To write well, you have to live a lot

Someone said somewhere (or maybe I read it somewhere) that unless you're in your 30's, you probably don't have a novel in you yet. Don't quote me on this, please, and don't throw me these angry glances. I was not the one who said it, but it does make sense to me, because to be able to write well, you have to have lived life, a lot of life, to gather enough material for a genuine story. There are, of course, always exceptions to the rule, but this makes sense to me. I always get people asking me, where do you get inspiration, how do you do research, how do you keep yourself going, do you ever have writer's block? And the answer to all those questions is, nope, I don't ever do any of the above things and I don't have a writer's block, I have the opposite problem, I barely have time to write down my stories. Why? Because I lived so much life, that now it's bursting to get out of me in the shape of stories. Well then, is it true? Do you have to live a lot of life in order to write well? I think you do. Let me illustrate.

Without pain there is no depth. There are plenty of books out there that are brilliantly written, superbly plotted and amazingly structured. But many of them are very shallow, I have read a few myself. Don't take me wrong, there is nothing wrong with these books, but they lack depth, they don't grab you, they leave you unsatisfied, and they don't stay in your memory for long. You forget about them and move on. Why is that? It's because the author hasn't gone deep into her or his emotion enough to extract powerful life stuff and spill it on pages. It's a hard thing to do, and, frankly, unless you've been through a lot of shit in your life, you're too spoiled to reach into those depths, it's too painful, and if you're not used to the pain, not used to going through the pain, you're very unlikely to do it. Many things happen in life to people, but usually, the older you are, the more life experience you have had, the more you can draw upon. Perhaps this is where the 30's mark comes from in terms of a median age for one to be able to write a novel. You've got to admit, it does make sense. If there is nowhere to dive, how deep can your novel get? Not too much, sadly.  

Writing requires discipline. And most young people, let's face it, are flakes. I know, because I was a flake too. I thought I could do it all, I took on too much, and then ultimately I failed. Over, and over, and over again, until it hit me on how to do it properly. For that, I had to make many mistakes, to arrive at a point in my life where I could consciously commit to writing a book and then actually following through on it. It's a huge project, it takes a lot of will power to be able to lock yourself up, to say no to parties, to dinners, to friends who want to take you out. It takes focus and determination, and without it writing suffers, its quality suffers, so again, unless you've been through a lot in life and understand where your priorities are, it will be very hard for you to focus on your writing. There will be angst, and agony, and anxiety, and fear, and uncertainty, and plenty of other amazingly disturbing emotions that are very good at taking your focus away. And unless you're focused, you're very unlikely to produce quality work, it's as simple as that. 

There is no richness without layers. One of the most powerful characteristics of great novels is the multitude of layers. There is something for everyone, that's how a book appeals to a very large audience. A novel has to be layered in order to achieve this, and unless the author has had a very rich life, there won't be anything to draw upon, to be able to build needed complexity, of characters, of the plot, of style, of dialogue, you name it. Every aspect of the novel suffers when there are not enough facets to its creator. Again, it might read very well in the end, but it will never grow big, never amount to a cult status of a favorite book for many many readers, because there won't be enough of it. It's like an ability to see one thing from different angles and then being able to describe it in such a manner that makes it visible to the reader as well. And unless one has experienced it firsthand, how can one write about it? Fake it, of course. And if it's fake, we, as readers, will immediately feel it and set the book aside. You can fake anything you want, except emotions, and it's through emotions that we connect to a great book, and it's why we suggest it to friends, and rave about it, and want to read it over and over again. Without this emotional richness your book will feel empty.

 Maturity and freedom are the basis for great art. The biggest struggle for any artist is always the belief in oneself. It's a terrible thing to attempt when you're young. Everything is uncertain, the world is uncertain, life is uncertain, you spend your time searching for this certainty, struggling to find the meaning to life, throwing yourself from misery to happiness to misery again, for years, until one day you understand that there is no meaning to life, there is no certainty, life is pure chaos and there is nothing you can do about it. Except you can. You can stop searching for answers and start creating, to share your epiphany. This is how great art is born, out of this willingness to accept life as it is, and it often comes with age, because it starts with maturity and ends with freedom. There is certain freedom in being able to look in the face of a catastrophe and be okay with it advancing on you, it's what we like to call bravery, but very often it's simply this utter calm that stems from the understanding of life itself. Until you're there, it's hard to produce great art, your own doubts will get in the way and wreck your inspiration.

There are many more points I can come up with here, now that I'm writing on this topic, so it must ring true for me, then, this whole writing-well-after-having-lived-life thing. I certainly lived a lot of life. I can't tell if my writing is any good. I hope so. I know my readers will tell me. But I know one thing. I couldn't write until I came to this point in my life of being happy with myself, with who I am, with how my life turned out, to accepting it for what it is. After that, it was like a faucet got open, stories started pouring out of me with alarming speed. Still are. I sure hope they never stop. 

Why write? FOR THERAPY

Photo by Cathline Dickens

It was not me who said it, I heard it for the first time from Chuck Palahniuk, at his reading in Seattle. It struck me like lightning, because I realized that's exactly what I've been doing, writing for therapy. Chuck mentioned it as an answer to one of the reader's question about how to make it in this world as a writer, how to make money. And Chuck said something along the lines of, hey, when you write, you never know if it will be published or not, whether you will sell it or not, but you're spending your time on it. Write for therapy. Then, even if it won't get published, it will make you feel better. I can attest to that. It's true. I've been through a lot of shit (you can read about it here), and writing finally made me graduate from my shrink. Hell, it made my graduate from my ADD pills and anxieties and even my fear of darkness. Seriously, as a grown woman, I'd be afraid to walk into a dark room. No more. I noticed a pattern to how this works, how writing helps my mood. Here are a few stories, perhaps they will sway you in the direction of writing if you're still doubting yourself.

Whenever hurt, write and immediately release the pain. Two days ago some punks robbed our garage. My boyfriend's son was taking out garbage and left the garage unattended for a few minutes. We don't have much, but we did have golf clubs and motorcycle helmets and bikes. Needless to say, one of the bikes, the clubs and the helmets were gone. Glad the motorcycle wasn't touched. We ran after them, but they jumped in the car and were gone. I felt like someone punched me in the gut and left me to rot in the ditch. Those of you who follow me on Twitter might have noticed heavy tweeting around 10 minutes after it happened. Why? Because I was shedding the stress. I was writing out my feelings, and in that, getting rid of them. In about an hour they were gone. Today I feel sorry for those punks, because I know that the meager stuff they stole won't help their real problems. Do you think I could've done this several years ago? No fucking way. I would've suppressed the anger for weeks, carrying it inside me, letting it eat me alive. So this is why I write. For therapy.

Write and shed your old pain that became chronic. My own personal story is very unpleasant and gory, so I will spare you the details. In short, I have lost my mom for years and didn't even know if she was alive or not, didn't have her phone or address. I went back to Russia several years ago and have found her. The problem is, I quit my career to write, I'm broke and I can't bring her over here. Not yet. She's had a hard life and needs to be taken care of. I can't afford it yet because I'm only now starting to do what I always dreamed about doing. Writing. Whether or not I can make money at this, remains to be seen. So, daily, I'm in pain. I miss her. I want to share my time with her while I can. But I no longer suffer as much, because I write about my pain in my book, and every day I shed a little more of it, and I becomes a little lighter. I no longer need to go to therapy, I no longer have long bouts of crying after calling her and listening to her horror stories. I transform it into writing, and it helps. Oh, it helps like magic. Seriously. If you have some hidden old pain in you, it's time you let it go. Life is too short, and it's not worth being bent down by pain. Write.

Live your dream the way you want it, right now. All of us have unfulfilled wishes, whatever they might be. To travel around the world, buy a personal jet and fly to Paris for dinner, go to that awesome concert of that awesome band or learn how to dive. You name it. Whatever your dream is, life is always short on giving you everything you want. So here is a way to have it all. Put it n your story, in your book, and experience it. It's almost like doing the real thing, and it will make you so happy, as if you're actually doing it. Like, for example, I have a taste for expensive gadgetry, partly because I studied design, but it goes deeper. I grew up watching my mom design clothes (yeah, she's one of those starving artists who creates amazing things but doesn't know how to sell them). She taught me how to see beauty in things. Whenever I go to a store to buy, say, a new watch, the one I like always ends up the most expensive. I mean, I don't even go to stores anymore, because there is no point, I can't afford what I like. Thus, cleverly, the antagonist in my book is wearing an Officine Panerai watch. There, I have my dream. Legitimately, I spent hours researching the thing and got to describe it in detail. Ah, it's almost as if I had it. You can do the same, live your dream, now. Write.

Once you start writing for therapy, once you truly start writing for yourself, for your own inner true self, expressing honestly how you feel, a curious thing happens. Others notice. You know why? Because they can relate. Because they feel the same. We all do. We're all trying to make sense of our existence and hold each other's hands while we're at it. So, there, write. Feel better yourself and even make this world a little better. Book by book, maybe we'll manage to turn it around, eh? What do you think?

On editing pains

If you think it's not physical, the editing pain, then you've never edited before. Mine is lodged directly in between the diaphragm and the stomach, in one thorny belt that chooses when to punch me and when to let me go. There is no getting rid of it, until the editing is done. And the reasons to feel the pain are aplenty.

Cutting out useless characters. Didn't somebody say, kill your darlings? Ah, yeah, Stephen King did. So did William Faulkner. Oh, how beautifully painful it was. Cutting down from 32 to 4 main characters. Cutting whole pages of dialogue. Throwing into the trashcan long documents on their personal history, their moms and dads and home towns and school friends. Ouch. But it had to be done. Less is more. Somebody else said that one. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe this time.

Show, don't tell. Isn't this the golden rule. I cringed when I came across "He stared. She stared back." That was me who wrote it. Like one of my fellow writers said, this would make Stephenie Meyer gag. Rightfully so. No emotion, no description, nothing. That was me just charging along to finish the 1st draft. I thought back then, ah, whatever, I will edit it later. Exactly. Welcome to bleeding right now. Show, don't tell. Show, don't tell. Next time I write the 1st draft, I won't be so quick.

That one perfect sentence. There are moments in my story when something profound happens. The problem is, it's profound in my head, but it's far from being profound on the page. I try, try again. Nothing. It looks bland, unoriginal. I try again, harder. The problem with the whole "trying" is this - I try too hard. Instead, I have to feel and write what it feels like. But, hey, it hurts feeing it! So I squirm and hide and pull myself by the hair out of that writer's block corner, and MAKE myself feel. It hurts, but it's true. Then I try to write it down.

Dialogue is spoken, not written. I've learned this lesson the first time I dared to read my own writing out loud. Be glad you weren't there. To say it was atrocious is to not say anything at all. Do people speak like that?!? You bet they don't. Where did this evern come from? I don't know, from some hidden belief that I know how people talk. Well, I don't. I started taking notes after coming home in the after-party evenings, and then read them out loud , to hear what it sounds like. This is the most painful part for me. What would he say, what would she say, how would they say it? You get the point.

Grammar. We all hated it in school. Too bad. It makes the story readable, and this is where I fail miserably. Since English is not my first language, I studied it till I thought I was good. Wrong. I didn't grow up here and I say some tings in the way that they make no sense. I carry with me The Elements of Style everyhwhere I go. I dutyfully read it page by page and try to memorize as many rules as possible. Still, I fail. Ugh. That was another twist of the thorny belt, in case you were wondering.

What else? Of course there are bigger things like plot, continuity, structure, and cross-checking the facts. I'm sure there is more, but there are good books already written on those subjects.

The biggest of them all, for me, is the daily anxiety of not being perfect, of not getting to the point where I can't change another sentence, another word. But somebody else already said, it doesn't have to be perfect. Still. I battle this anxiety, and I'm impatient. I want it all now, and all of it perfectly done. That's lack of faith. Faith that good writing takes time. So what now? Off to bleeding the pain. Off to editing. Off I go.