Dispatch #37: Taming and Becoming the Wolf

On feeling free and writing a novel

In 2023, I had the idea to resurrect my old Ask the Writing Teacher column at The Millions for this newsletter. I did one post ….and, well, that was last June.

But then, the other week, I received a question! So here is another edition of a very sporadic column (say those last two words like Tai from Clueless).

As always, thank you for reading. Please consider supporting my work by becoming a paid subscriber of this newsletter if you aren’t already. Thanks!

Hi Edan!

I'm reaching out because I could use some help. I'm sort of working on this novel and I think it contains some good ideas. But I don't know how to do this! I feel like a fraud. Where do I even start? How do you get up the courage to do this? This idea is nagging at me, and I really worry I won't ever do it. I worry I lack the talent and time to do it right. I'd love to see your advice around inspiration, dedication, courage, etc. etc. 

Sincerely,

Aspiring Novelist

Dear Aspiring Novelist,

I don’t know if it’ll make you feel better or worse to know that the same questions persist for me: How do I do this? Am I fraud? Where do I even start?

After writing and publishing three novels I understand that every book is a different beast with specific craft challenges and delights. It’s sort of like having kids: you learn a lot with each one that you can use next time around, but a lot of the wisdom you accrue is child-specific. This means that with every kid, you have to learn how to parent the specific child in front of you. Likewise, every time I write a new book, I have to learn how to write this particular one. What does it want to be? What is it trying to say—to me, and to its (eventual) readers? Who even are these characters and what are they feeling?!

The state of writing-innocence can be daunting, but it’s also exhilarating; the ever-evolving nature of the job is what makes the work so interesting.

This is all to say: You’re going to feel a lot of this insecurity and trepidation for your entire writing life, so it’s best to get comfortable with it! I choose to see these feelings as a gift, for they ask of you to be innovative, flexible, openminded, humble, and vulnerable. These are all useful traits for a writer (….and a parent, I might add.)

I also want to tell you about the private accountability group I started in March because I think it’s relevant. It’s called Fuck You, Write Your Pages. This group is for writers of all genres and experience levels, and I basically started it so that I, too, could be held accountable as I wrote the first draft of my new novel. You see, I hadn’t been in First Draft Land since 2017 and I was overwhelmed, maybe a bit scared. I thought, I want to be around other writers trying to write! This group was my solution…not to mention another revenue stream. (Two birds, one stone, etc).

In this group, I post a weekly Substack email with wisdom from fellow writers I know, and then I ask—and answer—these questions:

1. How did writing go last week? Did you reach your goals? If not, why the fuck not?

2. What are your writing goals this week?

Members of the group are required to post their answers for other members to see. It’s been wonderful—and not only because it’s made me write. I love being in regular touch with other writers, hearing about their manuscripts, their struggles, their flashes of inspiration. We’re all in the writing trenches together! It’s given me courage to witness their courage, and I am comforted to know others occasionally struggle, as I do. We call each other the Fuckeroos and cheer each other on and, as one member (hi Matt!) pointed out, we *might* be a cult.

What I’ve discovered over the last couple of months is that all writers, no matter their experience level or publication history, put up psychological walls that impede their writing progress. That icky fear that comes up when you’re thinking about writing, or when you sit down to write? That’s fear. Fear of doing it wrong, or of doing it badly—or even more fascinating: doing it well. What if you complete the thing you most wanted to do? What then?

Oof. These are abysses! We would need a licensed therapist to properly swim them!

What gets me past the fear—the walls, the abysses, whatever metaphor works for you—is to just, well, start.

In The Writing Life, Annie Dillard has this great passage about the unvisited manuscript becoming a fanged monster in the writer’s mind. If you don’t work on your book (or story or essay or poem), it gets scarier and scarier, a dangerous beast you imagine and cannot face. But facing it is the only way to tame the beast, to defang the monster.

So that’s what I do. Four to five times a week, I get in the room with the monster. I pet it, I talk to it, I look into its shimmery glaucous eyes, I touch its crusty cold nose, I let its dank breath warm my face. It’s not that the monster gets weak. It’s not that I dominate the monster. It’s more like the manuscript and I get wild and powerful together. And in the best moments I realize, Wow writing is fucking magical.

Right now, Aspiring Novelist, you’re saying, “Okay, great. Sounds poetic, Edan. But how do I start?”

Below are some tips, lightly revised, that I wrote for my Fuckeroos at our halfway point, about how to best reach one’s writing goals. I’ll share them here in case they’re helpful to you:

1. Find a practice and prioritize that practice. Figure out when you can work and make a commitment to do the work when you said you would. For me, it’s weekday mornings for 2-3 hours before I do any other tasks. This time is sacred. When novelist Sarah Tomlinson, who’s also a ghostwriter, contributed some wisdom to the group, she said that she makes sure to do her writing first, before any other intellectually rigorous work. That’s great advice.

2. Make modest but reachable goals. If you bite off more than you can chew, you’ll choke! Make a smaller goal and commit to reaching it. Maybe it’s one page a week. Maybe it’s a paragraph. That’s something, and, listen, something is better than nothing. My goal is five pages a week, double-spaced. This isn’t much for someone whose stated job on their tax return is WRITER, but five pages a week, every week, adds up! Also, it allows me some leeway, should I need to handle a family issue, or if I want to stop and rewrite, etc. Plus, surpassing a goal feels like a million bucks.

3. Touch the manuscript regularly. This is a phrase my friend Stephanie Danler taught me. We use it in the group all the time. Touch the manuscript! Go ahead, touch it! This is the perfect exhortation for when there really isn’t a ton of time to work, or when you feel daunted by the project; it reminds you to do whatever you can, no matter what. Open the document briefly—just touch it, no pressure. Take twenty minutes if that’s all you have. Do it! Even that small gesture will connect you back to the project.

4. Take notes. Manuscript-adjacent work when you can’t open the manuscript is the next best thing. Lists, brainstorms, scenic notes, notes on research. When TV writer and showrunner Andrew Guest contributed a post, he talked about how so much of writing is problem solving, and how much of that work happens away from your desk. The more you write, the better you get at diagnosing problems. All the writing-adjacent work, all the thinking, sharpens this skill.

5. Re-read work. This will be more useful to you once you’ve got a chunk of pages written, but I like to say: When it doubt, print it out! I did this not long ago when I felt stuck and while it didn’t help me create new pages (i.e., my current goal), it did allow me to be in and with my book and force me to see it as a whole.

6. Pivot. If one project is not happening, pivot to another one as a palate cleanser. Write a piece of flash fiction, or dust off that essay you wrote a few years ago and want to revise. Writing is writing is writing.

7. Creative Juicing. Look, sometimes we just…can’t. Try, instead, to write without a plan, without a desired outcome. Do some morning pages, or try a writing prompt. This is what novelist Natashia Deón recommended to the group. Make some words and let loose with zero expectations. When Mark Haskell Smith contributed to the Substack, he reminded us to have fun, to make art through play. Yes! This isn’t about mere word counts, this is about exploration and fun.

8. Push through. This worked for me a few times this spring. I was so not into my book, I had a lot of other stuff to do, and I told myself: Edan, just push through and write a single paragraph before you leave the cafe. You know what? I wrote two paragraphs! It was a real, Fuck you, write your pages moment.

9. Rest and Recharge. Life gets busy, it gets complicated, it’s full of hard things. Sometimes writing has to take a back seat so you can take care of yourself, your family, your friends, your soul. If you’re writing regularly, it’s not a big deal to hit pause sometimes.

10. Find a writing community. This last one was suggested by a few different Fuckeroos after I posted a version of this list. Of course, how could I forget other writers! I encourage you to form or join an accountability group, and/or swap pages with a friend, and, if you want, take a class for instruction, deadlines, and feedback. Or even just find a buddy with whom you can text stuff like: Ugh writing! Or, I wrote today and it went really well. It’s nice to share this solitary world-conjuring with someone else who gets it.

I hope this list is helpful to you, Aspiring Novelist.

In your letter to me, you wrote, “I worry I lack the talent and time to do it right.” You know, you’re correct, there probably isn’t a lot of extra time for you to write. Writing takes so much damn time! And yet, you can find the time if you want to. It might mean getting off social media, it might mean disappointing your family and friends by missing stuff. It might mean losing some sleep or writing in quick bursts whenever you can. It’ll take longer than you expect to write anything at all, and, you’re correct, you won’t get it right. Not the first time, anyway. That’s what rewriting is for.

As for talent, this quote by (the, uh, supremely talented) James Baldwin is always floating across the internet, and I’ll share it with you: “Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all endurance.”

Amen. Every time I think, “I am not talented enough to write this book,” I remain in the chair and keep writing. Talent is real, but talent isn’t what keeps anyone writing.

One last thing—

A few times a week I go to dance class: ballet on Wednesdays (if I get my writing done!) and a sort of modern-contemporary-jazz fusion class on the weekends. Do I take these classes because I dream of becoming a professional dancer? Or because I am talented? No and no.

I dance because I love it. I love to do pliés at the barre, and jumps in the center. I love when I nail a combination. I love to ham it up with other dancers. I love the energy of a group doing movements in sequence. I love when teachers speak in nutty imagery, “Walk like your leg is broken. Now hold your arms like you’re carrying an invisible basket of bunnies.”

Sometimes, for a fleeting moment, dance is easy, but most of the time it isn’t, and I also love that. I love that it takes effort. I have to use the technique I’ve learned and the strength I’ve got, and couple it with some ineffable, animal thing. I must suspend my cerebral self to access a freedom, to emote without words—which are my literal trade! It requires a lot of me and I usually fail. But, my god, it’s such a pleasure to try.

I love that I spend time learning something that makes me absolutely zero dollars, that I’ll never be great at. I do it because it enriches my life. That’s enough.

If you let go of any lofty novelist dreams (which are totally fine to have!), and think of writing in this way—as a way to practice a craft and experience joy—the abyss of fear won’t be so deep.

I want you to write a novel because you want to write a novel, because it’s difficult yet fun, and fun because it’s difficult, and because there’s pleasure there, if you’re ready to revel in it.

Let go of everything else—and write.

Go, go, go!

xoxo
Edan

Have a question about writing? Email me at edan.lepucki@gmail.com