On Getting Started
"The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair."
Every writer has their own particular Mount Everest—some part of the writing process that goes beyond difficult and into the realm of painful. For some it's rewriting. For others it's finishing. For me, it's starting.
There is certainly irony in this. Here I am, at the start of a piece about how difficult it is for me to start anything. And unfortunately, this one is no different. But why are beginnings so difficult? I've been thinking about this a lot recently because I am in that dreaded position—trying to start a new book.
The easy answer is that the beginning of a novel is important. Sometimes you only get a few pages—maybe only a few sentences—to hook a reader. But I think that's too easy an answer. I think I found the real reason in a quote from Joan Didion. She once said, "What's so hard about that first sentence is that you're stuck with it. Everything else is going to flow out of that sentence. And by the time you've laid down the first two sentences, your options are all gone."
Now that's a little extreme. It doesn't necessarily happen in the first two sentences, but it does happen. The opening lays the groundwork for what is to follow. At the beginning of a piece, you can do anything. But with every decision that you make, your choices are narrowed down. And I find the combination of a vast array of choices—coupled with the fact that with every decision you have eliminated a universe of possibilities—has a paralyzing effect.
The good thing about writing novels is that you only have to face a beginning, on average, once every year or two. (Of course it varies, depending on how fast you write. Some writers take six months to finish a book, others take six years. For me it's about every year and a half.) But there's no upside without an attendant downside, and though you might not have to start over as frequently, there is more pressure when you do.
Worse than the struggle with the opening pages is the struggle committing to an idea. I torture myself—is this the right idea? After all, I'm going to have to live with it for the next two years. Will I find out in the middle that I've made a terrible mistake? Or worse, will I not find it out until the end? Plus, publishing is a tenuous business. How many chances do you have? Can one bad decision jeopardize a career? Do you try to write something similar, as to build an audience? Or do you try something new? Is it too much the same? Is it too different? The possibilities for self torment are endless.
How long does the torment go on? Well, how much time do you have? There are people who never make it past this stage. How many people do you know who have been saying for years that they should write a book? Of course a lot of people aren't serious. They say that they should write a book the way they say they should start exercising or they should learn a foreign language—and never do. But the more serious you are about writing, the more painful this fallow period is. I don't know many writers that are happy when they're not writing. (The problem is, I don't know many that are much happier when they are writing. It's the proverbial rock and hard place.)
The real question is how to move past theory into practice. How do you force the seat of the pants to apply itself to the seat of the chair? I've come to the conclusion that there's only one thing that gets me there. Pressure. I'm like a pressure cooker. I need to build up enough internal pressure for the top to blow. That's when I finally sit down and start battering away at those first few sentences.
On each one of my books, I had a different trigger—the push that forced me to sit down and make a start. External pressure, though unpleasant, is the most efficient. Haven't we all experienced the efficacy of a due date? My first novel (which is tucked safely away in a drawer) was written at college. It was my senior thesis. That was a good way to ease into writing—at school with the attendant structure of assignments and due dates to help you along.
My second book was a product of desperation. I had graduated from college and was working, but I knew I didn't want to make a career out of my job. I wanted to be a writer—but it's hard to be a writer if you don't write, and before I knew it, I was approaching three years out. That made three whole years in which I had not managed to produce any substantial amount of writing. Three years seemed an awfully long time. At the time I had the feeling like it was now or never. And I was staring straight at the possibility of never. That's desperation. That will get you started.
However, both those books I wrote without ever really thinking that anyone (other than my friends and family) would read them. I was right about the first. The second I managed to get published in a two book deal. That was wonderful—until I tried starting the second book. Then I realized why there is a term called "second book syndrome". Strictly speaking, it was my third book, but I think that the term "second book syndrome" applies to the second published book because what causes it is the knowledge that what you are writing will probably be published. It shouldn't change anything. But it does.
It was a year before I managed to start the next book. I call it the year of nothing. I wasn't working. I wasn't writing. What was I doing? Hell if I know. But it wasn't fun, I can tell you that. It wasn't like a year of vacation. But then an amazing thing happened. The bank account started to get dangerously low. I live pretty lean, but even I can't stretch money out forever. And you know what happened? A miracle. I started writing. Money—it seems such a base motivation for creativity, but you can't argue with what works.
"The easiest thing to do on earth is not write." –William Goldman