How To Torpedo Your Creativity In 35 Short Years
If you're looking for a blog about learning how to finish your art, this ain't it. I'm going to tell you how I've done everything but finish...except once.
I wrote my first short story when I was 8; it was about a bunch of Mexicans who got drunk and had an orgy. I continued to write in secret, showing no one until the day I did. Picture it: Hawaii, 1980. I was 11. Being a blond haole (white person) made me a social outcast. I read early and voraciously. I wasn't doing well in school so they gave me some standardized tests: the results were 12th grade, 9th month in every subject. Hawaii public schools were substandard in those days and I'd basically educated myself. During most of the school day, I had an open book on my lap under the desk. I'd learned to be a stealthy reader, both there and at home. "Bedtime" meant a flashlight under the covers, continuing whatever story I'd been reading all day. Between home life and school, I'd created my own little world. My vivid imagination kept my my life livable and it was natural I put some of it down on paper.
After the test, my school didn't know what to do with me. I'm going to say in advance to any parent who might be reading this: NEVER label your kid "gifted." I could write a whole other blog "why." That said, my "gifted" class was my salvation. 2 or 3 days a week I'd mount the rickety stairs to the old, wooden part of the school built in the plantation days. The floors creaked with every step. My teacher Mrs Sperry was my savior. She gently encouraged my creativity in a way no one had ever done. I felt safe enough to write a story for her and at 11, I became a published author. Until that point, I'd never been proud of anything. Elated, I took a copy home to show a family member. I begged her to read it. She reluctantly snatched it from me, leafed back one page, cursed and threw it at me. "You didn't even read it." I said. I was crushed, and had no idea why she was shaking and cursing. A few months later, we moved away and I never saw Mrs Sperry again. I was grateful for what she'd given me.
The book that contained my published writing disappeared from my home immediately. Even though it was stocked in every school library in the state, I've never been able to locate another copy. My creativity needed another outlet so I learned to play the trumpet. I was so good I got into high school marching band a year early. But writing for me is like breathing; I could only hold it for so long. I started writing stories anonymously, circulating them around my fairly large school. I learned through a couple friends who had been pushing my wares that SENIORS were reading my stuff and asking for more, and I was only an 8th grader. I wrote a short chapter every day or so. People wanted to know what was going to happen next. What I enjoyed more was starting a story and passing it around, letting others contribute. I used my clandestine popularity to "out" bullies and punish bad teachers. They were passed around on an underground railroad. Power of the pen, indeed. One of my stories earned me detention when I wrote one about the Social Studies teacher having a dildo addiction. I still don't know who snitched on me but I was nailed by handwriting analysis. My best friend had illustrated it for me. Priceless. I didn't give him up. After I got caught, word spread about who had been writing the stories. Things had changed. I was embarrassed so I stopped writing, except for a few close friends who read my stories like crack. I had been circulating writing for over 2 years before I got caught. I estimate my audience was around 2000.
I kept my writing in my locker at school, never bringing it home. I didn't want them to see it. One day, dad announced that we were moving to the other side of the country and I wasn't allowed to tell anyone. I was devastated. For the first time in my life, I'd cultivated a social network of good friends and was active in something I loved. Not knowing how to deal with it, I started drinking, smoking pot and taking pills in secret. I was 14. Right before my 15th birthday, we loaded up the U-Haul and headed out of town. I begged Dad to stop before we got on the freeway. I called the band room from a pay phone next to Blitch's restaurant on the I-10. Lynn answered the phone. I asked her to say goodbye to everyone for me. We both cried. Why I couldn't tell anyone is a whole other story. When we moved cross country. I left my music and a piece of my heart behind. Withdrew into a blue hoodie and stayed there for a long time.
My first year in band, I could out-play most of the seniors. How good could I have been? I have no idea because I quit. Part of it was out of spite. The other--there was no available outlet where we'd landed. I'd love to say I started writing again but that didn't happen. Longing for my friends, I went into a deep depression. My school hired a band director who came to me, begging for help. Out of resentful obligation I acquiesced, but after our first embarrassing performance I decided I'd helped enough. None of the kids had ever played an instrument, even the cute football quarterback who split my eardrums trying to play a saxophone. I also helped start the choir. Our first performance, my fellow choir members froze. They'd never performed in front of an audience and I'd been doing it since I was a small child. I had 7 solos that night, or at least that's what the audience thought. The show must go on. I could have mentored the other students but I didn't, only thinking of myself and living in self-pity. They looked to me for guidance and I didn't want to give it to them.
Deeming musical outlets in my school dismal failures, I withdrew again. Pot, pills, booze. After another round of standardized tests, I was again labeled "gifted" and stuck in another "gifted" class. I chuckled at the results because I'd taken the test stoned and treated it as a joke. They wanted me to write creatively and I adamantly refused. To this day I don't exactly remember how they roped me into Academic Decathlon but they did. I went to study sessions stoned and sat in the back. At the big competition with schools from half the state, I easily won the speech competition and placed in the essay. These accomplishments meant nothing as I hadn't applied myself and didn't care.
I dropped out of high school 2 months before graduation and left home. I'm good at quitting. I graduated second in my class for wildland firefighting. Can you picture me, an 18 year-old fireman? All I had to do was show up at the interview and they would have hired me, I found that out after I stood them up. There was ONE position open in the county and they were going to give it to me. What an asshole I was. Years later, I got excellent grades in a college program and quit 1 class before graduation. This goes on and on.
I buried my writing for many years until it erupted, and when it did, it was rather spectacular. I was 39.
I wrote a 70,000 word 1st draft manuscript in 10 days. I felt like I'd been born again. Years of pent-up words, banged into my keyboard at 90 words per minute. I gave it to someone whose opinion I valued, he told me I'd written a "rockin' psychological thriller." I told him "it needs a lot of work." The space between when I wrote it and before I got a lot of bad advice on how to fix things that weren't wrong with it was a beautiful place. I started posting a chapter every few days on MySpace. I was overwhelmed with praise. People latched onto my characters like they were real people. Thousands of people read between 1 and all chapters I posted, with dozens of new messages every day: "when will it be finished?" and "where can I buy it?" People wanted to know more about the author and if any of the story was true. I got requests for dates and a few dirty pictures. The grandiose side of me imagined being welcomed by readers at book signings but what meant the most was the validation that people loved my writing.
Like I said, I'm good at quitting things. I know an EXCELLENT vehicle: my original saboteur. I passed her links to my story and some other short stories I'd written. 28 years later, I was going to try again. We have a saying in Alcoholics Anonymous: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. The immediate result was disapproving silence. More on that in a second. The rest came shortly and swiftly. "She's telling everyone you're writing pornography." Maybe not everyone. Just relatives and mutual friends, even people I hadn't seen since childhood. I was devastated.
I embarked on a flurry of revisions to take my story down to just above Rated PG. It wasn't pornography, "nothing beyond watching an episode of Queer as Folk" was the assessment of one person in the literary world. Instead of fixing it, I gelded it. I shelved the whole project and started something new. I decided it was total shit and shelved it too. I started a new one but my heart wasn't in it. I never finished it either. I wrote a bunch of short stories that never saw the light of day.
Did I finish anything? Yes. I promised myself I'd enter a literary contest so I did. I have 2 excellent short stories. Seriously, they are really good. But I decided to write and submit something original, which I did. In retrospect, it's the worst thing I've ever written. I submitted my best short story to a publisher but I realized later it wasn't what the submission requested. I shot myself in the foot without even realizing it. I took my first novel to a literary convention and they told me what I already knew: I'd revised it to death. They things they wished it had were all in my earlier drafts. I had a novel (I learned through feedback) that people loved. My audience were milleneals; straight girls and gay boys. I could have finished it. Instead, I decided to please EVERYONE and asked EVERYONE what to do to "fix" my story. The resulting mess is rotting in my hard drive.
In 2008-2010 I wrote 3 novels and 2 dozen short stories. The 3rd novel really needs to be a screenplay. Volumes of sensational and not so sensational writing. 2011 brought the beginning of a protracted heart-wrenching personal situation and I put my writing aside.
Now for the good stuff. Sabotaging my work for me is like cutting. I know EXACTLY where to go to find that disapproving silence. Why disapproving silence? Because it's the worst criticism you can possibly give a person. You leave them alone to fill in the blanks of what they might say. Non-specific "your work sucks" is almost as bad. If you're going to tell me it sucks, tell my WHY. But disapproving silence is the ultimate dismissal and the cruelest thing you can do to an artist. For me, it's my drug of choice.
Let's back up. I was firing off chapters and getting daily fan mail on MySpace, and then what did I do? I went to the one place I knew I'd get torpedoed, because I always had and not just with writing. It was artistic suicide. In 2011, at the beginning of my own heartbreak, I send a first draft to the most critical friend I have, knowing I'd probably get silent disapproval and I did. All I have to do is say "I'm writing" and I get silent disapproval. Why would someone do this to us? Julia Cameron (The Artist's Way) says that people like us exactly the way we are and they don't want us to grow or change. For the hyper-critical, there are no first drafts, no trial runs. Every effort must be flawless. Some people feel the need to shame us into not doing our art. Maybe they don't feel our art has any merit and feel it's their duty to shame us into not doing it. As blocked artists, we know who these people are and we go to them so we may remain blocked.
For me, going to one of these people is artistic cutting. I know the result, I know it's going to make me bleed, and I know it will produce the same familiar feeling. All I have to do is text one "I'm writing" and I get the silent disapproval I need to derail myself and feel shitty. I'm friendly (not really friends) with a best-selling author. He's told me over and over "just write one page at a time." He tells me I've paralyzed myself looking at the big picture and that I need to make myself write every day.
So what to do about all this? How the fuck should I know? The Artist's Way has been a great tool to unblock me. I think my biggest problem is I'm undisciplined. "Glue your ass to the chair" has been said in many ways by many great writers. I'm not the first one to try to get disapproval from the 1 or 2 people I know won't give it to me. But I keep doing it. That's insanity. My hard drive haunts me and lately I've been brimming over with new ideas. That's probably why I'm writing this.
I wrote my first short story when I was 8; it was about a bunch of Mexicans who got drunk and had an orgy. I continued to write in secret, showing no one until the day I did. Picture it: Hawaii, 1980. I was 11. Being a blond haole (white person) made me a social outcast. I read early and voraciously. I wasn't doing well in school so they gave me some standardized tests: the results were 12th grade, 9th month in every subject. Hawaii public schools were substandard in those days and I'd basically educated myself. During most of the school day, I had an open book on my lap under the desk. I'd learned to be a stealthy reader, both there and at home. "Bedtime" meant a flashlight under the covers, continuing whatever story I'd been reading all day. Between home life and school, I'd created my own little world. My vivid imagination kept my my life livable and it was natural I put some of it down on paper.
After the test, my school didn't know what to do with me. I'm going to say in advance to any parent who might be reading this: NEVER label your kid "gifted." I could write a whole other blog "why." That said, my "gifted" class was my salvation. 2 or 3 days a week I'd mount the rickety stairs to the old, wooden part of the school built in the plantation days. The floors creaked with every step. My teacher Mrs Sperry was my savior. She gently encouraged my creativity in a way no one had ever done. I felt safe enough to write a story for her and at 11, I became a published author. Until that point, I'd never been proud of anything. Elated, I took a copy home to show a family member. I begged her to read it. She reluctantly snatched it from me, leafed back one page, cursed and threw it at me. "You didn't even read it." I said. I was crushed, and had no idea why she was shaking and cursing. A few months later, we moved away and I never saw Mrs Sperry again. I was grateful for what she'd given me.
The book that contained my published writing disappeared from my home immediately. Even though it was stocked in every school library in the state, I've never been able to locate another copy. My creativity needed another outlet so I learned to play the trumpet. I was so good I got into high school marching band a year early. But writing for me is like breathing; I could only hold it for so long. I started writing stories anonymously, circulating them around my fairly large school. I learned through a couple friends who had been pushing my wares that SENIORS were reading my stuff and asking for more, and I was only an 8th grader. I wrote a short chapter every day or so. People wanted to know what was going to happen next. What I enjoyed more was starting a story and passing it around, letting others contribute. I used my clandestine popularity to "out" bullies and punish bad teachers. They were passed around on an underground railroad. Power of the pen, indeed. One of my stories earned me detention when I wrote one about the Social Studies teacher having a dildo addiction. I still don't know who snitched on me but I was nailed by handwriting analysis. My best friend had illustrated it for me. Priceless. I didn't give him up. After I got caught, word spread about who had been writing the stories. Things had changed. I was embarrassed so I stopped writing, except for a few close friends who read my stories like crack. I had been circulating writing for over 2 years before I got caught. I estimate my audience was around 2000.
I kept my writing in my locker at school, never bringing it home. I didn't want them to see it. One day, dad announced that we were moving to the other side of the country and I wasn't allowed to tell anyone. I was devastated. For the first time in my life, I'd cultivated a social network of good friends and was active in something I loved. Not knowing how to deal with it, I started drinking, smoking pot and taking pills in secret. I was 14. Right before my 15th birthday, we loaded up the U-Haul and headed out of town. I begged Dad to stop before we got on the freeway. I called the band room from a pay phone next to Blitch's restaurant on the I-10. Lynn answered the phone. I asked her to say goodbye to everyone for me. We both cried. Why I couldn't tell anyone is a whole other story. When we moved cross country. I left my music and a piece of my heart behind. Withdrew into a blue hoodie and stayed there for a long time.
My first year in band, I could out-play most of the seniors. How good could I have been? I have no idea because I quit. Part of it was out of spite. The other--there was no available outlet where we'd landed. I'd love to say I started writing again but that didn't happen. Longing for my friends, I went into a deep depression. My school hired a band director who came to me, begging for help. Out of resentful obligation I acquiesced, but after our first embarrassing performance I decided I'd helped enough. None of the kids had ever played an instrument, even the cute football quarterback who split my eardrums trying to play a saxophone. I also helped start the choir. Our first performance, my fellow choir members froze. They'd never performed in front of an audience and I'd been doing it since I was a small child. I had 7 solos that night, or at least that's what the audience thought. The show must go on. I could have mentored the other students but I didn't, only thinking of myself and living in self-pity. They looked to me for guidance and I didn't want to give it to them.
Deeming musical outlets in my school dismal failures, I withdrew again. Pot, pills, booze. After another round of standardized tests, I was again labeled "gifted" and stuck in another "gifted" class. I chuckled at the results because I'd taken the test stoned and treated it as a joke. They wanted me to write creatively and I adamantly refused. To this day I don't exactly remember how they roped me into Academic Decathlon but they did. I went to study sessions stoned and sat in the back. At the big competition with schools from half the state, I easily won the speech competition and placed in the essay. These accomplishments meant nothing as I hadn't applied myself and didn't care.
I dropped out of high school 2 months before graduation and left home. I'm good at quitting. I graduated second in my class for wildland firefighting. Can you picture me, an 18 year-old fireman? All I had to do was show up at the interview and they would have hired me, I found that out after I stood them up. There was ONE position open in the county and they were going to give it to me. What an asshole I was. Years later, I got excellent grades in a college program and quit 1 class before graduation. This goes on and on.
I buried my writing for many years until it erupted, and when it did, it was rather spectacular. I was 39.
I wrote a 70,000 word 1st draft manuscript in 10 days. I felt like I'd been born again. Years of pent-up words, banged into my keyboard at 90 words per minute. I gave it to someone whose opinion I valued, he told me I'd written a "rockin' psychological thriller." I told him "it needs a lot of work." The space between when I wrote it and before I got a lot of bad advice on how to fix things that weren't wrong with it was a beautiful place. I started posting a chapter every few days on MySpace. I was overwhelmed with praise. People latched onto my characters like they were real people. Thousands of people read between 1 and all chapters I posted, with dozens of new messages every day: "when will it be finished?" and "where can I buy it?" People wanted to know more about the author and if any of the story was true. I got requests for dates and a few dirty pictures. The grandiose side of me imagined being welcomed by readers at book signings but what meant the most was the validation that people loved my writing.
Like I said, I'm good at quitting things. I know an EXCELLENT vehicle: my original saboteur. I passed her links to my story and some other short stories I'd written. 28 years later, I was going to try again. We have a saying in Alcoholics Anonymous: the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results. The immediate result was disapproving silence. More on that in a second. The rest came shortly and swiftly. "She's telling everyone you're writing pornography." Maybe not everyone. Just relatives and mutual friends, even people I hadn't seen since childhood. I was devastated.
I embarked on a flurry of revisions to take my story down to just above Rated PG. It wasn't pornography, "nothing beyond watching an episode of Queer as Folk" was the assessment of one person in the literary world. Instead of fixing it, I gelded it. I shelved the whole project and started something new. I decided it was total shit and shelved it too. I started a new one but my heart wasn't in it. I never finished it either. I wrote a bunch of short stories that never saw the light of day.
Did I finish anything? Yes. I promised myself I'd enter a literary contest so I did. I have 2 excellent short stories. Seriously, they are really good. But I decided to write and submit something original, which I did. In retrospect, it's the worst thing I've ever written. I submitted my best short story to a publisher but I realized later it wasn't what the submission requested. I shot myself in the foot without even realizing it. I took my first novel to a literary convention and they told me what I already knew: I'd revised it to death. They things they wished it had were all in my earlier drafts. I had a novel (I learned through feedback) that people loved. My audience were milleneals; straight girls and gay boys. I could have finished it. Instead, I decided to please EVERYONE and asked EVERYONE what to do to "fix" my story. The resulting mess is rotting in my hard drive.
In 2008-2010 I wrote 3 novels and 2 dozen short stories. The 3rd novel really needs to be a screenplay. Volumes of sensational and not so sensational writing. 2011 brought the beginning of a protracted heart-wrenching personal situation and I put my writing aside.
Now for the good stuff. Sabotaging my work for me is like cutting. I know EXACTLY where to go to find that disapproving silence. Why disapproving silence? Because it's the worst criticism you can possibly give a person. You leave them alone to fill in the blanks of what they might say. Non-specific "your work sucks" is almost as bad. If you're going to tell me it sucks, tell my WHY. But disapproving silence is the ultimate dismissal and the cruelest thing you can do to an artist. For me, it's my drug of choice.
Let's back up. I was firing off chapters and getting daily fan mail on MySpace, and then what did I do? I went to the one place I knew I'd get torpedoed, because I always had and not just with writing. It was artistic suicide. In 2011, at the beginning of my own heartbreak, I send a first draft to the most critical friend I have, knowing I'd probably get silent disapproval and I did. All I have to do is say "I'm writing" and I get silent disapproval. Why would someone do this to us? Julia Cameron (The Artist's Way) says that people like us exactly the way we are and they don't want us to grow or change. For the hyper-critical, there are no first drafts, no trial runs. Every effort must be flawless. Some people feel the need to shame us into not doing our art. Maybe they don't feel our art has any merit and feel it's their duty to shame us into not doing it. As blocked artists, we know who these people are and we go to them so we may remain blocked.
For me, going to one of these people is artistic cutting. I know the result, I know it's going to make me bleed, and I know it will produce the same familiar feeling. All I have to do is text one "I'm writing" and I get the silent disapproval I need to derail myself and feel shitty. I'm friendly (not really friends) with a best-selling author. He's told me over and over "just write one page at a time." He tells me I've paralyzed myself looking at the big picture and that I need to make myself write every day.
So what to do about all this? How the fuck should I know? The Artist's Way has been a great tool to unblock me. I think my biggest problem is I'm undisciplined. "Glue your ass to the chair" has been said in many ways by many great writers. I'm not the first one to try to get disapproval from the 1 or 2 people I know won't give it to me. But I keep doing it. That's insanity. My hard drive haunts me and lately I've been brimming over with new ideas. That's probably why I'm writing this.
Comments
Post a Comment