The terror of writing… the wonder of writing
I want to follow up on the previous post, a Dispatch From The Quest by Miranda Sajdak in which she writes this:
There’s something both wonderful and terrifying about reading these lectures — the knowledge, first of all, that I’m truly embarking on a journey that will bolster my writing capabilities is absolutely wonderful. With that, however, comes the fear — that the script won’t turn out well, or that it won’t be good enough; that the lectures or exercises won’t help; or just generically massive failure on every level.
Terrifying. The elephant in any writer’s room. Open the blinds! Turn the lights on! Look, see! There it is with its snaking trunk slobbering over your computer keyboard and story notes. How can you get any work done with the weight of this smelly, bone-crushing thing lumbering about?
It’s the reality of a writer’s existence that with any creative endeavor, there is always the chance of failure. We know this. We feel this. The mind races. Heart pounds. Sphincter tightens. It’s an unwelcome elephantine presence just as we begin the nervy process of introducing ourselves to a new story.
I’m reminded of an anecdote from my favorite filmmaker Billy Wilder. In 1942, he was just about to start directing his first Hollywood movie The Major and the Minor, starring Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland. Beset by anxiety, he reached out to his mentor Ernst Lubitsch, confiding his fears to the famed German director: What if I fail as a director? Ernst is said to have responded, “Billy, I have directed over 70 movies, and I still am afraid every time I start.”
This echoes the sentiments of another creative master Stephen King who wrote this:
“The scariest moment is always just before you start.”
So yes, we know anxiety, we know fear, we know terror. There is nothing quite so daunting as the blank page, something I posted about previously here:
It beckons you with a daunting whisper. It mocks you with its dull emptiness. It freezes your soul with its ice cold whiteness.
It is — the blank page!
How can a mere 8 1/2 x 11 inch piece of white paper provoke such anxiety, such horror, such despair?
The despair of the blank page — the writer’s bane!
Laying eyes upon the blank page provokes a catch in your breath, a twitch in you muscles, that special tightening in your sphincter.
Fear. But fear of what?
Fear of the not knowing. Not knowing what words will appear… or won’t appear. Not knowing if the words will make sense. Not knowing if the sentences will be good. Not knowing if the story will work.
How to deal with the terror of writing? I’ll pose that question for you, dear reader: How do you handle your fears?
But let me just say this: Miranda has presented a welcome counterbalance to the terror of writing — and that is the wonder of writing.
Yes, it is possible this story we are working on just now may turn out to be nothing more than shit on a shingle. On the other hand, it could end up emerging into the light of day as something truly remarkable, a tale well told, a great story.
Logic dictates this: You may fail… but you may also succeed.
And that is one key aspect of the wonder of writing: Watching our story come into being, quite literally an act of creation. Who else has the opportunity to experience the entire gestation and birth of a story?
It is wonderful what we do. And I suspect if we strip away everything else we endure in the craft of writing — daily grind, endless revisions, cruel uncertainty, near misses — we can if we open our eyes and hearts never miss seeing the wonder of it all.
So yes, we have the terror of writing… but we also have the wonder of writing. And I’m thinking that perhaps…
We need them both to succeed.
See you in comments for your thoughts.
Onward!
Comment Archive