Confidence and the Writer

One of my writing groups has a number of truly prolific and successful folks in it.  I was talking about this in my other writing group and someone asked, "Why do you think they're able to finish so much in such a  short time?"  It was a great question.  I had to think about it for a minute or two.  There was one person in particular I was thinking of.  When I thought about her, the word that came to mind was "confidence."  An enviable, and not inappropriate, healthy and powerful confidence in herself and in her writing that allows her to barrel ahead with fully realized worlds and adventures.

Now I'm hitting a snarled nest of a mess in the middle (of course!) of the magical realism nightmare I'm working on.  And it occurred to me that part of my problem is a lack of that confidence.  I second guess and second guess about where certain scenes should go and whether certain elements work or make sense or should it go here instead and before I know it, I've psyched myself out.  I lack confidence.

As writers, we should have a healthy capacity to reflect on our work, to look for ways to improve it.  We should be open to criticism.  We must be willing to revise, again and again.  And yet, that very willingness to revise can turn on us and render us and our work mediocre, wishy-washy, hesitant, unfocused, lacking in voice or style or originality.    

There is a fine line, of course, between confidence and arrogance.  Some writers believe their work is inherently the greatest literary achievement since Shakespeare, whether it's any good or not.  You hear agents talk about this all the time, the queries that declare how great they are in such hyperbolic terms that it's an insult by implication to every other writer.  

What gives some writers the kind of brash confidence that allows them to pitch flawlessly, to query with ferocity, to complete one draft after another without falling prey to the demons of self-doubt?  Maybe all writers are plagued by those demons, and some have a greater capacity and strength to withstand them.  Perhaps it is simply the personality we're given.  Maybe those of us who find confidence elusive manage to bring a vulnerability to our style instead.

So what does it mean to have confidence as a writer?  It means plowing ahead with a story wherever it may lead.  It means having faith in your own vision.  It means not only having the strength to hear, and accept criticism, but also to question it, interpret it and even refuse it.  It means decisiveness, forward momentum, stamina, completion.  

How does such confidence coexist with the capacity for honest, unflinching, realistic self-assessment?  Can it?

Bold Enough to Fall on Your Face

I want to be a bold writer.  Bold enough to fall on my face.  I'm not there yet.  I worry too much about what other people think.  I play it too safe.  I follow the rules too often - what's marketable, what I hear at conferences and workshops, what's the recommended style or genre.

When I was younger, I knew none of that stuff, and I had a more direct connection to my soul as a writer.  My craft was a mess.  I needed to learn what I've learned.  But I think I had a kind of open-mindedness, a willingness to explore, that I miss.  Of course, I was also so timid as a person that my writing rarely saw the light of day.  I don't miss that one bit.

I'd like to be fearless enough to trust my most outlandish visions and believe that somebody, somewhere, will "get" them, embrace them as I do, and not just think they're weird and confusing.

I've been re-reading Melville's MOBY DICK as preparation for a novel idea I have, and I've decided that Melville writes the way Baz Luhrman directs.  In fairness, I should probably compare Baz to Melville, not the other way around.  After all, Melville was here first.  Regardless, what they have in common is boldness.  Both of them are bold enough to fall on their faces.  They both make these occasionally insane and out of control choices that are sometimes brilliant and sometimes ... ridiculous.  

Melville switches genres, and points of view, willy-nilly as it pleases him.  One moment we're reading straight narrative, and the next he's switched to a stage script.  We're in the head of Ishmael, and then we're omniscient, knowing Ahab's deepest thoughts.  But there's this take-no-prisoner robust quality to the prose that makes you feel alive.  When it flies, it's hearty, intense, Shakespearean.

Baz Luhrman's films have a similar quality.  Baz chooses these super-drenched color palettes.  His settings are at once realistic and hyper-realistic.  His characters veer wildly from caricature to three-dimensional human beings.  He commits fully to his choices.  He throws himself into it.  Sometimes it's bracing and fresh as a dive in a tropical lagoon.  And sometimes it's hopelessly off-base.  But at least he commits.  He doesn't hold back.

I want to write boldly enough to fall on my face.  I'm not there yet.

Following Karen Russell Beyond Swamplandia!

I recently read Karen Russell's novel SWAMPLANDIA! and I can't quite stop thinking about it. Much like HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins, it makes me want to re-read it from my writer's brain. The two books are so different, but both examples of great writing. HUNGER GAMES keeps pulling you forward with in-your-face stakes from the get-go. SWAMPLANDIA! draws you in with its rich, strange images. It keeps growing on me over time. After HUNGER GAMES, I had to read the rest of the trilogy. After SWAMPLANDIA! I wanted to get my hands on Russell's short story collection, ST. LUCY'S HOME FOR GIRLS RAISED BY WOLVES, which I've just started reading.

There's something liberating about Russell's writing. The places are so fully realized and so wildly other at the same time. It reminds me of the worlds my brain would travel to as a child, though it is not children's literature. It leaves me believing that, like the protagonist in SWAMPLANDIA!, I can leap off the high-dive into a pit of alligators and swim safely to the other side. It makes me want to take risks in my own writing, to pursue the crazy, out-there images that float through my brain without fear and see where they lead. That's a trick worth celebrating. So, thank you, Ms. Russell!

Fearless Revision

"What if I rewrite the whole thing in first person?"
"What if I cut this chapter entirely?"
"What if death is the narrator?"
"What if there are 4 different narrators?"
"What if I write it as a blog?"
"What if she turns into a hippo instead of a moose?"

There was a time when I revised like an ancient, nearsighted clockmaker, turning over every word and phrase, tinkering with the minutest mechanism, making miserly revisions as if each change cost me and each letter was crafted from grains of diamond dust. I love treating words with so much affection and care, but I'm thankful that I have finally developed the courage to make more fearless revisions, skydiving, bungee-jumping revisions, the kind of revisions that change the entire landscape of a manuscript.

My whole critique group seems to have entered this phase of development together, which makes it ten times more exhilarating. When one of us announces, "I think I'm going to cut that whole section and move the important parts here instead," we cheer, we exult. It feels like we've all gone cliff-diving together.

Perhaps the support and safety of this long-term critique group has given me the foundation of confidence to take those plot-shattering leaps. Or maybe this liberation comes with writing novel-length pieces. Perhaps it's a function of exposing myself, over a period of time, to multiple critiques. Or maybe being in the habit of writing has made the words less scarce and therefore less precious, the process less like mining gold and more like cultivating a garden.

What is the most fearless, radical change you've ever made in a piece of your own writing? How did it affect the story?

If you've found yourself saying, "What if I ....?" or "I wonder what would happen if ...." then I challenge you to grab the hands of some fellow writers and take that vigorous plunge! What have you got to lose?