The Final Screwup

The final screwup is my screwup and it's the screwup I always make when I screwup.

I began writing because I discovered a world where I could express myself until I was finished.  That luxury is not available for very many people very often.  You have something you want to say?  A coffee date with your friend will end.  Someone's ear will get sore on the telephone.  Your therapist's buzzer will ring.  It will get dark.  Someone will fall asleep.  Someone will reach the limits of what they can stand to listen to and snap.  

I can talk longer than anyone can stand to listen.  

And I get it.

When I'm the listener, I'm like that too.  Someone wants to go off on a rant that literally goes on for hours?  I can't stand it.  I might be very happy to hear everything they have to say in manageable ten-minute chunks, but not a neverending verbal tirade.  

So, I shut my mouth and opened my hands.  Through a novel format, I can talk about whatever I want for as long as I want.  I can go over the text and perfect it, smooth out the wrinkles, make it more interesting, and say exactly what I want to say in exactly the right way.  It's beautiful.  So often I say the wrong thing, but when I write it, it's as close to perfect as it's going to get.  

It's also extremely pleasurable to write the book I want to read, but it has a downswing, which is the screwup I'm alluding to.  I have very little interest in reading other people's books.  My husband reads to me for at least one date night a week.  Anything he reads is cloaked in the power of his personal mystique and doused in his credibility, even if the writing is trite, but I rarely read anything by myself.  I have probably read four books this year.  This makes me feel like an incredibly selfish writer.  

People often want me to look at their work, or tell me about their work, and offer my opinion.  It makes me want to look around to see if there's anything I can use to light myself on fire.  Stopping, dropping, and rolling is an effective ender of conversations if there ever was one.  Mostly, there's nothing handy and I have to endure the conversation or the paper stuffed in my hands.

This is usually what happens.  I look over the first page and notice a lot of problems with their writing on a technical level.  If I were to get out my handy red pen and start marking it up, I would make the author cry, because they would have looked over it carefully to make sure there were no grammatical errors.  Yet, effective writing is not merely free of grammatical errors.  Notice I did not say 'creative writing'.  I said 'effective writing'.  I was not trained in 'creative writing'.  I was trained in 'effective writing'.  Thus, when I edit, I cut anything that doesn't move.  Think of it as throwing out anything that doesn't spark joy and doesn't serve a strong purpose.  

Naturally, I can't say what I think or mark up the paper.  I'll crush their soul or piss them off.  Little do they know that when I'm alone with my manuscript, I make it bleed and refuse to listen no matter how hard it screams.  I can't even explain that to the person who is showing me their work.  They won't believe that I take my precious words and cut them viciously.  Going soft on my edits will not produce extraordinary work.  But the person in front of me is very new to writing and very tender.  They don't understand the bigger reasons for the edits and unless I am carefully diplomatic, they'll think I'm a monster.

Of course, I am a monster, but let's not get into that now.

Instead, let's talk for a moment about the mistakes I have printed into books that I have sold (or tried to sell) in bookstores.  YES!  There have been mistakes because I used to go easier on myself.  There will always be mistakes, but I wouldn't be a novelist if I didn't grind myself to dust trying to remove them.  Whoever is showing me their work is merely enjoying the creative process and is unprepared for what I have to do a manuscript to get it up to snuff.  There isn't just one round of brutal editing.  There are FIVE!  And more if I don't think the book is ready.  If I find too many mistakes during the last round, then we go again.

The long and short of it is that their writing isn't good enough and I can't tell them.  I don't know if that isn't also true about my writing no matter how much effort I put into it, and I don't feel like being persecuted because I'm in the middle of the learning process.  What I do know is that no matter how much someone claims to be ready to hear criticism, they're not.  I can't walk around setting people on fire and then trying to put it out with my spit.  They need encouragement, not criticism.  AND SO DO I.

This happens when I'm supposed to read other people's work online too.  I start reading something and I'm supposed to offer a favorable critique, but I can't. So I say nothing.

This is my greatest screwup as a writer.  

I will never build a strong group of author buddies who love my work, share it, I love their work, share it, and we're all enriched by each other's fan bases.  

No matter how well I write, this will always bite me in the bum and handicap me - the greatest screwup of all.

Hopefully, next time I'll be closer to being ready to release 'Hidden Library' and I'll have something to promote.  Hopefully.