The Guinea Pig Report: “The Slough of Despond”
Once upon a time we were working our way through Dorothea Brande’s Becoming A Writer. Remember that? How many of y’all playing along at home have been faithfully doing your “wake to write” and “scheduled writing” exercise? Raise your hands…
OK, well, me neither. And I’m the one who’s supposed to be doing this for a living, too.
*blush o’ shame*
Well. Getting back into the swing of things time! That’s what we’re gonna talk about today: why it’s so easy to get out of the habit, how it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re any less of a writer for it, and strategies one might use to get back on the wagon.
But then comes the dawning comprehension of all that a writer’s life implies: not easy daydreaming, but hard work at turning the dream into reality without sacrificing the glamour; not the passive following of someone else’s story, but the finding and finishing of a story of one’s own….
[The writer] will find a hundred reasons to doubt himself and not one for self-confidence. He will suspect that those who encouraged him are too lenient, or too far from the market to know the standards of successful fiction. Or he will read the work of a real genius in words, and the discrepancy between that gift and his own will seem a chasm to swallow his hopes. I such a state, lightened now and again by moments when he feels his own gift alive and surging, he may stay for months or years.
Every writer goes through this period of despair. Without doubt many promising writers, and most of those who were never meant to write, turn back at this point and find a lifework less exacting. Others are able to find the other bank of their slough of despond. sometimes by inspiration, sometimes by sheer doggedness….
—pp. 42-43
When you’re in this state, as Brande goes on to write, it’s not easy to explain to others why you’ve stopped writing. Some unsympathetic souls may be tempted to point out that this “slough” is an obvious sign that you weren’t really cut out to be a writer anyway. And many of us writers are inclined to buy that line of b.s., to condemn ourselves for laziness and begin to question whether we’d misjudged our vocation.
But it’s important to realize that every writer, even really successful writers, goes through times like this. It might not be inaccurate to say that the “slough” never entirely goes away; we just get better at getting out of it.
How do we do this? Brande emphasizes the health and training of the unconscious–indeed, her entire book is a treatise on the importance of “duplicity,” of knowing oneself to comprise both a conscious/analytical/adult part and an unconscious/creative/childlike part and encouraging the cooperation of the two. And that childlike part of us, it likes to play.
What makes writing fun?
Anyone who self-identifies as a writer does so because he or she enjoys writing. That’s not to say that writing is always fun. Sometimes it’s work. Sometimes it’s hard work. But if it’s never fun, well, maybe that’s your cue to seek out lower-stress, higher-paying ways to have no fun.
But why would you have gotten into this writing thing in the first place if there was nothing fun about it?
Tomorrow we’ll talk about what to do with all those pages of “don’t think just write” you may or may not have accumulated. But tonight–if you are indeed playing along at home–spend some time reacquainting yourself with that part of your craft that is play. Forget about publishing, editors, teachers, or critics. Just get out a fresh piece of paper (or a blank word processing document) and have some fun with words.
Bonus! Writing prompts. Go try some on for size.
October 5th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
[…] Yesterday, the point I wanted to sit on was that everyone–new writers, old writers, experienced writers, green writers–everyone gets blocked at times. Or at least goes through periods where the writing isn’t fun. Where they’d rather do anything but. And sometimes, some of them (Niki raises her hand) start saying self-deprecating stuff like, “Oh, I’ve been lazy lately. Hardly got any writing done at all. Slept late. Such a bum.” But what’s going on underneath the laziness is, Why bother getting up to write? Why bother writing? I’m crap. I’m an imposter. I was crazy to think I could ever write. […]