Uncharted

Image by Karn Badjatia

Keeping it real this week (per usual). I’m in new territory with my current novel (work in progress) and that challenge in conjunction with the challenges of working on commercial music, and querying agents (with another novel) has been a real mindset workout for me.

Everyone has their own relationship to Creativity and creative process. Mine involves quite a bit of surrender and allowing, particularly where writing is concerned (I’ve written some about it here). And yes, I get that it can seem strange to someone with a different process that I am simultaneously directing the ship, and traversing uncharted waters. But, it’s often the way of things for me.

Most of the time, the adventure is elating – right now, it’s giving me several opportunities to face aspects of my own social conditioning and I don’t think I was prepared for that challenge with this book. But it is what it is. The characters are demanding respectful representation, just like they do in every novel I write. And just like with the others, I’m giving it to them, but it hasn’t been easy.

I’m not sure if it’s because I’m actively seeking literary representation right now and have had to have a mind to what is (or isn’t) “saleable”, or if it’s because I was brought up being told there were certain ways to do certain things (or think, or believe about certain things), or if it’s something else entirely. Whatever the reason, I’ve found myself wanting to play it safe with this one, going for the industry standard. I’ve found myself wanting to limit the characters – who, by the way, aren’t having it.

So, I’ve had copious opportunities lately to remind myself what I’m actually here for. What my commitment to Creativity is, what my commitment to the story is. And it’s not to save the ideas for later, especially not when the characters and the story demand them now. Even though I know ultimately this book will be read by others (and I look forward to that!), in this drafting process, I’m having to drop all pretense, stop thinking about future readers’ (including agents and editors) expectations and potential reactions to anything, and allow this story to come through the way it wants to.

Image by Brett Jordan

The urge to “save it for later” – for another book, another project, some other iteration, some other time – is very real. I can come up with all kinds of “reasons” why it would be good to save segments of this plotline, or these characters, or this scene, or that topic for another time. But as solid as they may sound, all of them are just BS excuses. And I recognize I’m wanting to make excuses because it’s scary to keep stepping into this space – to be so real, so vivid, so raw. To say something beyond “you complete me” (which I don’t say in my stories anyway, btw – I’m all about the inner work, we complete ourselves and our beloveds can compliment, but that’s a topic for another day). To let these characters be who they are, who they want to be. And to honor the story that wants to come through.

In times like these, when I feel myself wanting to take the easy way out, I turn to wise creatives. People who have walked where I am now, faced their version of the same obstacles I’m facing, and have some things to say about it. I’ve been thinking a lot about this section from the incomparable Annie Dillard from her essay, “A Writer in the World”, in The Abundance:

“One of the few things I know about writing is this: Spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Don’t hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it now. The very impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful; it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”

Here’s to showing up and digging in. To just going for it, not holding back, but giving it all, right now. For our characters, for our readers, and for ourselves.