Writing, and Why I Love to Hate It

I didn’t have a great idea for a post today. I don’t want to keep posting previous things, and all my energy so far has been going towards either finishing my last few books before 2025, decorating for Christmas, and keeping my cats from eating everything they deem remotely tasty (this week, it’s been puzzle pieces).

I’ve also been working on the second draft of The Moon Lies in Wait.

In an effort to curb both my procrastination and my perfectionism (one could argue the two go hand-in-hand), I made the decision to start writing my drafts by hand, rather than on my laptop. The urge to go back and edit or look up some random bit of information while I’m writing made it hard for me to get more than a paragraph or two done at a time.

While those distractions haven’t totally vanished with the change in writing medium, I have found them easier to ignore. After all, I can’t backspace entire paragraphs with a paper and pen, so I’m forced to keep moving and come back later to edit. I still sometimes open my phone or laptop to research things when absolutely necessary, but for most things I’m able to convince myself that they’re not as earth-shatteringly important as they feel in the moment, and thus I can again come back to it later.

But like anything, this method isn’t foolproof.

Sometimes I’m just not in the mood to write. I may think that I am, going out of my way to grab my notebook and favorite pen and settle in at the kitchen table with headphones and Diet Coke at the ready. But then the words don’t come. Or they do, but slowly, like molasses through a tap. Sometimes there’s too much going on in my house to stay focused, or the scene I’m working on is so uninteresting to me in the moment that I can’t bring myself to write it out.

This happened earlier today. Second draft of Chapter 9, scene four. Emily’s scoping out an underground club in a remote college town for…reasons (I’ll give you a hint: it’s definitely not not murder-related).

In the first draft, the club was instead a youth conference, an homage to the retreats I used to take yearly as a teenager with my local church–the same retreats where I, in my boredom and angst, began writing the foundation of The Moon Lies in Wait, or more precisely, the story that inspired it. (But that’s another post in and of itself).

I haven’t touched that first draft in years, for a lot of reasons I won’t go into right now. When I started the second draft, I decided that I would start fresh. Mostly same ideas, mostly new execution. And that was all well and good–until I started getting stuck.

Here’s where the pen-and-paper approach has been a bit hindering. My goal was to just get all my ideas out on paper, then sort them out later (essentially what my first draft should have been, and what it could have been, if I hadn’t been so obsessed with some unachievable idea of perfection). And sure, while I have been doing that…it sucks. A lot.

Anyone who knows a writer in their life surely knows how self-critical they can be. A thousand people can compliment their work, but it will never be enough to satisfy their inner critic. I would know–I took countless writing workshops between my undergraduate and graduate degrees, not to mention in my free-time, which amounted to at least a couple hundred different people reading my work and giving me positive advice and helpful critiques.

But that sure as hell doesn’t stop the little voice in my head constantly putting me down. Telling me I’m wasting my time, that my writing sucks, that no one will read what I make. And it doesn’t stop the countless pieces of writing advice I’ve heard throughout my life from ringing in my ears with every word I write.

Imagine dealing with all of that, and still trying to force yourself to put your thoughts and ideas down on paper. To convince yourself that it’s okay to not be perfect, or even good right now, so long as you get something down you can come back to later. It’s really not easy.

So, today I broke my own rules a little bit. I put down the pen and picked up my laptop–not to write, but to look up one of my first draft chapters. I told myself it was only for a second. I just wanted to see how my previous draft handled the time skips and summaries necessary for the events of this chapter, the same ones I wasn’t including in my current draft because, again: get it down, get it done, get it good.

I didn’t expect much. I certainly didn’t expect anything good. But then I kept reading. And I was pleasantly surprised.

What I found in a chapter written almost three years ago was by no means perfect. There were a few pacing issues, and almost immediately I found one or two spots where I could afford to fix some prose to smooth over the action. But it was nowhere near as bad as I remembered. I even found little details that I’d long forgotten about. Bits of dialogue I enjoyed. Descriptions of body language that gave away more about a character’s personality than I’d previously believed. And a line that read about as close to a jump-scare as I’d ever written.

It’s like looking at a photo of yourself from a long time ago, from a time when you weren’t feeling your best, and instead of this ugly caricature of yourself that you’ve created in your head, you see beauty. Confidence. Happiness. Those negative thoughts that filled your head weren’t true, even though you believed them vehemently at the time, and only now you can look back and see and appreciate the goodness and value that was there all along.

That’s how it felt to go back and read my old writing, the same chapters that had previously been disparaged and discounted because they weren’t someone’s preference. To realize that writing I used to hate so much that I refused to read it for years was just another imperfect draft, one written with love, care, and effort.

And it got me thinking. What about this draft, right now? My sloppy, unedited, boring-at-times draft that causes me physical pain with ever word because OhMyGoddoIreallywritelikethismytalentwasalieI’mwastingmytimeIshouldjustgiveup–what makes it any different from this random chapter I opened? I used to hate this one, too, because I let other voices and unfounded opinions take precedence over my own. It took time and distance for me to see beyond the external influences and recognize the worth of my own work.

It only took revisiting a few paragraphs of old writing to remind me of what I’m capable of and what I’m aiming for with this story. And so, that’s what I’ve got to do. I don’t want to abandon work every time I dislike some of the writing (and frankly, I don’t have that kind of time). What I want is a way to empower myself, to prove to my biggest critic that I’m more than capable of telling a great story and that every step, no matter how small, is still a step forward toward my ultimate goal.

It’s a tedious process. It’s a stressful process. At times, it makes me want to tear my hair out, or throw my hands up in the air and concede defeat. But I won’t. Because that’s what being a writer is. It’s painful, tiring, anxiety-inducing, and sometimes enough to drive you insane.

And that’s the beauty of it. No matter what they feel in the moment, no matter how loud their inner critics scream, true writers will never give up on their work. The joy and the heartache both come with the job. They keep you going, and they’re what get stories finished. Published. Told over and over again to the people who love them.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.