Some people cut themselves. If you ask the more articulate of them they’ll tell you that they do it for the ability to concentrate the mind – that the pain is a cleanser.
Some people fast or wear hairshirts (yes, people still do that.) If you ask them you find that the feeling of vulnerability brings them closer to G-d.
Me? I’m hardcore. I write books. If you ask me, I’ll tell you I wonder why.
I sort of hope in a vague and wistful way that it can both provide a mental escape and bring me – and those who read me, maybe – closer to G-d. (This is a thoroughly non-denominational G-d, so rest easy. All that can be found in writing or reading unless they’re religious books, is an awareness of something bigger than the simple human spirit.)
Is that why I write? Nah. I wish it were. It would make sense.
I tell people I write for money. This too is a lie. Do I make as much money from it as if I were a secretary at some big and reasonably well-paying company? In the off years, just about. In the good years a little more.
But children, for this I work seven days a week, twelve hours a day and I’m never really “off.” The fact that I’m a writer has made my favorite downtime activity – reading – part of itself. And if you think that’s just talk, think again. It means there no longer is just pure enjoyment, but a thinking mind. “Uh… I see what she did there. Now, if I could…” On the bad days, I find myself reading some bestsellers in the fields I work in and going “And this is selling ten times what I do? Am I that bad?” Which not only kills all the enjoyment but makes me hate myself for petty and envious thoughts.
I’m fairly sure secretaries at least get to relax with a cheap mystery or romance, now and then. For the same money.
So why do I do it? I don’t know. I like to hurt myself, I guess?
It’s not something I would have thought about me, and it’s definitely not sexual. Something I found when I was young and dating was that if pain came in I went out. Even an accidental pinch that hurt was enough to pop me entirely out of the mood.
But I feel compelled to write and worse, after years of successfully avoiding writing the undignified scenes, after years of telling myself I’d torture my characters by the book and not getting involved with their suffering, I find myself writing this novel in an experience not unakin to swallowing shards of glass, and yet riveted by it, so that writing is happening at the oddest hours and as much as I can around the clock.
Both my characters are in deep emotional pain. No, all three of my characters, though one shouldn’t matter – but does. And my normal way to deal with this, up to two years ago, would be to tell the whole situation in two chapters, then move on with the plot and not dwell on it.
Now I’m wallowing in it, and in the character’s feelings. Not that it’s a belly button gazing novel. It’s not. There’s plenty of physical danger and action.
BUT the character’s feelings outline the character growth, and I need that for the big “transformation” scene deep in the belly of the beast. If there is insufficient suffering the transformation will not happen. It’s too early and I’ve only had about the quarter cup of coffee left over from yesterday’s writing jag. (Ew, cold coffee, ew. I hear you, but I want to get this post up, then eat breakfast, then work.) Insert in your own images about caterpillars and butterflies. Thank you.
What’s surprising me is both that I’m feeling the pain as if I were enduring it and that it’s utterly riveting and consuming. As you know from previous posts I’m always deeply suspicious of writing emotion this way. If I’m feeling it because I’m in their heads am I putting in enough for the reader? The answer used to be no. Now I’m not so sure, and it’s not like I’m being given a choice. I’m with the characters, in this roller coaster, twisting and winding along. No choice.
Also I’m the type of reader who, if the character is being kicked around too much, skips to the end to make sure it ends all right, then comes around to the scene again.
So, why would my own writing be different? Why is the character’s suffering oddly compelling? Will this make for a better book? Well, I hope so, though I can’t tell you for sure. And why do I do this? Can anyone tell me?
Crossposted at Mad Genius Club
According To Hoyt 