Keeping the Faith: Best-Selling Authors Tell What Keeps Them Writing
By Guest | July 24, 2011 |
Therese here. Today, returning guest Jen Haupt is with us. Jen is a frequent contributor to such publications as O, The Oprah Magazine, Parents, and Reader’s Digest, and she has a blog on the Psychology Today website called One True Thing. She’s currently collaborating on the memoir of humanitarian and fundraiser Elissa Montanti–the founder of Global Medical Relief Fund for Children, which helps children devastated by war and natural disasters, to be published by Dutton in summer 2012. I’m thrilled she’s with us today to talk about how to keep going even if you experience a crisis of faith with your writing. Enjoy!
Keeping the Faith: Best-Selling Authors Tell What Keeps Them Writing
I often write — and talk, and think — about finding faith beyond religion, in everyday life and the worlds that we create as writers. Five years ago I took a leap of faith and went to Rwanda. My excuse was a magazine assignment, but I was privately propelled by a quest to find — and to feel — something more. Something I didn’t fully understand and couldn’t explain. During the brief three weeks I spent listening to haunting stories of loss and forgiveness, I discovered a place within myself where I wanted to spend more time. I took long afternoon walks up into the lush green hillsides, thinking about the resilience of the human spirit, the interconnected pieces of forgiveness, trust, and grace. Faith.
When I returned home to Seattle I started writing a novel that’s still a work-in-progress. I’m used to writing to earn a steady paycheck, but the fiction has become my something more. It’s not the giant leap that going to Rwanda was, but rather a daily ritual of sometimes very small steps. I love this new place within myself that I’ve discovered and the world I’m creating. And yet, some days I question my skills, my characters, my stubborn refusal to let this story go… everything.
I started asking other authors how they keep their faith and commitment alive. Here’s a sample (with links that lead to full author Q&As).
Said Jane Smiley, author Private Life:
You just have a take it one step at a time and know that it’s all right to keep going —you can always fix it. And I do believe that you can always bring a novel to its best self — but that best self is never perfect. It’s in the nature of the Novel as a form to be missing something or other and you have to accept that.
From Jenna Blum, The Stormchasers:
When I’m writing something with the special IT factor, I just know. It’s like hearing a song on the radio you know will be a hit. Then there are far more numerous times when I’m working and working on a story component that’s necessary but stubbornly resistant. I just keep going until I find a solution or the writing’s as technically lucid as it can be.
Said Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed:
On a good day, writing fiction feels liberating. On a bad day, it can feel imprisoning. Because I write in the first person as people other than myself, this allows me to move past the boundaries and limitations of my own life and better understand the un-me, the other. When I hear actors talk about their work, they seem to describe a similar phenomenon.
Via Naomi Benaron, author of Running the Rift:
I know a story rings true when I am excited to write the next sentence. It’s a visceral feeling, really, almost like a vibration that wants to get out. When I lose faith, I turn to other writers for inspiration. I read until I reconnect with that hum and my next sentence sounds in my head.
From Dawn Tripp, author of Game of Secrets:
My heart broke for four years as I was writing Game of Secrets. That might seem a strange thing to say. It was a strange thing to feel. But it drove me. Writing is a dream of the body, not strictly of the mind, and even when I couldn’t quite see how the strands of the story would all come together, I somehow knew that heartbreak was a feeling I could trust.
Said Jessica Anya Blau, author of Drinking Closer to Home:
When you can’t listen to your head, listen to your stomach, it will never deceive you. Look at what you’re working on, then decide that it’s complete rubbish and should be abandoned like a flaming automobile. If your stomach relaxes at that thought, file the piece away to work on later (if ever). If your stomach roils at that thought, it’s telling you that what you’re doing is worth the time and you should carry on.
Said Debra Dean, author of The Madonnas of Lenningrad:
I follow the story that continues to haunt me, the one I wake up thinking about. It’s purely instinctual and not based in considerations of marketing or potential audience. I chose my husband the same way; on paper, he wasn’t the most practical choice, but he intrigued me. After that, marriage or novel, it’s a question of sticking to it, working and revising, for better or worse. Doubts will come — and some of them may be borne out — but you have to play to the end of the game to find out.
Said Heidi Durrow, author of The Girl Who Fell From the Sky:
I am beginning to understand that I serve my writing best if I put my faith into my obsessions. When I first started writing The Girl Who Fell From the Sky which is inspired by real incident, I tried to write the truth of what I imagined was the girl’s life. I got horribly stuck. It was only when I recognized I was obsessed with her story because it had something to do with my own life story that I was able to move forward with the work. When I have doubts about my work, I try to connect with the reasons I was initially enchanted with the idea and go from there.
Via Caroline Leavitt, author of Pictures of You:
For me, a story is alive when I’m obsessed by it, when everything reminds me of it, even eating a donut on the subway. Of course I have doubts. I get nauseous and terrified, but usually that’s because I’m looking outside myself, wondering if others will think I am crazy/stupid/career-killing for tackling this particular story. I try to live by John Irving’s words: ‘If you don’t feel you are on the edge of humiliating yourself, then what you’re doing probably isn’t very vital.’
Said Therese Fowler, author of Exposure:
Doubt is natural, and healthy—as long as you don’t let it paralyze you. Get some space from the work (3-plus days), then re-read what you’ve written with these questions in mind: Why should a reader care about these characters, this situation? What’s the take-away for the reader?
Said Jennifer Egan, author of A Visit From the Goon Squad:
Hang in there. If things don’t go your way in this round, they may very well the next.
How do you keep the faith and overcome doubt while writing?
Thanks for a truly inspiring post, Jennifer. Readers, you can learn more about Jennifer on her website and Psychology Today blog, One True Thing. Write on!
Photo courtesy Flickr’s ToniVC
Many thanks to today’s guest.
You can read more WU guest posts by visiting this link.
I simply pull out the most recent copy of (insert name) lit jnl and page to a story I find particularly lame, then say to myself, “Hey, if this guy/gal can get published, so can I.”
Like most things that repeat, the hardest one to do is the first one. It’s all new, and you’re not sure what you’re doing or why or how or definitely if any of it will work. After you finish the first novel, then you write another one, and maybe (hopefully) another one, you learn what works and what doesn’t (of course) but you also learn that struggle and doubt it part of the process, and the presence of struggle and doubt does not mean that there is something wrong. You’re doing everything right. This is just how it goes, and there’s nothing to do but keep going until you get to the end.
Sometimes when I write the hair stands up on the back of my neck and I get almost emotional about something I have just written. I say almost emotional because as a British man I don’t like to display emotion to the outside world – that just wouldn’t do :).
Unfortunately this emotion must be inside me but not on the page as current sales don’t suggest the reading public is getting the same buzz. Ho hum.
For me it’s all about remembering that I’ve done it before. If something isn’t exciting me at the time, or if something feels a bit flat, I remember that some of the things that frustrated me the most while writing became the stories I’m most proud of.
Once you’ve done it enough, you know you’ll eventually get there. It mat not be easy, and you may get sick of seeing the same thing over and over, but it’s the most satisfying when it’s finally rewritten, polished, and done.
Great guest post. I love the O magazine. :-)
Sometimes you just have to keep writing and getting past the hard parts before your faith gets rekindled. Or setting aside the story and working on something else, then returning to the story with fresh eyes and enthusiasm.
It’s always exciting to reach a place in the story when you are writing to see what happens next. Curiosity can fuel faith in a manuscript.
“And I do believe that you can always bring a novel to its best self — but that best self is never perfect. It’s in the nature of the Novel as a form to be missing something or other and you have to accept that.”
LOVE that, from Jane Smiley. Love love love love LOVE.
I also identify a lot with what Wally Lamb said. Thanks for the great roundup!
Being a writer of character-driven fiction, I don’t seem to need ‘faith’ to keep going. I just get into the character and let them take me. Maybe that’s just another way of saying what Christopher said about having done it before and not being concerned that it will happen again. Say, maybe that’s the faith you’re talking about…
Alex: Exactly. Right now at the day job, we’re working on a very stressful writing project. Some of the newer tech writers are freaking out; those who have done it enough know that worrying will get us nowhere. We’ve dealt with tight deadlines before and the world didn’t end, and so it goes again.
Same thing with fiction. Some days when I sit down to write, I either don’t want to after a long day at work, or what I write doesn’t necessarily excite me at times. But I’ve done it enough to know I’ll get there, and that stressing about it only makes things worse.
Butt in chair. Write. Repeat often has always worked for me. When you write enough, the feelings that stop some with doubt are familiar enough that you remember it’s all just part of the process.
All of these are great responses!
I like Caroline Leavitt response, that everything reminds you the story. and also i agree that some time you need to take some risks in order to feel you alive. other ways it all so boring, and useless.
Ooh, some gems in there. Thanks for this.
Wonderful!!!!!
Some really inspiring words there. Definitely something I’ll come back to when I’m feeling discouraged.
And I love that ‘On Writing’ is right next to this comment box. One of the most inspirational books on writing I’ve found.
Awesome post! Just what I needed to hear!
This is a wonderful list of encouragement to get through the tough writing times. Thank you for the excellent list, Jen!
So many of these resonated with me – Naomi’s most of all. “When you’re excited to write the next sentence …” oh, yes, what a feeling! In addition to seeking inspiration from other writers (especially in posts like this one), I often will just set aside what I’m working on and do some sort of random free-write, trying to purge whatever is in my head that’s mucking up my WIP. I had the wonderful experience this weekend of my main character making me laugh out loud as I wrote a scene. Moments like that are what keep me writing.
I’m still stuck in writing poetry and trying to find the story-teller in me, to move on to short stories and novels. (I end up writing stories in epic poetry instead!).
But as regards that upsurge of faith — well it’s such a physical, unmistakable feeling. If I re-read one of my poems 3, 6, 12 months later and it still moves me, it’s a success.
In the shorter time-frame of actually creating that work, you’ve got to step back from it for several days and then approach it again with fresh, objective eyes. If that unmistakable ‘strum’ of resonance is there, you’re on the right channel.
It always reminds me of acupuncture — when the needle hits the right place you feel the pulse of energy where the right connection has been made.
My favorite was Jessica Anya Blau’s ‘feel it in your stomach.’ I continue to strive to make an early project of mine work, even when I see that others recommend shelving your early work and moving on. Every time I contemplate the thought of leaving it shelved, my stomach twists. I also love Caroline Leavitt’s John Irving quote. I don’t like the feeling, but my stomach tells me it’s true.
Thanks Jennifer. There are so many times when I need to be reminded that this takes faith, and I happen to be in the midst of one of them. A perfectly timed post.
These last few posts have me really thinking about the physical reactions around faith — how I know in my body before I know in my head if something is right. I get it in my chest more than my stomach.
It is a feeling that goes from my head to the souls of my feet. It is like being visited by a third presence; the third element. We exist in polarities and opposites but there is something else that I strive to explain. It is us, the observer and something ever present that propels me to write and inspires me from the inside. This is a great post. Thanks for sharing and putting questions in my mind.
I always remember that Hemingway said, “All first drafts are shit,” and if he felt that way, it’s okay for me to feel that way.
I also identify with Caroline’s comment about novel obsession. That’s when it feels right to me–when the universe seems to nod at you often on your subject matter.
I loved this post. Thank you!
Erika, I have to disagree with Papa Hemingway: first drafts are the fertilizer for future drafts, but they are not shit! (lol)
I think only other writers can relate to this obsession thing, and my dear hubby is so glad that I have a broad community of writer friends to share my obsession with!
Great thoughts to read this morning as I get ready to dive back into the Revisions Cave. Thanks for sharing!
My favorite was #1 “You just have a take it one step at a time and know that it’s all right to keep going —you can always fix it. ”
It’s all new, and you’re not sure what you’re doing or why or how or definitely if any of it will work.