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This week I did something amazing. I started a new novel.
Starting a novel may not seem all that astounding. Finishing a novel is. Getting one published is even more. But just beginning? All it entails is getting a few words onto the page. Still, it felt like a bit of a miracle to me.
Beginning a new project is a big step for a lot of us, especially when that project is something as long, time-consuming, and unwieldy as a novel. It requires taking a step into the unknown, finding the time among all the other many things we’re doing, and being willing to overcome a lot of resistance and insecurity. Perhaps that is the reason so many people talk about writing novels but never get around to doing it. In fact, I’d been thinking about starting my new novel for months before I took the plunge.
So, what gave me the drive to finally put my first words down? To get started, there were several things I had to let go of, and several things I had to embrace. On Wednesday, I’ll blog about the positives—the things I engaged and leaned into as I began my big adventure. Today, I’ll start with the obstacles. Here are several things I had to sweep away before I could move past my own hesitation, uncertainty, and delay tactics and get going.
1. Picturing the whole process.
Writing a novel takes months at the very least. For most of us, it requires years. When I thought about that—about the hundreds and hundreds of hours that lay ahead of me, it made my creativity shrivel. To get started, I had to pull back from images of the months ahead. I had to focus on today. Not on what I would feel like on day 201 or day 423, but on what I could write this moment.
2. Imagining the result.
Before I put a single word down, I had already started picturing reactions to my novel. Half the time, my imagination soared. My agent would adore it! Editors would snap it up! It would be a bestseller! I could quit my teaching job and just travel and write for the rest of my life!
The other half of the time, my fevered brain would go the other direction. I’d imagine everyone hating my work. My agent would refuse to represent it. Editors would slash it to bits. It would never get published, and I would plunge into a devastating depression.
(Okay, so I have a vivid imagination.)
Again, I simply had to shut all this prediction-making down. I have no idea how this novel is going to turn out, let alone whether anyone is going to like it. And it isn’t my job to figure that out. My job is to write it. Once I remembered that, I turned off my unreliable crystal ball and went to work.
3. Comparing my work to that of others.
Right off the bat, I started wondering how my book would compare to other young adult fantasies. Recently, I’ve been reading Maggie Stiefvater and Kristin Cashore. I wondered, Would my work be as good as theirs? Would it have the same resonance with readers? Would my content be as fresh and interesting? How would my style compare?
This was another totally useless bit of mental riffraff that I had to slough off. In its place, I started saying, “I’m not Maggie Stiefvater, and I’m not Kristin Cashore. I’m not J. K. Rowling or Philip Pullman or anyone else. I don’t write like them. I write like me. Now start writing like me and forget what everyone else is doing.”
4. Trying to come up with the perfect beginning.
It’s tempting to think that you need to have that brilliant first sentence before you write the second. But few novelists start from the beginning of their novels, and fewer still start with the ideal beginning. A perfect first sentence often makes itself apparent to you in the process of writing. Perhaps when you’re on Chapter 18. Perhaps when you’re writing the ending. You never can tell when it will emerge.
Although I did spend a little time hoping the perfect start would appear, I soon realized I had to stop waiting and start writing.
These barriers to getting started are common ones—and they can be serious. I’ve known writers who spent years shillyshallying rather than writing because they just couldn’t get beyond the stuff going on in their heads. The good news is that, once you become aware of the obstacles you’re throwing in your own way, they are easy to get rid of.
If you have a project—a novel, a screenplay, a short story, an essay—that’s been begging to be written, ask yourself if any of these obstacles are getting in the way. If they are, sweep them out the door and see if your creativity doesn’t suddenly bloom.
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