Your honesty is like electrocution, it's a type of clarity around the layers of process I haven't seen anywhere else. That makes your writing interesting and compelling. I'm saving this for my writing desk!
This was a very timely post for me to read. My lovely agent has retired and I am struggling to build a relationship with the person she passed me on to. Now I know this new agent is well-respected and good at her job. But she is not buying into my new project and we are having a real tussle...I really, passionately believe in what I want this next book to be. So, with your words ringing in my ears, I will go back to my desk this morning!
It takes bravery and boldness to name your fears and tackle them head on. It’s also extremely helpful to others who are fighting the same battles, so thank you for sharing. Fear can be loud and can drown out the amateur love… but only if we let it. 🙂
Thanks Wendy. I might write a fear list and answer too! Many parallels in our internal conversations.
I appreciate the timing of this - or perhaps it just caught my eye because it’s on my mind 🤷♀️- but I was on a roll before my holiday and on return 10 days later I feel like I need to start the engine again and I’m scared it’s all gone again.
The clarity of the book and the why I can write it.
Get to my desk and see …..
Ps I have yet to read The Ghost Lake - it sitting on my shelf as it felt like an autumn/winter book 📖 is that fair?
I haven't written much lately, and just looked back at the poems I wrote over the past six months and thought, "Okay, you have NO IDEA how to write a poem. None. These are terrible." This is usually a cue for me to buckle down to reading. Sooner or later something I read is going to stimulate some writerly nerve endings and I might have a shot of writing something out of it that's not stiff, self-conscious fuckery. Anyway, thanks for sharing your own struggles. Best wishes to you in your "journey."
Oh Wendy, so very relatable today and on most other days! Here are some of my oh-so-helpful thoughts on a daily basis at the moment: "My second novel is the worst novel ever to be written. It will end my career. I will be a pariah. My friends will drift away out of embarrassment. My agent will ghost me. It will cast a shadow on my first book. I will never get another book deal." Etc. etc. BUT these things are also true: I love writing. There's nothing else I want to do. All that matters is the process. If I can't earn a living I'll do something else, but I'll always write because I need to and it's like flying on the days (those precious days) it's going well. It's probably not literally the worst book ever written. And the next one will be better. Writing's a lifetime's apprenticeship, even Seamus bloody Heaney said so.
P.S. The Ghost Lake is magnificent, you're an extraordinary writer, and a thousand congratulations on the thing you've won, you utterly deserve it. x
I started by saying I don't know what i'm doing. But it didn't feel true. Instead, I think I know as much as anyone does: which isn't much. I don't buy that other people have it all figured out as writers. I assume they also have anxieties and worries. I try and remember everyone is fleshy and prone to melt down. I try and imagine no one is so different from each other in the end. That helps me. Xx also, YAY for secret thing! Sounds like a big validation, objectively xx
Sounds like one of the kindest things you could do for yourself at this point in life is really work at laying down that part that wants to make you feel unworthy, my friend. Afterall, why NOT you? Why would anyone else be more deserving? The world doesn't work this way :) You've done the work, you've got the reward. Other times you will do the work and not get the reward. Others will and won't do the work and get rewards. It's just a funny old world. You've nothing to prove. Just let the fact you are an experienced writer and editor be so :) xxx
Your honesty is like electrocution, it's a type of clarity around the layers of process I haven't seen anywhere else. That makes your writing interesting and compelling. I'm saving this for my writing desk!
Thank you Sarah xx
This was a very timely post for me to read. My lovely agent has retired and I am struggling to build a relationship with the person she passed me on to. Now I know this new agent is well-respected and good at her job. But she is not buying into my new project and we are having a real tussle...I really, passionately believe in what I want this next book to be. So, with your words ringing in my ears, I will go back to my desk this morning!
It takes bravery and boldness to name your fears and tackle them head on. It’s also extremely helpful to others who are fighting the same battles, so thank you for sharing. Fear can be loud and can drown out the amateur love… but only if we let it. 🙂
Thank you x
Re #7: nope
Thanks Wendy. I might write a fear list and answer too! Many parallels in our internal conversations.
I appreciate the timing of this - or perhaps it just caught my eye because it’s on my mind 🤷♀️- but I was on a roll before my holiday and on return 10 days later I feel like I need to start the engine again and I’m scared it’s all gone again.
The clarity of the book and the why I can write it.
Get to my desk and see …..
Ps I have yet to read The Ghost Lake - it sitting on my shelf as it felt like an autumn/winter book 📖 is that fair?
I haven't written much lately, and just looked back at the poems I wrote over the past six months and thought, "Okay, you have NO IDEA how to write a poem. None. These are terrible." This is usually a cue for me to buckle down to reading. Sooner or later something I read is going to stimulate some writerly nerve endings and I might have a shot of writing something out of it that's not stiff, self-conscious fuckery. Anyway, thanks for sharing your own struggles. Best wishes to you in your "journey."
Oh Wendy, so very relatable today and on most other days! Here are some of my oh-so-helpful thoughts on a daily basis at the moment: "My second novel is the worst novel ever to be written. It will end my career. I will be a pariah. My friends will drift away out of embarrassment. My agent will ghost me. It will cast a shadow on my first book. I will never get another book deal." Etc. etc. BUT these things are also true: I love writing. There's nothing else I want to do. All that matters is the process. If I can't earn a living I'll do something else, but I'll always write because I need to and it's like flying on the days (those precious days) it's going well. It's probably not literally the worst book ever written. And the next one will be better. Writing's a lifetime's apprenticeship, even Seamus bloody Heaney said so.
P.S. The Ghost Lake is magnificent, you're an extraordinary writer, and a thousand congratulations on the thing you've won, you utterly deserve it. x
I started by saying I don't know what i'm doing. But it didn't feel true. Instead, I think I know as much as anyone does: which isn't much. I don't buy that other people have it all figured out as writers. I assume they also have anxieties and worries. I try and remember everyone is fleshy and prone to melt down. I try and imagine no one is so different from each other in the end. That helps me. Xx also, YAY for secret thing! Sounds like a big validation, objectively xx
And thank you! It is a big validation. Having to really swallow down the 'but I don't deserve it' voice.
Sounds like one of the kindest things you could do for yourself at this point in life is really work at laying down that part that wants to make you feel unworthy, my friend. Afterall, why NOT you? Why would anyone else be more deserving? The world doesn't work this way :) You've done the work, you've got the reward. Other times you will do the work and not get the reward. Others will and won't do the work and get rewards. It's just a funny old world. You've nothing to prove. Just let the fact you are an experienced writer and editor be so :) xxx
'everyone is fleshy and prone to melt down.' I love this description.