
But here's the thing, and I used to tell my Kids' Choir members this when I was a musical drama director for 1st-6th graders at my former church: trying and doing is a success all by itself. When the kids would be afraid of singing or acting, I reminded them that dozens of other kids didn't have the courage to even audition, much less rehearse and perform. The act of standing on stage and opening their mouths was a profound victory for each of them.
For those of us who write (or act, or draw, or play music, etc.), sitting at the computer and putting the words on the screen is an accomplishment that would put many other people in bed curled into the fetal position. (I know...I teach writing!) For a story (or a poem, but I'm a terrible poet), each sentence is a victory, a step further into the darkness of the unknown, another declaration of creation from the realm of our imagination.
No one knows how we do this. Philosophers and neurobiologists alike have studied the phenomenon of human creativity, but neither has come close to understanding how this process works, much less why we do it. I have a few theories about both of those ideas, but good blog topics are worth their weight in Muse dust, so I'll save the rest for another day.
To wrap up my story for today, however, I will say that I wasn't happy with how I ended chapter eight until I walked away from it for a couple of hours. In that interim time, the Muse returned with a simple idea that helped me tie it all together. Yesterday, I cranked out 660 words on chapter nine in about 30 minutes. She's shouting at me again. The cure for the Antimuse is to JUST KEEP WRITING!
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