Early & Alone #77: Untangling
On the work of separating writing from working
A couple of weeks ago, writer and all-around literary community rockstar
ran a mini 1000 words challenge (mini because it was six days as opposed to the flagship #1000wordsofsummer two-week challenge) in which she sent out an encouraging email each day calling on readers to write 1000 words every day. For the first time in a long while, I participated. No, I didn’t successfully write 1000 words every day, but I DID write every day, which is no small feat for me these days.I noodled around on a little story for six days, chipping away at the idea in my head, trying to get at something, find some truth in the words I was typing. I wondered if I could actually finish something—follow through with a beginning, middle, and end. The end is my kryptonite. Fiction is a strange creature for me. It often feels fun and frothy, writing zippy dialogue and dropping in little details from my life like breadcrumbs, describing characters’ outfits like it’s a Sweet Valley High book.
But then I hit the middle, that part where something has to HAPPEN to these fun characters I’ve created. Oh shit, I remember. These beautiful little avatars can’t just walk around and chat like Sims characters. Plot. It’s a thing. So then I obsess about what should happen. I try to keep writing, hoping the characters will just…do something. Sometimes they do, but it’s usually just more window dressing, world building. I think and think, in the shower, while walking the dog, and try to come up with potential conflicts and resolutions. For this particular story, the idea was to describe a community of mothers of teenaged girls who experience a kind of hysteria epidemic from a detached point of view. So I did that. But I got stuck. On the sixth day, I felt close to something, but just left the girls and their mothers there, suspended in that Google doc, waiting for what happens next.
In all of my reading and conversations with other writers, not writing usually comes down to this essential bit—it’s not a lack of ideas or motivation or time that blocks us—it’s fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of visibility, yes, but also fear of the unknown. I set out to write a little story based on an idea and I didn’t know what was going to happen. I hoped I would figure it out and no doubt I would, if I kept going. But it’s the keeping going in the face of that uncertainty that is the hardest part.
I don’t know if I will go back to those girls and their mothers. It was mostly just an exercise, a challenge to myself. On the third day of the mini1000, Jami wrote in her email about some necklaces of hers that had gotten tangled, and how she needed to work to unknot them, and how when she finished, it was an amazing feeling. Of course, it was a metaphor for writing. It always is.
For me, the untangling work is untethering writing from expectation and obligation. I’ve often described being a writer as feeling like I have homework every night of my life. And every day that I don’t write, I feel a terrible sense of guilt and failure. And that’s because I’m equating writing with work, with a task that needs to be done. But the real work of writing and creating isn’t a task. It’s ongoing, ever-shifting. There are cycles.
One night during the mini1000, I sat down at my computer and wrote for a bit, then took the dog for a walk. It occurred to me that I’d chosen to write rather than turn on the TV or scroll through my phone or read a book. And that hour I’d spent playing with words had been fun, a kind of entertainment, just like reading or watching TV. And though I likely won’t ever have a finished product, a full story I can try to publish, as a result of that writing session, it was a lovely way to pass the time. It wasn’t working. It was writing. It was playing. It was untangling.
Admittedly, this untangling feels like a Gordian knot. After that lovely week of playful writing, I haven’t written anything else. Even writing this newsletter seemed like a Herculean task. I guess because it’s January and everything feels hard right now. But, like every time, when I do actually commit to the words, they come, as they always do, and I feel better, at least for a little while. So thank you for helping me unknot myself, bit by bit. It means a lot.
Bright Spots
I’ve discovered a reality TV show that was created in a lab for me—The Dog House UK. It’s streaming on HBO Max and like most other British reality TV, it’s comforting and heartwarming. It’s about a rural English dog rescue agency that pairs pups with people and I love it so much.
A friend sent me a post from this Instagram account last night and I proceeded to go DEEP down a childhood nostalgia hole. It was a delight! GAP ads, My So-Called Life clips, credit sequences from shows like David the Gnome and Life Goes On, pages of teen magazines—it has it all!! I will def be checking out the podcast as well.
If you love epic novels, I highly recommend Maggie Shipstead’s Great Circle. And if you’re interested in learning more about the Deaf community, check out Sara Novic’s True Biz.
This issue of the new Substack by Emily J. Smith deeply resonated with me.
I love Heardle. Did you know there’s now Heardle Decades? Obsessed.
Lastly, did Gizmo write this?
I loved True Biz!