What to Do If You
Hate What You’ve Written
by Nancy Holder
A better title for this piece is “What to do when you hate what you’ve written.” I
don’t know anyone who has enjoyed a one hundred per cent hate-free writing
life. We’ve all been there and this is what we usually do about it:
Start a story or a novel or a poem.
Read what we’ve written so far.
Hate it.
Start over.
Read what we’ve written so far.
Hate it.
Work on another part of the story.
Read what we’ve written so far.
Hate that.
Watch TV.
Talk about getting back to it.
Let time slide by.
Give up.
The catch is that most of the time
when we hate what we’ve written, it’s not actually about the writing. It’s about
the expectations we place on ourselves. We have some kind of blurry vision
about where we should be in the writing process, and we’ve concluded that we’re
not there. It’s difficult to understand how we can recognize good work yet be
unable to produce it, and it’s often even harder to accept.
So sometimes we displace our
disappointment by seeking validation as writers in “writer-adjacent”
ways—getting more followers on Facebook, participating in conferences, buying
office supplies, doing research, offering to read someone else’s work and so
on. But in our hearts we know that none of this makes us writers.
Writing makes us writers.
Ira Glass, the host and producer of
the radio show This American Life, has
a wonderful video titled “Being Creative” where he talks about this gap between
our taste and our work in progress. He says that there’s a disconnect because
we’re learning how to do our creative thing. And that’s the key word: learning.
So what is the solution? Ira Glass
and I both agree:
It’s to write more.
Really and truly, the only way I
have found to stop hating my work is to write a lot. To have written so much
for so many years that I can’t help but improve. The learning curve is always
there, but it’s a different curve than what it was in the beginning. But I
rarely hate what I write. I may see weaknesses and flaws, but those dark
thunderclouds of despair and loathing are for the most part absent.
It’s important to write reams of
material because then writing seems less like an activity that is separate from
your life until it is part of your life (and for some of us, writing is our
life). When we write so seldom that writing always feels new and awkward, we
spend an inordinate amount of time judging it. We’re hyperaware of what we’re
doing and hypercritical of the results. When writing becomes commonplace, it
takes less energy to get better. When we see flaws and weaknesses, fixing them
doesn’t seem like an insurmountable task.
Here’s an example of what I’m
talking about. It has nothing to do with writing. I’ve decided to start baking
and decorating cookies. My dream is to make cookies that are so beautiful that
when people receive them as gifts, they’re truly excited. Maybe even that
people would be willing to pay for them. I’m all juiced up about it. My
boyfriend has even started calling me “Cookie.”
I bought myself a well-known
“cookie bible” and some equipment and all the ingredients I needed, watched a
bunch of videos, and got started. Look at me! I’m a baker!
My first batch of cookies was
pretty good. The next batch was terrible—too thick and burnt. The third batch
tasted doughy. The four batch was almost as good as the first batch. Okay,
then, on to decorating.
My icing was too runny. Then when I
mixed in more sugar, I didn’t stir the icing enough and all the cookies came
out streaked. I had to throw out a bunch of icing because I didn’t work fast
enough and it went bad. That meant I had to go to the store again. I ruined a batch when I tried to
stencil them. That meant that I had to make more icing. Again.
To frost more cookies, I needed to
make more cookies. This time the dough cracked and stuck to the rolling pin.
When I tried to transfer the cookies to the baking sheet, they stretched and a
couple of them broke apart.
I got distracted and mismeasured
how much cream of tartar to put in my next batch of icing. It tasted weird.
Onward! I told myself. Stay the
course.
I stayed the course.
For a while.
At the outset, I had told my
friends and family that I knew I was going to have make tons of cookies to get
any good at it. And yes, at first I held to that. I reminded myself that this was
a pleasant hobby, a diversion, and not something that defined me. So it was a
little easier to maintain some distance while I learned how to do it.
Then I got invited to a baby shower.
I looked at the calendar and offered to make some really cute cookies I had
seen online. I ordered the cutter, then got to work, baked a batch, then
frosted them. Drum roll…
Frankly, they looked as if a little
kid had made them. The outline of the cookie was difficult to identify because
the dough was too “loose” and my frosting was still streaked. They just weren’t
ready for prime time. The shower date loomed closer…and closer. And by then I
was on a writing deadline. Now I felt pressure from two sides, where before I
had had none.
Frustration set in because my
expectations had changed—I had assumed that surely by now I would be good
enough to unveil my cookies to an adoring public, and I was so very not. I got
into a funk. What was wrong with me? Couldn’t I even make cookies? They were
just little cookies, not three-tiered wedding cakes. The people in my books and
my videos made it look so easy. I had followed all the steps. But my cookies
sucked. I was tired and bummed out. I kind of hated the whole thing. Maybe
making cookies was not my thing after all….
Then I remembered Ira Glass. What
he would remind me is that my cookies only suck now. But they will get cuter (and tastier) if I continue to make
batch after batch, reread my cookbooks, and watch my videos—if I keep
practicing. I can stop now. But if I do, my cookies just won’t be that great.
The analogy is obvious, and so is
the take-home message. A writer writes.
And writes some more. And keeps writing. Through the pressure and the
frustration.
And then a writer gets better. And
then, pretty good.
Is it ever good enough?
Only if you think there’s an end
game. And for a working writer, there isn’t.
You just keep writing forever and
ever and ever.
And more often than not, you
actually enjoy it.
Here, have a cookie.
Here’s Ira Glass’s youtube video:
*****
Nancy Holder is a New York Times bestselling author and the
recipient of several awards, include five Bram Stokers for her horror fiction.
Her YA thriller,
The Rules, is out in
June. She writes and edits comic books and teaches in the Stonecoast MFA in
Creative Writing program offered through the University of Southern Maine. She
lives in San Diego and just turned in the novelization of the new
Ghostbusters movie starting Kristen Wiig
and Melissa McCarthy. Socialize on
Facebook and
@nancyholder
*****
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