The first month of novel writing is bolstered primarily by a sense of exhilaration; the thrill of starting something new, an otherworldly high that comes with the moment of creation, and the millions of moments that follow after. A fiction writer is the closest anyone can come to being God – all these seemingly insignificant mortal entities at your fingertips, these little lives to fashion or extinguish as you will. You understand now why gods are sometimes loved, and always feared.
The second month of novel writing comes as a gradual shock, like jumping into a pile of words through the eyes of a slow-motion camera. It’s a jigsaw puzzle. It is harder than you think it is. You know how the overall image should look, but you’re frustrated that the abberant, strabismic puzzle piece you’ve been hammering into the other lopsided, disproportionate puzzle piece for the past three days does not give you the partial image of the violet orchid you’ve been looking for, but rather, is actually a dog’s tongue. The glimpse of a night sky becomes a human iris. A laughing clown’s mouth becomes a stain of blood. You can’t find a way not to end the sentence with a proposition. The third inconsequential adherent dies too soon. You have a newfound appreciation for professional writers, even the ones you dislike.
The third month of novel writing is rife with frustration, a lack of confidence, and an abundance of self-pity. You’re not just as good as you thought you were; you are no longer good enough. The story isn’t flowing. The plot is an elementary affair, a pelucid sludge of dialogue and superfluous complications that any neophyte reader can pierce through with little imagination. A critic perhaps, skimming through your first draft, has denounced it as both trite and unreadable. You wallow in the absence of your own self-worth, and imagine little sad violins playing in your head. Your boyfriend takes pity on you one Saturday and suggests an afternoon at the bookstore. The bibliophile in you appreciates the gesture while the struggling writer turns it down – successful authors are the last people you want to look at. There is no dawn with your darkness; should the moon bear traces of silver linings, they are nonetheless utterly and adversely unattainable.
If you are not made to be a writer, you will turn around and abandon the project at this point. Otherwise, the fourth month of novel writing will find you slogging along, resigned to completing the literary monstrosity you had first set out to accomplish. Every now and then good ideas will hit you, and sometimes the puzzle starts making sense, though the way to an ending remains a dark and lonely path. A writer differs from any other profession in that most suffer crippling self-doubt before they can learn to get better. You may not yet be the good writer you would like to be at the crux of your fledgling career, but at this phase you have the makings, and the potential to be one.
And that, I suppose, is as good a place to start as any.
Still in the dredges of my current manuscript – just reshaping, re-editing, re-tearing my hair out in frustration, in about as good a way as that can be possible. Am feeling pretty good with how everything is coming together!
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