Today is the first day of August, which means it is the last month of my summer break, which is something that causes me to have a mini-panic attack (it’s already August???) and scrambling self-assessment. How is my summer going? Am I having a good enough summer? Am I doing all the things I’d wanted to do and planned to do, and am I enjoying them and getting as much out of them as I had hoped to? If I were just a few more notches to the left on the spectrum of crazy, I’d probably give myself surveys to fill out at the end of each week on quality and satisfaction.
For the most part, I am pleased to report that this has been quite a satisfactory summer—even a good one. I’ve already taken two trips (both highly enjoyable), spent time with a number of friends, seen some of the summer’s biggest movies, run countless errands, read several novels, hosted guests, made visible progress on cleaning and sorting the piles around my house, unclogged my bathroom sink, and visited my grandmother.
The one area that registers some dissatisfaction, however, is the area of my writing. I had big plans for this summer—big plans! I was going to write for hours every week, read some books about writing, and maybe even take a class. And now it’s August, and if I’m honest, I’ve been quite sub-par in this area. I’ve written some, but not with any regularity or consistency. And I’ve managed to do mostly “throwaway” writing, which is just that steam-of-consciousness journal writing kind of thing, along with a couple of awkward poems. There’s nothing wrong with that in itself, it’s just that I had hoped to really dig into revising some of my short stories and/or writing new stories this summer, and I’ve done very little of that. Every time I even think about it, I skitter away like the stray cat who bolts in a streak of orange from my yard in the mornings when I open the front door. The moment I think, “maybe I should revise the ending of that story” or “why don’t I work on the new one?” I feel overwhelmed and incapable, and the thought of putting away my laundry or voting for my favorite dancer on So You Think You Can Dance becomes instantly more appealing and important.
So why the struggle? Laziness is definitely a factor. Writing, especially fiction writing, and revising is hard work. It takes commitment, persistence, and discipline, which are three qualities I seem to be rather lacking in during the summer months. This is frustrating considering that the summer is also when I actually have the most time to write. But try doing something difficult when there’s no one and nothing you’re accountable to for doing it (other than your own vague dream) and see if it gets done. It’s like losing five pounds. Sure, it would be great and you would love it if it actually happened, but is it really worth the discipline and deprivation when your clothes still generally fit and no one else but you really even notices or cares about that measly five pounds?
But I can’t blame it all on laziness. I can be (and have been) highly productive during summer months and weekends and vacations in other areas of my life. It’s just a matter of motivation, and when it comes to being motivated about my writing, I have a whole cluster of fears weighing me down and leaking all the air out of my tires. As anyone who’s ever watched Oprah or is familiar with the Harry Potter series knows, you’ve got to face up to your fears in order to conquer them. So I’ve made a list of the boggarts clogging up my creative closet, and here is what they are:
1. I fear that I don’t have any really good ideas. While writers I read about in interviews seem to walk around overflowing with wonderful ideas to write about and they find inspiration in everything from the mailman to the fly buzzing against the screen, I actually find it difficult to come up with an idea for a story. And often when I do think of an idea, I immediately shoot it down as clichéd, boring, or too out of my league to write about with any kind of authority or power.
2. I fear that I’m not qualified enough to be a serious writer (as opposed to one who just farts around with it now and then for kicks). One thing I have been doing this summer with a fair amount of discipline is reading published short stories in literary journals and online, and the blurbs about the authors ALWAYS say some variation of this: “So and So has her M.F.A. from NYU and has published short stories in numerous journals such as The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and The Atlantic Monthly. She has also translated selections of Rilke’s poetry from German and Chekov’s short stories from Russian. Her novel Evening Air, which she wrote while traveling on a Guggenheim Fellowship, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Ms. So and So is currently at work on her fourth novel and teaches writing at Syracuse University.” Like that’s not intimidating.
3. I fear that I don’t have enough talent. I mean, I know I’m an above-average writer, but there are lots of above-average writers—even lots of really good writers (I can tick off at least half a dozen people I know off the top of my head)—and I am constantly reading things that amaze me and make me think, “I could never write something like this.” My experience, insight, knowledge, and ability (I lump that all together under “talent”) seem too limited to me to take me to the level I’d really like to be at (see description of Ms. So and So in #2).
4. I fear the smarty-pants undergraduate or fresh-out-of-college kids working as interns at the literary journals I would be submitting my work to (I don’t kid myself that many actual editors would see my work). I imagine them reading the first sentence or two before rolling their eyes and thinking to themselves, “Another earnest, lame-o wannabe writer,” (only in loftier internal language) before slapping a rejection form into an envelope to send back to me and shaking their heads over having to waste postage even sending me a rejection. More than rejection, which any writer has to contend with, I fear dismissal, which is rejection with indifference and contempt.
So there they are—my four biggest fears about writing and being a writer out there in the open and flapping in the wind. I wish I could say that this act of writing about them has reduced them to silly nothings that I can now kick aside, but they still loom large and are beasts I’ll probably have to wrestle with over and over again. I imagine anyone taking a risk about anything has to do the same thing. But at least now I’ve written something. And it’s only August 1…
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