Writing, Despair, Coping

A Cheery Holiday Roundtable @ locusmag.com

This was initiated last month and posted about a week ago. Curious what folks here thought. It is certainly true that recent roundtables have been dull and this one ironically got people engaged.

Thanks for sharing this! The roundtable was definitely worth the read. I am feeling a bit choked up right now. Ironically, I got another short story rejection in my email inbox today, so this subject of "despair" is very timely and personal.

I've had a very long writing month with much room for despair. But hey that's the cookie crumbling, there will be better months. So I keep plodding and try not to despair.

I do set very high standards, though, and know, on paper, I have nothing to despair about, that i'm doing well. So it seems selfish to even get to the point of moaning.

Yes, a very interesting read J-Sun.

Despair is not a word I'd use lightly - I may have touched upon its terrible shores a couple of very brief moments in my life, but generally my voyage has been in good sunny conditions. It the same with the very commonplace phrase that everyone seems to use that they are 'a little depressed' which I'm loath to use. I may be feeling a little 'blue' or down on many occasions but compared to someone with clinical depression I am really just normal.

Back to writing however the negative feelings that pounce on me: disappointment yes, (occasionally crushingly so!) and then the more prevalent and persistent blue mood that what I'm writing just isn't up to scratch and suffers from terrible flaws.

However from my perspective there are two things:

• I'm slowly ramping up my writing and trying to find a place as a writer - but I am very aware it is an ultra-marathon of learning and hard work. And, taking the running analogy a bit further, there are going to be places where you're going to be running up a steep hill - it's going to be tough, it will probably be painful. So I'm expecting hard shocks to come and that helps a lot to take away some of the negativity.
• I'm not relying on writing to pay the bills & the mortgage - I have a few other employment projects that are currently doing that (each actually probably as fragile as writing, but hey somehow it has worked the past decade or so...). Therefore I'd think my emotions would be considerably heightened if writing was my sole career and breadwinner and be a different kettle of fish all together.

@springs - Actually I like a good moan. I see it as a coping mechanism, to talk through negative moments with friends and vice versa. Not for the support and 'flattery', although of course I receive that with gratitude and repay it when they do the same with me, but a way of burning out the irrational resentment or negative thoughts, and (in my case at least) getting to the point when I suddenly realise, 'oh stop bloody moaning, move on. Actually, things might be better now." etc...

When we talk about despair, are we talking about disappointment, clinical depression or an outright urge just to give up and walk away? I’ve had some of the first, I don’t have the medical skill to say for sure about the second, and the third I’ve never felt, because giving up would be an admission that I’ve wasted a lot of time.

I think it is necessary to develop a rather schizoid approach to this writing business. At the same time, you have to be convinced that what you are doing is very good – but you also have to be ready to improve and always looking for ways to do so. Similarly, you have to be submitting stuff that is as good as it can be – and ready to deal with the fact that a lot of people won’t want to publish it.

A certain amount of this comes down to attitude. A degree of hard-headedness is needed in writing. You have to be realistic, which doesn’t mean defeatist. Nobody goes to art class expecting to come out with a masterpiece on the first day, or into a self-defence class expecting to throw the teacher out the window. These comparisons with painting and martial arts, are valid, I think, because although you can become an expert, and become very impressive or better, it takes application and a lot of bruises and wonky paintings first. You will produce rubbish, or at best, second-rate stuff, and that in itself is no reason to despair or give up. Sometimes, you are telling the right story wrong. Other times, you are telling the wrong story, or a story that can’t be told right because what happens in it isn’t psychologically right – the characters (or anyone) would never act that way. You have to be honest enough to recognise that, but confident enough to be able to tell that story in a way that works.

It’s worth pointing out that people often say that they can’t “find the right words”. There aren’t any right words, but some are less wrong than others. Sometimes, you capture an idea or a thought perfectly, but most of the time, you’re simply relating what someone did, said or thought as clearly as possible to move the book along. At the risk of seeming emotionally dead – I’m not, I’m just English and male – I think in general we could do with a bit less talk of writing as a magical process, or something that you should expect to experience as an emotional rollercoaster.

The world of publishing is strange and unfair. I remember a lady in a writing group becoming quite angry that a book about ghosts had sold well, which a work of heavy “literary” fiction hadn’t, but that misses the point. All you can do is to make the best of your chances and have an idea of how it all works – and be aware of the large bearing that bad luck has on it. And one of the best ways to maximise your chances is to persist.

"Strange and unfair..." Ain't that the truth! I suppose the trick is to simultaneously be your best and be realistic; a difficult thing to do. Toby's comment that you make your own luck by persisting is totally true though. And it doesn't get any easier if you become an "established author" - in fact, maybe it becomes even more difficult...

Hi,

I think I'd have to place myself in the Ford camp, I never feel despair in my writing. It's just too much damned fun. During the edit etc I certainly know my share of frustration and angst etc - but again not what I would call despair. Maybe I'm just too happy go lucky. Maybe I just don't get how terrible it really is. But then again maybe many writers are the sort who actually live for despair.

True story. My sister bless her, is a lawer and a damned clever girl. She got good grades and worked hard. But she was never satisfied. The reason? She always has this tendency to pick out other people as friends etc who work even harder and are even brighter, and then compare herself to them. That of course feeds into poor self esteem, unhappiness and in some cases despair. Me? I compare myself to myself. I don't care if other writers are better or worse than me. I write because I like writing and I'm happy doing that.

So my number one piece of advice to avoid despair in writing would be to set yourself realistic goals. Ones you can achieve. Don't set yourself up for failure by comparing your work or your progress to the writing gods. Don't say I'm going to have to write as well as Donaldson to be any good.

Cheers, Greg.

Easy to get down, especially with rejections, but the 'best not being good enough' is someone else's judgement, not your own. If you never even try, that's failure. Every attempt is a success, because it's achieved something that never existed before. Ever. To prove something can be done, you have to try. If it's the 500th attempt that succeeded, then the 499 before it were also successes, because without them, the 500th wouldn't have happened.

If you think you'll ever give up writing because you might not succeed, then don't start. I hope to be on my deathbed saying "I've got a great idea for a story..."

It kind of brought to mind this song and video:

I'm with the author whose name I didn't recognise and have now forgotten who said it was more fun than anything else.

Let's face it - writing is hard. I try to not get worried about writing, and I am lucky enough to not have to worry if something actually sells. That being said, I love the process and I love finishing a story, having it polished and sending it out into the world. If it gets rejected. so be it. Not everything we write deserves to be seen by the world (at least not everything I write does) but I keep going on to the next one.

I think with me, I decided to take baby steps, and not dive head first into novel writing. I went the route of short stories and flash fiction to get my toes wet. It has worked so far, and for all of the rejections that come along with the game, the acceptances have come along as well. This is what keeps us going, and with short stories, it's easy to not have such an attachment as we would with a novel. You just keep subbing it, and keep writing the next thing...when that is done you repeat.

I am working on a novel (very slowly), and as much as I love the story, I'm not rushing it out of me. I feel that as I practice and get better, this will only make my book all the better.

So my process has been: baby steps = lack of despair.

@Venusian Broon Good man. Very much of the Karl Pilkington school of thought. Nothing wrong with a good moan.

@J-Sun @springs, I think despair is a really, awfully strong word. I'm going through the sludge of attempting to get agency representation, but I'd hardly call it despairing, although the frustration is palpable at times. Just yesterday I read a brutal article in the Guardian about miscarriage and a depressing one today in the Telegraph about male suicide rates... so it's good to keep things in perspective!

@ratsy I think you have a very good approach to things

@psychotick think you've hit upon some pertinent truths there, too. I'm not sure I fully buy into the myth that writers (and other artists) are all out there trying to fill themselves with despondency and despair in order to feed their art and get their muse going. Most people do art or writing or music or whatever because they just love it. I know I do.

I usually love writing - although I've had down times and doubts I've never stopped enjoying being that character and playing in world's far from Earth.

Glad folks enjoyed the original Roundtable - and this thread was just as good - nice comments from folks and a nice video, AnyaKimlin.

It is interesting what a trigger "despair" is. I agree that it's a strong word but I also liked the comments about how "whatever you feel is what you feel" and, basically, whatever word you use, I don't know that it's meant to be cosmic or even social but just that "state of being that would preclude you from sticking with writing". And a lot of answers seem to be "love and perseverance" - if you want it, keep at it.

Re: Boneman's "someone else's judgment", the graphic/poster was just meant to be a bit of gallows humor but people can judge themselves not good enough. Others can judge them, which should be taken in like any criticism and usually thrown out like much criticism , or they can judge themselves in relation to others (which isn't always wise or useful but can be, to an extent, common and natural), or in relation to their own aims, measuring reach vs. grasp.

One thing I'm curious about, though - a bit off-topic, I guess, but near-allied - has anyone here ever let something knock them out of writing (I don't mean for a passing spell like weeks of pique but like years with a seemingly permanent mental reset) and then gotten back to it? What was it like; how did you do it?

That aside, this has been a pretty optimistic discussion - I hope it helps you feel that optimism, Denise Tanaka.

J-Sun said:

One thing I'm curious about, though - a bit off-topic, I guess, but near-allied - has anyone here ever let something knock them out of writing (I don't mean for a passing spell like weeks of pique but like years with a seemingly permanent mental reset) and then gotten back to it? What was it like; how did you do it?

Click to expand...

In 1995 I'd now describe myself as a 'nascent aspiring writer' I was avidly consuming hundreds of books of all sorts a year and ideas for my own work was starting to appear (and live in a large Tupperware box as scraps of paper.) However I was clueless about how to go about and finish a work - or even start one properly.

I did have access to the internet at University and Work - but content on the web was fragmented and poor then, everything was in start-up mode and Usenet newsgroups (the forerunner of Internet forums for those that don't have a clue what I'm talking about) were a bit hit and miss - and anyway getting internet access at home was at that time ridiculously expensive and there was no way I could afford a computer at the time, thus time on good groups was intermittent and random. I was stuck with pen and paper - not my favourite way of getting words down by a long shot and I was the only person I knew in the universe that was fired up to write fiction.

But I persevered and in 1995 a novel length idea that had me jumping up and down with joy came to me. I got 'How to write novel' books and slowly did research, by going down the public library and physically finding the information myself.

Things got in the way - I found myself on a few career paths, and in each one I threw myself in with full force - minimum 12 hour days in the office, 6 days a week sort of thing - writing got squeezed almost out of my life. Also I had a 'linear' way of doing things that meant I tended to focus on the most important thing in my life (work in those years) rather than what I do now which I'd call 'broad-front' but that's another discussion.

However writing managed to cling on and by 2001 I had the novel forming. I was also in my first house, and getting a PC and internet access. I was ready now to make the leap into actually pulling it all together and getting this great idea down as a novel....

....however as part of my new found wealth - all that hard work had paid off - I got a DVD player for the first time, and thinking I should get something to test it with, I also purchased The Matrix, not having seen it in the cinema when it came out in 1999.

Now I didn't come up with the novel of the film, and I with hindsight I know I would not have come up with a novel that resembled the Matrix at all - but there were enough similarities in my mind to utterly pole-axe me. My instant thought was if I write this I can see people say 'this is obviously taken/ripped off from the Matrix.' It was stupid, looking back at it, but somehow this just killed off my enthusiasm utterly dead - it was 6 years work erroneously poured down the sink because it felt like it was me versus the universe and the universe had pulled a nasty surprise out of the bag against me.

So writing went guerilla in my life again, in that I came up with ideas all the time and that Tupperware box was now a bulging word document growing all the time with ideas. I returned to focusing on work...till about 7 years later, sick of this relentless work, something snapped and everything started to click - I did a cheap correspondence course in creative writing and using their exercises and the feedback to finally work out (slowly!) how to put a story together. Feeling confident about putting writing and finishing shorts I started on another novel around 2011 and also found this wonderful forum (walking into a fresh faced Springs and Anya in the Entrance lobby of Chrons, I remember distinctly!) which has also been a tremendous support.

It's just grown and grown since then. It won't go this time!

Coda

That original novel idea I has is still there - I've been kicking it about, trying to 'un-Matrix-ify' it. It needs a lightning strike of unadulterated inspiration I think to get over my own negative feelings about it. However it's current form which is okay - largely there since the early 2000's - part of the novel is set on a planet Earth that orbits Jupiter (I've written too much to explain why, but it does makes sense honest...)

I then see this image being pushed around:




so all I'd like to say is:

AAARRRGHH GET OUT OF MY BLOODY HEAD, WACHOWSKI BROTHERS, GO AND STEAL/ABSORB OTHER PEOPLES IDEAS.

Hi J-Sun,

Nothing's managed to stop me writing since I started - coincidentally in around 1995. But one thing did stop me for nearly ten years from thinking about publishing. And that was the rejection go round from agents etc. You know the rejection letters and the lack of responces which I found even worse. That discouraged me. It made me feel that I would never be a writer. And for those years from 02 to 10 I simply tapped away at my keyboard for me and me alone.

I know that many here and elsewhere disagree with self publishing, and with the idea that people should simply by pass the trade publishing route of agents and gatekeepers and publish. Many believe that we indies are basically second class writers who failed and are now simply publishing and being damned. And there is a grain of truth in that in my case. But at the same time I think people have to consider that the trade publishing system also victimises many writers. It makes failures of many who are extremely talented. I don't claim that I'm one of those uber talented writers by the way, but I do claim that I am talented enough to have been scarred and victimised by the system. And that self-publishing does offer a legitimate way for writers like me and many others, to expose our work to the world and be judged by an actual audience. For me it was a lifeline as I suspect it has been for many others.

And I've read enough extremely good indie books to know that the world is a richer place for it.

Cheers, Greg.

I don't think the trade publishing system victimises authors; it exists in a capitalist system for which the only important quality is profit. Marketing people in publishing houses have far more clout than editors - unfortunately - but they don't do it deliberately, it's more banal. The banality of marketing...

Quite. I'd say that the capitalist system of making profit from selling books isn't friendly or hostile to good writing - it's just not closely connected to it. In fact, I'm not sure what it's connected to: the ability of publishers to effectively create a bestseller from nothing at all - 50 Shades is one of the best examples - is very impressive.

Hi,

Guys I don't mean that the trade publishing system deliberately sets about victimising writers. I just mean that it does. Just as pokie machine makers victimise problem gamblers, alcohol makers victimise alcoholics etc. The makers of these things probably don't want to cause harm. They just want to make money. But harm is still caused. And who knows how many promising writers out there have given up, their dreams crushed, their confidence gone, and left believing that they have no talent simply because ten or twenty agents didn't think much of their work or couldn't even get off their backsides to respond. You can call that capitalism in action, but it's still victimisation.

And Toby, 50 Shades started as an indie serial as I understand, which publishers jumped on when it started selling. They didn't make it from nothing.

Cheers, Greg.

You’re right: the traditional or standard route isn’t good for anyone’s mental health. The truth, both good and bad, is that there is a very large amount of work that I’ve seen on this forum that is good enough to be published by a large, mainstream publishing house. The problem, sometimes, is subject or style as much as quality – or just that the person who picked it out that day wasn’t in the mood. And it is very dispiriting when good quality work is rejected. All you can do, if you’re going down that route, is to maximise your chances.

Sorry, I probably should have been clearer there, and 50 Shades perhaps wasn’t the best example. What I was thinking of was the ability of large publishers to turn an obscure book of questionable quality into a massive best-seller more or less by marketing alone. I don’t know how well 50 Shades sold before it was picked up (presumably enough to justify it being noticed, which makes it a bad example).