Sometimes you’re going to have to go places you don’t want to go when you’re writing. My tip on dealing with this is simple: face your fears, get over them, and write.
I think if you’re an honest writer, you’re going to have to write about some not-so-fun stuff. Doesn’t matter if you’re writing fiction or non-fiction. At some point there’s gotta be some honest, hard stuff you write about.
Whenever I know I’m approaching some particularly difficult section for me (usually a pretty intense scene in one of my novels), I start to feel the dread come on. It’s a feeling that I equate with sitting outside the principal’s office, waiting for the “conversation” with your parents, or moments before having that honest and tough heart-to-heart conversation with your spouse or friend. You know that you’re going to be entering tough terrain, and there’s a part of you that doesn’t want to go there. Maybe because you’re going to have to be terribly vulnerable. Maybe because you’re going to have to admit some failure. Maybe because it’s going to bring back some pain in your life.
I think this is something that stops authors from continuing on. They either quit the project all together or they take an easy way out. An easy way out is writing something that is on the surface, predictable and cliched.
If you’re a writer, you know what I mean when I say you have to face your fears. In one sense, it is cathartic to put worries and doubts and pain on the page. But it’s also like going into a counselor’s office. The only difference is that you’re on your own. Nobody is going to tell you how to deal with those fears. You’re on the couch talking out loud but nobody is there to listen.
Doesn’t matter. The hope is that readers will listen. Ultimately, the hope is that your work will be authentic and moving. That’s what I hope for.
On my wall is a poster of Hemingway with one of his famous quotes: “All you have to do is write one true sentence.”
If that’s the case, then it requires courage to get that one true sentence down on the page.
Yes. While writing IronMakeover I’d have to go to the scary place. I get cranky editing/rewriting Chapter 7 because of its contents.
But, to write well, I have to go there. Great timing, thanks for this post.
Thank you! As simple as that and more. I’ve got readers begging me to pen my story…at this junction I would be more tempted to think writing anything “but” would be far easier. None the less I am slowly dipping my pen in the pool and etching out a life for all to witness. Those ugly places are the ones that keep it real and give that raw edge to emotional hijacking of a reader. (Hugs)Indigo