The art of failing
That is the question that has been running around my head like kids chanting ring’o’ring’roses, a pocket full of posies for longer than I’d care to admit.
What is the actual point?
The point of writing, trying to figure out a story and put the words on the page when at the end of the session what you’re left with is mishmash of words with no structure, thread, arc or reason and all that lays before you is a giant failure which is just taking up space in the cloud, something so bad and disjointed and awful that you know people would rather read the convoluted anecdote from an online recipe blogger about how a trip to Skegness changed the way they make carrot and potato mash than even glance at a single sentence of your stilted, nonsensical prose.
You sit and think how much better life would be if you weren’t a writer, but just a reader. A booklover with no inclination to add to the bloated shelves of your local bookshop. You wonder why you want to be a writer when it would be easier to become a banker, an accountant, a rock star, a binman, a swimsuit model, a swimsuit designer, a swimsuit wearer, an elk hunter, a storm chaser, a table maker, a criminal genius, in charge of Track and Trace, a coffee grower, a race car driver, a mechanic, a wanderer. Any of these would be easier than being a writer.
But that decision wasn’t mine to make. As much as I don’t want to be a writer, I am a writer. Might as well be fish who hates swimming, a bear who hates sleeping, a Prime Minister who hates lying.
But how much more could I fail before the failure overwhelmed me?
It would be easy to listen to the constant, harping voice that tells us to quit. That says you’re no good, the words you’re putting on the page are stupid and dull and unimaginative, your plot is recycled toilet paper and it’s not even interesting. That inner voice that tells you matter-of-factly that no one will read your work because it’ll never get an agent, let alone published. You’re a failure. The voice of the worst critic in the universe. And the worse thing about it is that voice belongs to yourself.
The number one piece of advice when we’ve hit a slump of this magnitude is to keep writing.
Terrible idea.
Each and every page became a quagmire of tired metaphors, cliched similes, jarring viewpoints and boring characters. What else was there to do? I could spiral into depression, that would be interesting for a while, until you realise that you’re snapping at your fiance, getting angry with a puppy, brushing off your cat. If it wasn’t for a pandemic I probably would have even cancelled plans. Luckily I couldn’t make any. Instead what you should do then is anything else but write, for a little while. Do a puzzle with the fiance, take the puppy on a new walk and find a secret wood or a fast clear stream where wildflowers are blooming. Groom the cat so he doesn’t spit hairballs next to your house shoes.
They tell you to write through the block, but what you should really do is move away from the block. Leave the critic in your writing nook and let him (mine’s a he) starve.
I found there was another way. A way that started to clear away the fog in my mind like a lighthouse beam. I have a book on my bedside stool (I don’t have a bedside table) called Being A Writer by Travis Elbourough and Helen Gordon. In it are pieces of advice and ideas and experiences of the writing life and process. It contains a quote from Martin Amis which goes ‘What sometimes happens is that you get stuck, and it’s really not what you’re about to do that’s stumping you, it’s something you’ve already done that isn’t right.’
My mind blew up. Of course, you idiot, I said to myself. It’s not the scene you’re working on that is rubbish (it was rubbish) it’s that you’ve backed yourself into a corner. And I had. I hadn’t given my character any agency and he was asking me what the point of his narrative was if he was just going to have things happen to him, instead of doing stupid, idiotic things himself. He was asking me to go back and change something in the first few chapters so that his every action had a consequence. I said ok, that seems fair, you make a valid point. We went and tried it together.
It didn’t work.
It didn’t work but at least my mind wasn’t drowning in negative thoughts and images of my own failures. What it did was show me something else. It showed me that I wasn’t telling the story right. I was writing too hard, trying to add too much to something that didn’t have enough room. How to fix that though?
The clouds were coming in again. I could hear my inner critic lacing up those big, steel toe-capped boots he was always wearing when he was getting ready to give me a good bloody kicking.
But why was he getting ready? What was I doing? I’d already taken my character by the hand and we had wandered along with the story and saw where things needed to happen, what I had to change, where he could make a really stupid choice that would heap conflict, tension and jeopardy on his young shoulders. But still, it wouldn’t work. Why? Because the voice was wrong.
Ahhh, sweet relief. Change the point of view. Easy.
Not easy. I was in my own way now. I had already put so much into this story as it was, and to start at the beginning again and let go of those awful words would bruise my soul. And then my wonderful manuscript tutor, the multi-talented CJ Skuse gave me the advice that will hopefully keep the critic outside the office, knocking at the door but not coming in. Change the point of view, by all means, she said, but just carry on from where you are now.
I was astounded. Was I allowed to do that? Really? It felt like I was breaking an unwritten rule. And I was. But it was my rule. A rule that I had created and one in each I could redact. And so I did, telling myself that fixing the early chapters was the job of the second, third, fourth, fifth, whatever draft. The first draft was for experimenting. Playing. Figuring my stuff out. Pressure off.
Sort of.
I still had a first draft to write. And with my MA I also had deadlines. Work to edit and polish before the hand-ins.
I still needed to write a novel. The Novel. Too much for me. Until John Steinbeck arrived in the nick of time.
Abandon the idea that you’re ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you’re always surprised.
Eureka. I was trying to write a novel when I should have been telling myself a story, one page, one beat, one line at a time. I’m learning to write a book the way a marathon runner learns to finish a race. Don’t think about the 26 miles ahead. Just run to the next lamppost. Then run to that parked car. Now you might as well run to where the little dog with the blue and green checked bow tie is sitting. And on and on.
One word.
One sentence.
One paragraph.
One page.
One moment at a time.
What is the point? I’m not sure, really. Because I have a story to tell? Maybe. Because I’m the best one to tell it? I doubt it. Because when all is said and all is done I’m be a writer? Probably. So I might as well write. The point, I think, is to fail. But fail every day. Fail a little bit better than the last time and leave all those failures behind us, and remember that when things get tough and the words dry up and the characters are staring at us waiting for their next line and the critic is banging at the door so hard the hinges are buckling and the ceiling’s cracking and dust is falling to the ground, just go back. Unravel the story, and write one page a day.