I Bet They Take Naps

I’m drafting this late at night, and since I’m going to edit, you won’t get to see how bad my rough drafts usually are. And the reason I’m pointing this out is that it’s something I need to remind myself of. Unfortunately writers don’t live in a state of perpetual inspiration (if you do, I might have some serious problems with you), and the words that tumble onto the screen aren’t born beautiful. It takes a good deal of plastic surgery to make them presentable.

Last week I was very encouraged by your response to “A Writer’s Diet” (T. A. Christensen evenfeatured me in her lovely blog). Before dashing out that piece in a fit of exhausted panic, I contemplated calling it quits and offering my apologies in lieu of a proper post. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that you can’t do that. Oh sure, breaks are important, but I’m talking about giving up whenever it gets hard. Trust me, if you only work when it’s easy, you won’t accomplish much. Ultimately it’s important to learn the difference between burnout and discouragement. Sometimes you just have to grit your teeth and smash through that wall with your face and…okay, I’m just going to let that one die. And yeah, I felt like I was writing a bunch of garbage, but apparently not everyone agreed with me (I’m still baffled about that). So thank you, people, for your positive feedback. It means a lot to me.

Today I want to talk about perspective, but in order to do that, I need to back up a little. I am both a morning lark and a night owl. Often I try to manage these dual lifestyles simultaneously (and the results tend to be less than stellar). As with early mornings, I like the loneliness of nighttime, the sensation of being the only one awake in my house. I jam my ear buds in and crank up the music and type furiously as the darkness presses in close to read over my shoulder. In these hours of perfect, peaceful solitude, I can truly hear myself think. But after a long day, I can’t fend off the drowsiness for too long, much as I’d like to. And that frustrates me. I push myself to the limit—writing until my wrists twinge and my fingers can’t hit the keys because they’re falling asleep. Then I drag myself to bed, head swimming—already dreaming.

While those nights are some of the best times for writing, they can also be some of the most discouraging. You see, when I’m fatigued, I don’t reason well. I become distractible and emotional (which is a terrible plight for an aspiring Vulcan). Even an encouraging day can end badly if I stay up too late. By the time I break away, the music galls my mind, the click of keys annoys me, and the words on the screen seem worse than rubbish. Since I’m not the impulsive type, I don’t have to worry about deleting my work in a fit of rage. But that doesn’t mean I don’t readily sell myself out when I’m tired. Unfortunately, some forms of fatigue can’t be cured by sleep. You can only cram so much into your mind—ask so much of it—before your brain needs you to relax while it tidies up.

If I try to push past that point, I lose perspective and clarity. After completing a rough draft, I can’t trust myself to evaluate it honestly. In the same way, I can’t trust my judgement when I spend too much time with anything. I may love a song, but listening to it two hundred times in a row might skew my enjoyment for a while (this has happened). Things like binge-watching your favorite show, writing a novel in five days, and hanging out with your friends for an entire summer aren’t bad—but you might just get cranky near the end. Burnout is your mind’s way of saying it’s time to take a step back, change gears, and occupy yourself with something else while your brain processes this overload.

I was so tired last week, I was ready to admit that I really don’t know what I’m doing, that I don’t have anything worthwhile to say. And maybe a lot of you were disappointed with last week’s quality—I know I was. As a writer, my cynicism is both a blessing and a curse. If I don’t doubt myself, I’ll spit out junk and call it good. But if I doubt myself too much, I’ll edit my darlings to death. Unfortunately, the balance between the two can be a lot harder than you might expect. So this is my challenge to you (and to me) for when we suffer burnout, as we will from time to time. When you find yourself next to tears or tantrums because everything you type seems worthless, step back and say, “You know, I don’t recognize any good in this at the moment, and I don’t think that this project will ever see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’m tired, I’m discouraged, and I just want to curl up into a ball and cry. But you know, I realize I can’t be the best judge of that now, so I’m going to set this aside and take care of myself. Once my mind has recovered, I may be pleasantly surprised by just how much potential my project has.” (Cue heart-warming, inspirational music. Flowers fall from ceiling as bubbles float through beams of sunlight. Try not to get all this sap on your clothes.)

Writers are brave people, and I’m not saying this to toot my own horn because, really, I admire all the rock star authors who do this for a living and balance all the many responsibilities of being published. They have so much on their shoulders, stuff that aspiring authors like me can’t quite relate to. Just remember, while they manage to keep plugging away, I bet they take naps from time to time.

A Writer's Diet

Announcement:  I finally broke and decided to join Twitter. If you’re interested, my handle is @adelethelaptop. (Bet you never saw that one coming.)

 

During the 2014 November NaNoWriMo, I told myself I would return for the 2015 April NaNoWriMo and probably write like, a hundred million words or something (maintaining sanity is not high on my list of priorities—why do you ask?). However, after three months of extensive revisions, I finally sent my current work in progress to my first round of beta readers. And unfortunately, as I’m realizing now, my optimistic self of last year cleverly ignored the existence of fatigue and burnout. So, as with other Aprils before, I shall not be writing any new novels just yet.

In other words, I’m forcing myself to take a vacation—forcing, because I don’t like taking a break from the baby I edited during every spare moment I could snatch. Over the past quarter of a year, I unleashed my inner psychopath and hacked that 130,000 word darling down to a measly 60,000. And I’m tired. My brain feels drained—I’m drawing on the last dregs right now. Frankly, it doesn’t help to know that there is much more work to be done, that character arcs need to be strengthened, scenes need to be added and fleshed out, motivations need to be clarified. Oh, and let’s not forget the ending; I’ll need to rewrite that at least twenty times. I love doing these things, don’t get me wrong; I just don’t like thinking about them all at once.

The hardest part of this process is stepping away and resting. I realize I can’t expect my brain cells always to operate at peak efficiency. But now that I’m not writing, I find it difficult to fill my time with other activities. Even though the well of words has gone dry and I’m not sure I could construct another coherent sentence to save my life, the habit is burned into my fingers, into my soul. I’d rather do anything than give it up.

Maybe some of you are in the same boat. All around you, people are writing their Camp NaNo novels while you linger around the outskirts, wishing you could ransack their virtual tents and steal their virtual s’mores. After polishing your darling novel to a high shine, your eyes are stinging from the glare. Or maybe that’s just the virtual smoke from the virtual bonfire. You might be too tired to write something new just yet, but you’re still itching to finish your current work in progress so you can move on to the next exciting project as quickly as possible. Besides, with your story so fresh in your mind—all the emotions and plot twists and whatnot—you’re tempted to start querying agents immediately though your head knowledge tells you that’s not a bright idea. (What do you MEAN my book isn’t perfect? I just spent, like, ages on it!)

Resist the urge and let yourself rest! You are so familiar with your novel, you could probably quote it word for word—backwards. Which isn’t a bad thing. I mean, it’s good to know the topography of your work (this is especially important in case your hard drive crashes or in case you have to beat off an armed robber with your laptop). But it also means you’re starting to exhibit that glazed-eyed, deer-in-the-headlights behavior.

If you want to get a better picture of what this is like, try staring at a block of color for several minutes. After a while, the rods and cones in your eyes get tired and switch to autopilot. You still see the red or the blue or whatever, but your brain is economizing. (Note:  This is a very simplified explanation.) So when you look away, you see a ghostly block—an afterimage. In the same way, with your story, your mind is probably going into energy-saving mode. When you reread after just two days away from your project, don’t expect to see an accurate representation of what’s really on the page. Give yourself enough time to recover, and don’t jump the gun by boarding the query train too soon. The last thing you want is to fall off and get smooshed.

After reading and polishing my rough draft for so long, my brain struggles to differentiate between good and bad writing. This is unfortunate because it means I can no longer trust my judgement—at least, I don’t believe I can. But I can’t just step away, drink coffee, surf the web, and mope around. I need to prime my brain for the next round of edits.

Cue another lame analogy. Following an exercise routine, it’s not the best idea to eat a heap of junk food. Your muscles are tired and strained. They need to rebuild themselves, and in order to do that, they need the proper materials. If you munch on something healthy and carbohydrate-rich, like a granola bar, that energy will be stored in your muscles, waiting for you to access it. What you do now determines how well your future workouts will go. (Or so I’m told. Sometimes my most taxing physical exertions involve lifting my coffee mug to my mouth, drinking the coffee, and setting the mug back down.)

In other words, while you’re taking a break from writing, it’s a good idea to watch what you put into your mind. While it’s all well and good to jump into a bunch of beta reading for all your writer friends (I do this myself), it might be smart to limit that. Now I want to be careful here because I absolutely don’t want to offend anyone. I have proofread some AMAZING pieces. And I learn so much from giving advice—I pick up on issues in my own manuscripts this way. But usually I’m not giving feedback on a polished product, which means the work will have a few rough edges. So I’m not really letting my brain rest from editing as much as I should. It’s important to step back and force myself almost completely out of that mindset for a while.

Over the next few weeks, I’m setting my own goals and assigning myself some homework. With most writing vacations, I build a list of classic and contemporary novels that I plan to read and analyze. Then I figure out what I like, what I dislike, and why on both counts. I pick apart the pacing, examine the dialogue, and weigh the plots. With the classics and other bestsellers, I pay special attention to what the authors were saying and how that might have clicked with the public. While I doubt I’ll ever write the next HARRY POTTER or DIVERGENT, and I think it’s detrimental to work with fame in mind, I do believe it’s possible to learn from other authors’ successes. Basically, my aim is to figure out again and again what it is that makes a novel—how a book is more than the sum of its parts.

So, whether you’re vacationing, writing, or neither—good luck with your endeavors this fine month. And may your coffee never run out.