The Power of "Just Start"

Imagine your writing life as your best friend, your closest love. How do you romance it?

A few years ago, I remember workshopping a “final” version of a novel revision. I hoped the manuscript was ready to send to my agent, at last. I sought the feedback from a small group of beta readers, other published writers that I was lucky to know and exchange writing with.

My beta readers took time to really think about the story’s complicated structure, which moved between narrators and time.

I asked them some questions:

Where did they fall into the "dream" of the book?

Where did they fall out, get distracted or confused?

When the feedback came in, I was disappointed to hear the manuscript still had things to fix. It wasn’t ready for the agent, after all. So I gathered the pages of notes and made a master list of areas to look at more closely. Where I hadn't quite delivered what I wanted.

Of course, with feedback, especially feedback in quantity, there are some rules to keep your sanity. Extreme likes or dislikes are suspect. Opposing views cancel each other out. You look for repeating comments. What many people noticed is often worth your notice. And I was feedback savvy, since this novel was my fourteenth book.

But still, it was hard to hear. For me, feedback is rarely a YES! feeling. It’s more like a big sigh, then time to reflect, and most often acceptance.

The danger is: in the process I can fall out of love with my story.

Falling In, Falling Out

It’s a day of love, Valentine’s Day, today. I'm telling you this story because (1) you may have fallen in and out of love with your writing too. You might believe that experienced, published writers don't go through this relationship challenge with their art. They do, we do. It's normal. Ego gets slammed, no matter how gentle the comments, how right-on the suggestions.

My first reaction: It's not perfect? Really? My agent is waiting and I’m late!! You say this to yourself, never to anyone else; you wouldn't be that foolish. But doubt can haunt you for a while, like finding out something really bad about a person you love dearly.

What do you do with this new knowledge, this new way of seeing them? Do you say, "Get lost," and move on? Because you know it's going to take some work to get the love back.

It took me about five weeks. The printed-out comments and the manuscript itself languished on my office shelf. I got busy with teaching, four new online classes and an all-day workshop in Boston. I started reading more--three books I loved, in different genres. I painted a bedroom wall sunshine yellow. I handwrote a few letters to friends (I still do that). I made soup. I didn't worry about the manuscript sitting and waiting for my verdict.

How much do you trust yourself?

Well, yes, I did worry a little. I thought about it sometimes and felt a rush of anxiety. What if I never touched it again? What if I just stopped writing, forgot I am a writer?

Beyond the worry was trust. As I said, I've been here before. I know the ego needs a while to lick its wounds, to settle down. My perspective needs to realign. I need to fall in love with my story again--and that can't happen when I am only looking at its warts.

Looking for something to read one evening, I rummaged through my writing books and found Dani Shapiro's Still Writing. It's about how to keep going, something I usually don’t need. But tonight, in the slump of a bad manuscript affair, I did.

Just start, it said. Get back into it, one sentence at a time.

I fell asleep, thinking about the process of just starting. The next day, a change had kicked in. I was cleaning out some old teaching files and came across a writing exercise I loved—and although I don't remember where it came from, whose class I learned it from, please let me know if you know (see below)!

Along with the exercise were my own notes and a free write I’d done years ago, when I first began writing this novel I was now struggling to finish. No big surprise, the free write was about the very section I’d just received so much feedback about.

I'd taken the exercise prompts and created backstory about one of the characters. As I read the rough writing again, I fell in love! I love this character, she’s one of my all-time favorites, ever. She is cranky, fearful, talented, and a badass.

My family went off to their jobs and school. I opened the manuscript on my laptop and began to read a couple of chapters. Not half bad, I thought, getting interested again. I took a deep breath and turned to the feedback. Struck gold! An idea came, how to solve one of the questions. I began to type.

I looked up two hours later. The house was still silent, just me and the furnace clicking away. But my book was my dear friend again. I’d fallen back in love.

You can fix things with love

I’m no psychologist but I have witnessed, in my own life, that things fix better when there’s some love, affection, even neutrality. Versus dislike, avoidance, hate. Consider your book relationship like your people relationships. Sure, you can get tired of each other. You can even discover nasty stuff. But if there’s love, you can come back to an agreement: You're in this for the long haul.

Try the exercise that saved my book. Celebrate Valentine's Day with your writing, if you wish.

Your Weekly Writing Exercise

Choose a character or narrator in your current writing project, someone you'd like to get to know in a new way. Spend no more than five minutes freewriting on each of these prompts. Take them in order. Set a timer--it's easy to go over the five-minute limit, but the game is not to.

Prompts
1. Legacy
2. Totem
3. Sustenance
4. First criticism
5. Listening in
6. Self-criticism
7. Fantasies
8. Reprise

There's no right way to do this, no explanation of what any of these prompts mean. What do they mean to you? Where do they send your writing?

Have fun!