Writing Limbo

Sometimes I write something that I know is good.  I mean, earth-shattering, mind-blowing, gut-wrenching good.  Sometimes I’m not so sure.  Right now I’m experiencing the latter.  It happened in “Elmer Left” and it’s happening in “10,000 Lines.”  I call it writing limbo.

I kind of float around–one toe dipped in heaven, the other scorching in hell–trying to find my niche, trying to find my flow.  Sometimes the flow doesn’t come and I am forced to write and rewrite, write and erase.  Lately I have been struggling my way through a couple of pages, re-reading them, and ultimately scrapping them.  It makes me a little sad to see the words disappear in a cloud of electronic smoke, but it’s better to kill them now before I get too attached.

My friend and editor, Jolene, once said to me, “Kate, sometimes the editing process is about ‘killing your darlings.'”  So true.  A writer might grow attached to a particular sentence or paragraph or even a character and have a hard time letting them go, even if they clearly do not fit.  I have faced this problem before.  I have lingered lovingly over sentences thinking, “but it’s so well-crafted!  Just look at the imagery in this sentence–it’s beautiful!  I can’t cut it.  Oh no, surely not this sentence.  I’ll let this one go…”  But in the end, I know when something isn’t right.  I know when a tumor should be removed…even if it is a particularly lovely tumor.

So, out with the editing knife.  Time to carve up my story.

Bit o’ my art

Lately, I’ve been carving as I go, sculpting my story carefully so I will not have so hack away at it down the road.  I’m like a child with a wad of play-doh, rolling it into a snake and then deciding, “No, it should really be a dinosaur.  Wait–maybe a bird’s nest instead.  No, I’ve got it!  A plate of spaghetti!”  Then I make and remake the spaghetti until it is perfect and then move on.

This kind of writing is tedious.  It’s not fun.  I would much rather get a hold of a good flow and let it carry me from one chapter to the next.  The flow might not be perfect, but I can correct it at the end.  The snake can always be molded into spaghetti down the road.

But for now, I will write and re-write until the prose angels lift me up and carry me away from writing limbo.  Hopefully that will happen soon.  In the meantime, I think I’ll take a walk…or watch American Beauty or paint my toenails or cook some Thai food.  And then I’ll return to my writing, inspired or not, because writing is my job and I’m not going to love it every day.

But I do love it most days and that is enough to carry me through the sludge.  That is enough to make me sprout wings and rise out of writing limbo on my own accord.  Sorry prose angels.  I’m not waiting around for your help.  I’ve got shit to do.