There was a girl and boy in the top year of my school that had been together since the last year of primary school. Everyone knew them, everyone was used to seeing them nuzzling each other’s necks, and equally as often, wringing them. One week they were in love, snuggled up on a bench, feeding each other crisps, giggling, whispering “I love you”, and the next, they’d be on opposite sides of the dining hall, glaring at one another, until one would storm off shouting “I hate you!” It was a cycle. Sulk, kiss, make up, declare love to world, disagree, scream, shout, declare hatred, and repeat. A rollercoaster, really, and the type of relationship my 13-year-old self vowed to avoid. And I did, very successfully... Until I decided I wanted to be a writer. While so far I may have managed to avoid a tumultuous love-hate relationship with another person, the truth is, I have one with everything I write, and everything I have ever written. In between the initial idea and submitting the finished, polished piece, just like the girl and boy in my school, I fall in and out of love with my writing more times than I could ever count. At some point, everything I have ever written has been both my proudest achievement and most disgraceful creation.
Writing, for me, is a rollercoaster – it’s up then it’s down, it can be dizzying, frightening, infuriating, and completely exhilarating. It can make me feel trapped and stuck, and yet it can be, and is, so freeing – and I know I’m not alone in my ride. It is said that the great Franz Kafka burned ninety percent of his work in his lifetime. Work, I’m positive, he once, even if only for a moment, loved. Writer friends of mine have also talked about how a story they loved wholeheartedly one day, was the worst thing they’ve ever written the next.
I’ve got to know the rollercoaster pretty well – I know the drops, climbs, hoops, and loops – and while it doesn’t make those scary plummets or numb lulls at all enjoyable, it makes it easier to keep on going. Why stop when you know the exciting bit is coming if you just hold on long enough?
The Exciting Climbs
The exciting climbs, full of hopeful anticipation, are one of the best parts of writing. You have a fresh idea, and although you haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of it yet you just know there is something there, and you can’t wait to see where you end up. Then there’s that lovely feeling you have once you have worked and worked on something and sent it out. Finally. Your work is out there, it’s being read, and maybe, just maybe, this will be the one that gets you ‘the call’.
The Drops
The drops can stop you dead. You’ll be in the throes of your lovely new world, writing quickly, passionately and perhaps with a crazed grin on your face, and it feels grand. Then you plummet. Maybe you break that promise of not reading any of your first draft back until you’re finished and ready to edit. You break the promise because it’s all going so very well, and you’re so proud of line seven in paragraph two because you almost sound like a real writer there, so you simply had to stop and read it over. And it isn’t as good as you thought. And that line... the seventh one in the second paragraph... you’re not sure about it. To be sure, you may read it again, and a few more times, until you’re convinced that the entire chapter, including line seven, was written by mashing your forehead against the keyboard and must be destroyed.
The first go-round of editing can be a time full of drastic drops for me, too. I’ll be two thirds of the way in -- months and hundreds of hours in -- and I suddenly worry that I have 100,000 words of utter plotless rubbish and flat 2D characters. “Have I even got a plot?” I ask myself. “Is my protagonist even likeable? I thought I liked him, but I would happily block him on Twitter right now and report him for a crime he didn’t commit”. It’s during the heart-sinking falls that I get tempted to call my old English teacher Mr Brown to congratulate him for failing me. The falls can be crippling and exhausting.
Hoops, Loops and Reasons to Carry On
The hoops and loops of the writing process are the most exhilarating, euphoric parts of writing, and in remembering that these will always come back around again, even after the harshest drop, we should use these as reasons to carry on. There’s that moment you laugh, genuinely, and out loud at a scene you wrote yourself and can’t quite believe you thought of such a punch line, and that time you read back your novel after leaving it in a drawer for longer than 13 days (my personal best) and enjoy almost every word. Then there’s that moment you finish your novel, and feel that overwhelming sense of pride that you have done it. This is my favourite loop, I think. Even above getting an encouraging letter from an agent, or seeing my name in print. Without anyone snapping at my heels, without deadline, without the promise of a single reader, a single word printed, and a single penny, I wrote a novel. I can actually call myself an author now, right? I can also call Mr Brown and cackle down the phone loudly and tell him to watch he doesn’t catch his jumper on my promotional stand in Waterstones next year, too.
For as long as you write, no matter how long the lulls, no matter how derailing the drops, and no matter how much you may want to yank on the emergency brake... don’t get off.
Lia is a mum-of-one, working as a copywriter and studying for a BA in English Literature and Creative Writing. Her first novel, Bubbles, is in the submission process and she is currently writing her second novel. She lives at home, in Hertfordshire, with her boyfriend, three year old, and stacks of clothes and books. Find her on Twitter here.
This was therapy for me today. Very much needed therapy! Thank you!
Thank you for your lovely comments!
Haha, Nia, I hope so too! I hope he is forever wonder-webbing and re-stitching his jumpers, all because of my book stands ;)
Victoria - beyond happy to hear you had an encouraging letter! A definite exciting loop and reason to keep on going - you're obviously on the right track and got further than so many others!
Angela - thank you for reading and sharing. Those quotes, especially the "Don't abandon..." one is so true. I always try to remember that in those moments where I just want to shut the laptop lid and declare myself useless, that on the other side of it, if I just push through, is usually a breakthrough moment. It is so true. We just have to keep on going!
I'm on a hoop and a loop and have a reason to carry on, just had that encouraging letter from an agent, suddenly my writing hasn't all been a waste of time. Great blog Lia, I'm just the same.