I’m also on summer break right now, which means that along with having more time to write, I have more time to read. This helps the writing, because the luxury of being able to read for long stretches of time lights up the linguistic part of my brain. After I read for awhile I’ll often find I’m automatically thinking in prose, describing the world around me, narrating whatever I’m doing, constructing thoughtful paragraphs about things as mundane as moving laundry from the washer to the dryer, sometimes without even being aware right away that I'm doing it. Reading a lot is definitely a key part of the writing process for me.
I was reading a lot earlier today. Normally this would get me fired up to start writing, but instead my reaction was the exact opposite. I got too far into my own head and hit a wall. Fear and hesitation crept in.
I’m currently re-reading Chuck Klosterman’s road trip memoir, Killing Yourself to Live. I love this book. It would be fair to say he’s one of my influences, at least in some respects; anyone who knows this blog well and has read any of his books would probably pick up on that. I’ve always enjoyed how his voice comes across so honest and unfiltered, particularly since he’s writing about events that have happened to him and people in his life while fully knowing that someday those people could very possibly read what he’s written about them (even if he’s subtitled this book “85% of a True Story”).
It got me thinking: I don’t know if I write with that kind of honesty. I’ll write about personal things, to a point. I’ll take occasional self-deprecating digs at myself, which are usually masking some level of truth, but I’ll rarely reveal too much, and there are absolutely topics I would never even think about exploring in an even semi-private forum. I think that too much of the time I’ll hold myself back, because I’m writing with fear. I’ll worry more about how a possible audience might react to an idea, and less about how to express what I’m trying to say. I’ll write in certain ways to make sure some person, or people, won't be bothered or offended by what I’ve written, just as sometimes I’ll write hoping my message will find specific targets, even if I know some of the people I’m considering are never going to read my books or my blog posts, or even my tweets or Facebook status updates.
I also know that when I write something, here on the blog and hopefully someday in books, it could be seen by anyone. Because of this, I feel I have to write with a social networking mask, using a voice that perpetuates an online persona I’ve cultivated which, while still is a fairly truthful version of who I am, doesn’t pull back the curtains all the way. After all, anyone with an internet connection can read these posts. There aren’t safeguards or privacy settings when it comes to a blog. Students could find it. Their parents could find it. My colleagues or any school district personnel could find it, so I have to intentionally consider what I’m going to write and how I’m going to express it. I don’t want to actively make people angry or hurt anyone’s feelings, so I might not always reveal everything. I try to play it safe. I hesitate. I write with fear. Not crippling, lie-awake-in-bed-at-night fear, but more like an abundance of caution.
I’m referring more to the blog when I think about this holding back, but I know I’ve done it in manuscripts as well. The closest I’ve ever gotten to using any kind of profanity has been “crap” or “suck.” Of course I’m not going to drop several payloads of f-bombs in a middle grade manuscript, but even when I think about using one of my PG swears, I wrestle with whether or not it really needs to be there. The same thing will occasionally apply when it comes to the content of the story. How much is too much? How cautious do I need to be? Take The Ghost of Lake Emily for example. I used that as a read aloud at school this year, as did my former teaching partner. I felt this was okay because these were kids I knew, and they came from families I knew. If one of the other teachers at school had wanted to use it as a read aloud though, I would have said no. I wouldn’t have known how their students would have reacted to it, and I wouldn’t have been able to predict how the parents might have responded. I didn’t want to take the chance I’d wind up having someone trying to get my book banned from my own school before it even had a chance to be published. In that instance I wasn't exactly writing with fear, but I was protecting what I'd already written from the same place the fear comes from.
As for this new book, it feels very different. For starters, this will be the first new thing I’ve written since I began working with my agent, so I already expect I’m going to occasionally hear her voice in my ear while I’m working. Also I've never started to write anything before that I felt confident was going to be making it to submission someday, if not publication. That's a nice plateau to be standing on.
But this story, while still written for the middle grade age group, is not at all lighthearted. It’s also unquestionably going to be the most ambitious thing I’ve ever tried to create.
For me to make it what I need it to be, I’m going to have to find a way around the fear.
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