Buzz, Balls & Hype : The Doctor is In

Friday + Dr. S O'D = Writer's Therapy

I sometimes give workshops and seminars in my Brooklyn Heights office on topics of interest to writers. If you would like to be notified about upcoming events, email me at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

If you will be in the NYC area on Wednesday, February 7, please drop by Think Coffee, 248 Mercer Street, at 8 PM. I will be reading in very good company as part of a Ballyhoo Stories event: http://www.thinkcoffeenyc.com/

Dear Dr. Sue,

I wrote to you last spring (A Dreamer) when I was contemplating taking a self-financed leave of absence to try to write a novel. I started the leave with a complete first draft and now, four months into the leave, I am working on chapter 9 (out of what I think will be 12-14). So . . . I am deeply into it and also deeply confused.

My problem is this: I am starting to worry that the novel is dead, that it doesn't hang together, that I don't know what I'm doing, that I won't be able to stand it when I go back to read it, that I won't be able to stand getting feedback on it, and that I should simply put it aside and go back to my commercial work. It's true that recently, my quiet writing focus has been disrupted: my daughter (a freshman in college) just went back to school after an emotional month at home, my uncle died Monday night after a long illness, I'm awaiting results of a medical test of my own, and I've made a couple of family-related trips. Still, it seems that life is full of these kinds of things for everyone, and they should not derail me if I were "truly" a novelist.

I had always thought of the leave as lasting 4-6 months, so perhaps I should be wrapping things up anyway and starting to look for work. Still, part of me wants to find my way to the end, see it through, and all that. How do I sort out what's happening to me and find my way to whatever the next step should be?

Thanks so much.

A worried dreamer

Dear Dreamer,

First, thank you for updating me. It’s not often that I get to read the next chapter of the story!

I have known a few writers who are blessed with rock-solid confidence in every stage of their work. Most, though, are plagued by the self-doubt and insecurity you describe, at least intermittently. In my experience, these discouraging messages from our own psyches are less likely to reflect the quality of the work than our early experiences of support or rejection. Put simply, if your parents or teachers hailed your every scribble as a work of genius, chances are you came to think of your writing as interesting and engaging. If they ignored your output, you may have been even luckier, discovering the joy of creating for yourself alone. If, however, your writing or associated activities, such as visual art, music, or oral storytelling, were criticized and belittled, chances are you now perform this service for yourself. (I think the notion that being affected by important life events is a sign that you aren’t “truly” a novelist also belongs in this category.) The self-disparagement often intensifies just as we are nearing the realization of our goal—that is, as we are about to prove our parent, teacher, or other authority figure wrong.

It would probably be useful to spend some time exploring the sources of your discomfort—but not now. Right now, your job is to finish this draft. To do that, you will need to put aside your inner critic (which can be a great asset once the book is finished and you have achieved some distance from it) and immerse yourself once more in the story, characters, and ideas that inspired you in the first place.

If you can afford to continue your hiatus for another month or two, I would suggest that you do so. Remind yourself that your goal was not necessarily to come out with an immediately marketable or perfect work, but to complete the novel you had dreamed of writing. Try not to judge the work by any other standard than whether it expresses your vision as fully as possible. The rest can come later.

Take a few minutes when you first wake up each morning, before getting out of bed, to do a brief visualization exercise. Imagine the room you write in. (If you bring your legal pad or laptop to a library or coffee shop, imagine that.) Visualize a door leading from this room into the world of the novel. Walk up to the door. Notice that just to the side of the door is a large bin. Before you enter the novel, you can unburden yourself of the inner critic, any pressure you might feel from others’ expectations; and even the family and medical crises that preoccupy you. They will be waiting for you in the bin when you return, but to enter the novel fully, you will need to leave them behind. Imagine physically removing them—taking off a backpack, pulling a scroll of inscribed adding-machine paper from your head; or whatever works for you—and dropping them in.

Repeat the exercise later, when you settle in to writing, and then imagine walking through the door and into the book. As you write, try to stay in the book. Avoid peeking back through the door, and especially fishing around in the bin, before you are done for the day.

When you re-enter the “real world,” try to be selective about the items you retrieve from the bin. Of course you will want to take back your grief at your uncle’s death and your concerns about your daughter, though I hope your own medical results are encouraging. You may find, though, that you can leave the burden of others’ expectations and your own internalized self-disparagement in the bin and function perfectly well in the world.

In any case, please continue to keep me informed.

Susan O’Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. Her book, Getting Unstuck Without Coming Unglued: Outsmarting Obstacles to Living a Creative Life, will be published by Seal Press this spring and is now available for pre-ordering. Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

Buzz, Balls & Hype

Because there are over 750,000 self-pubbed and 250,000 books published a year and they won't all get reviews in the NYTBR. Authored by M.J. Rose

February 02, 2007

The Doctor is In

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