It can be frustrating, can’t it?
You write something, you work on it for months or even years, and then you finally share it with someone you trust, and they read it, and say — kindly, to spare your feelings —, “Well, it’s a good start…”
I speak from experience. Some of you may know that I started adapting season 1 of my fictional podcast, Girl In Space, into a YA novel for NaNoWriMo 2022. It’s presently more than 130,000 words and even though (being a Slow Writer™️) I’ve never written anything this quickly, I kind of already want to be done with it so I can get back to writing season 2 of the podcast.
But, right now, it’s… “a good start.”
I know this because I showed it to Tim, my partner in life and creativity, and he had the absolute gall to notice all of the weak parts and flaws I had hoped he would blithely ignore. The weak parts and flaws that I myself had been blithely ignoring in my utter desperation to just get this thing done.
Now, I realize that being in a state of utter desperation just get this thing done isn’t the best creative attitude. In fact, I’m sure that the greatest creative works are motivated by love and passion, not a generalized sense of panic and “Ugh, why isn’t this done already?!”
I started this novel in a hurry and pushed through it in a hurry — and it shows.
“This feels really rushed,” Tim said, looking up from the first chapter with evident disappointment. “I mean, it’s a good start, but…”
…But.
Sometimes I think that, as writers and creators, all we ever do is start.
Every day, I wake up and sit down to write, and I don’t have a magical continuation of creative flow from the night before. I have to start that engine up all over again, and it takes work — make the coffee, feed the cats, drink the water, take my meds, open up my manuscript, stare at the blank space, and scrape some kind of word or thought from the aether and slap it onto the page. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Hemingway famously (and/or allegedly) ended his daily writing sessions in the middle of a page or paragraph so he’d be able to easily jump in and start writing the next day.
I’m not that smart — or maybe I’m just more arrogant. I always want my day’s writing to feel satisfying and complete when it’s over, and stopping in the middle of a thought, paragraph, or sentence just leaves me uncomfortable and twitchy.
It’s more than that, though.
I’ve been writing and journaling for most of my life, and whenever I thumb back through my journals, I can see where I’ve had realizations and insights about the craft of writing, written in all caps or underlined (or both), reminders to myself for when I begin my next writing session.
For example, after showing Tim my novel draft, I scrawled: “Once you get it out of your head that you have to work at breakneck speed, you can focus on the process.” (Source: Ryder Carroll’s The Bullet Journal Method, page 173.)
Because of this, each day when I sit down to the page, I feel like a brand new writer. I have new information and a renewed sense of purpose. I get excited to put new words and new ideas onto the page.
I realize that it could go the other way, though. I suppose that I could look at the wealth of information that I don’t know and become discouraged that I don’t know it already. I could feel bitter and resentful that I wasn’t born with more talent or that I never had the money for an MFA or Ph.D.
I could interpret “It’s a good start, but…” as a death knell rather than a call to rebirth.
I could label myself with failure instead of beginner.
I could choose not to begin writing again the next day at all.
But that’s simply not what writing is for me.
Writing is and always has been a series of beginnings. Every day, every hour, every minute, every word. It is a daily reinvention of the self, a sense of discovery that layers itself onto my brain like coats of paint, color after color, word after word.
It’s a good start, they may say — and maybe it’s only ever a good start, and that’s all it ever needs to be.
Words & warmth,
Sarah