Identity Work, Late 2007: Part 1
Here I am again, doing laps across the sludgy swimming pool of existential angst. I just dived right in the deep end, despite all those lurid warning signs posted along the pool's edge by the Department of Previous Experience. The swimming is slow going through the sticky threads of "what am I doing with my life" type questions, but it's better than treading water waiting for the "I suck" monsters to come and swallow me. I've already felt them nosing at my toes and I don't want to find out firsthand how deep this pool actually goes. It's unpleasant enough on the surface.
There are two things going on right now that have caused me to go for this rather uncomfortable swim. First, not surprisingly, the insights about my writing and my identity as a writer gained from my attendance at VP continue to deepen, and have left me both pleased and despairing. Second, I am (with the full support of my loving family) about to prioritize our new business startup as my main daily activity--which means a radical shift in not only what I do but in how I think of myself. These are two big topics--and each one is simultaneously exciting and difficult, full of "now what" and "where will this take me" questions and issues. But because each one is deserving of full reflection, I am not going to try to squeeze them into one giant post.
So first, the writing. The novel. The self-as-writer. What's been going on here? Well--and I'm not trying to come off as whiny or self-pitying here--I keep realizing just how much my writing truly does suck. Or put more gently, how far I have to go until my writing is where I feel truly pleased with it, and how much more work the novel needs put into it before it's ready to be released into the world. I feel stuck in that stage of "conscious incompetence" they talked about at VP--I'm now acutely, repeatedly conscious of all the flaws and bad habits that must be overcome before it's good art, worthy of an audience's time. It's really beginning to sink in that not only do I have to keep slogging along on finishing this first "fat" draft--which I'm still probably a good 50-60,000 words away from finishing--but I'm going to have to spend a vast quantity of time and effort on the revision draft(s). Not only do I have to seriously polish up the prose (and brutally prune all those long meandering sentences and dense paragraphs), but I'm also going to have to really sharpen and define the themes and answer the "what makes this book different" overarching issue that came up so painfully at VP.
And I'm trying valiantly not to get sucked too far into despair over how long it's taken me to get even to the amount of draft I do have, and how long it will still take to get to the "finish" line. Even now, armed at last with the hard-won knowledge of what needs to be done to get it finished, the light at the end of the tunnel feels very far away. I totally get that everyone's process is different and that I shouldn't compare myself to anyone else, but from where I stand right now, having been intermittently (yet doggedly) working on this novel for over four (!) years now, the realization that I have a whole giant cargo ship-load of work in front of me yet to go is daunting. It's like realizing, after a long and difficult pregnancy and birth, that you still have to raise a newborn and that it will take at least another 4 or 5 years until that child is any kind of independent from you. I read about all my VP-mates submitting this work here, or publishing that work there, about their searches for agents, their multiple projects finished (or at least in process), and I am frustrated at the snail's pace that my writing project is going for me.
Yes, I have perfectly reasonable excuses for why I'm not further along. It's certainly been distracting and busy around here for as long as I can remember, so every little bit I have accomplished is rightfully considered a point of pride. And yes, it's the journey that counts, not the final product. If anyone has a deep awareness of how potentially brief and fleeting our lives can be, it's me--that's what a cancer diagnosis did for me, no matter how well I'm able to bury it most of the time. I'm not even 40 yet, and I'm already painfully aware that I am not going to finish everything I want to finish before I die. I'll consider myself doubly and triply blessed if I make it to grandchildren, let alone ever get a novel published. The pace is what it is (and I have other, perhaps less obvious accomplishments to show for how I've spent my time this last four years), so why beat myself up over it?
But I do. I am disappointed in myself. If finishing this novel means so much to me, why haven't I just. Goddamned. Done it? I am responsible for this pace, I know, despite my very valid excuses. I *could* have prioritized the writing more, been more disciplined about it--but I chose not to, whether consciously or unconsciously. And here's where the existential angst and the identity work comes in. I'm coming to realize that at least part of what's going on here is the insecurity around claiming the identity of a writer. This is a complicated thing. It's not just about giving myself permission (or getting permission from anyone else) to "live out loud" and say "I'm a writer." I've done that, and it's been helpful. It's about the tangles created by my own experiences and not a little bit of pride and vanity. It's about having been rewarded in the past for my writing skills, by teachers and others who gave concrete external praise. It was something I was verifiably good at, and thus a good hook to hang identity on. It's about having wanted to be a Writer, back when I was a kid wondering what I could be when I grew up, and about moving in fits and starts towards that dream--only to be sideswiped by my own essential short-attention-span dilettantism into a dozen other things (acting, academics, painting, motherhood, career). Now, back from my Brillo-ing at VP, I realize that I'm not as good a writer as I hoped I was--not yet anyway. So can I still be A Writer if I'm not good (enough) at it yet? And if I'm not A Writer, do I have any business trying to write? Maybe it's safer if I just don't even try. But then who am I? The same problems come up.
This angst-full identity work creates and is created by a continual questioning of what I'm really any good at in this lifetime, what my special or at least reasonably competent skills are--and the fear that perhaps there isn't really any clear thing that I can point to and say: "that's my expertise." Do I have to be truly outstanding at something to be considered/consider myself successful, and do I have to be successful before I feel it's okay to claim an identity for my own? And who is it that defines "outstanding" and "successful"? Do I really need external validation? And if I'm not particularly good at something, who am I? What's my identity hook(s)? Isn't it enough just to be a good person, to treat others kindly and fairly, and leave the world better than you found it in some small way?
I don't really have any clear answers. Hence, the thrashing around in the sludgy pool. I'm going to keep writing, that's for sure. (And really, is it surprising in the least that the main characters in my novel are both struggling with what prophecy means and with who each of them really is at the end of the day when what they were always told about themselves comes into question?) If it's a long and painful process, well, just look at all the bonus things I'm learning along the way about discipline, determination, priorities, goals, compartmentalization and identity. This is certainly not an unexamined life I'm living here. And speaking of which...time for Identity Work, Part Two.
There are two things going on right now that have caused me to go for this rather uncomfortable swim. First, not surprisingly, the insights about my writing and my identity as a writer gained from my attendance at VP continue to deepen, and have left me both pleased and despairing. Second, I am (with the full support of my loving family) about to prioritize our new business startup as my main daily activity--which means a radical shift in not only what I do but in how I think of myself. These are two big topics--and each one is simultaneously exciting and difficult, full of "now what" and "where will this take me" questions and issues. But because each one is deserving of full reflection, I am not going to try to squeeze them into one giant post.
So first, the writing. The novel. The self-as-writer. What's been going on here? Well--and I'm not trying to come off as whiny or self-pitying here--I keep realizing just how much my writing truly does suck. Or put more gently, how far I have to go until my writing is where I feel truly pleased with it, and how much more work the novel needs put into it before it's ready to be released into the world. I feel stuck in that stage of "conscious incompetence" they talked about at VP--I'm now acutely, repeatedly conscious of all the flaws and bad habits that must be overcome before it's good art, worthy of an audience's time. It's really beginning to sink in that not only do I have to keep slogging along on finishing this first "fat" draft--which I'm still probably a good 50-60,000 words away from finishing--but I'm going to have to spend a vast quantity of time and effort on the revision draft(s). Not only do I have to seriously polish up the prose (and brutally prune all those long meandering sentences and dense paragraphs), but I'm also going to have to really sharpen and define the themes and answer the "what makes this book different" overarching issue that came up so painfully at VP.
And I'm trying valiantly not to get sucked too far into despair over how long it's taken me to get even to the amount of draft I do have, and how long it will still take to get to the "finish" line. Even now, armed at last with the hard-won knowledge of what needs to be done to get it finished, the light at the end of the tunnel feels very far away. I totally get that everyone's process is different and that I shouldn't compare myself to anyone else, but from where I stand right now, having been intermittently (yet doggedly) working on this novel for over four (!) years now, the realization that I have a whole giant cargo ship-load of work in front of me yet to go is daunting. It's like realizing, after a long and difficult pregnancy and birth, that you still have to raise a newborn and that it will take at least another 4 or 5 years until that child is any kind of independent from you. I read about all my VP-mates submitting this work here, or publishing that work there, about their searches for agents, their multiple projects finished (or at least in process), and I am frustrated at the snail's pace that my writing project is going for me.
Yes, I have perfectly reasonable excuses for why I'm not further along. It's certainly been distracting and busy around here for as long as I can remember, so every little bit I have accomplished is rightfully considered a point of pride. And yes, it's the journey that counts, not the final product. If anyone has a deep awareness of how potentially brief and fleeting our lives can be, it's me--that's what a cancer diagnosis did for me, no matter how well I'm able to bury it most of the time. I'm not even 40 yet, and I'm already painfully aware that I am not going to finish everything I want to finish before I die. I'll consider myself doubly and triply blessed if I make it to grandchildren, let alone ever get a novel published. The pace is what it is (and I have other, perhaps less obvious accomplishments to show for how I've spent my time this last four years), so why beat myself up over it?
But I do. I am disappointed in myself. If finishing this novel means so much to me, why haven't I just. Goddamned. Done it? I am responsible for this pace, I know, despite my very valid excuses. I *could* have prioritized the writing more, been more disciplined about it--but I chose not to, whether consciously or unconsciously. And here's where the existential angst and the identity work comes in. I'm coming to realize that at least part of what's going on here is the insecurity around claiming the identity of a writer. This is a complicated thing. It's not just about giving myself permission (or getting permission from anyone else) to "live out loud" and say "I'm a writer." I've done that, and it's been helpful. It's about the tangles created by my own experiences and not a little bit of pride and vanity. It's about having been rewarded in the past for my writing skills, by teachers and others who gave concrete external praise. It was something I was verifiably good at, and thus a good hook to hang identity on. It's about having wanted to be a Writer, back when I was a kid wondering what I could be when I grew up, and about moving in fits and starts towards that dream--only to be sideswiped by my own essential short-attention-span dilettantism into a dozen other things (acting, academics, painting, motherhood, career). Now, back from my Brillo-ing at VP, I realize that I'm not as good a writer as I hoped I was--not yet anyway. So can I still be A Writer if I'm not good (enough) at it yet? And if I'm not A Writer, do I have any business trying to write? Maybe it's safer if I just don't even try. But then who am I? The same problems come up.
This angst-full identity work creates and is created by a continual questioning of what I'm really any good at in this lifetime, what my special or at least reasonably competent skills are--and the fear that perhaps there isn't really any clear thing that I can point to and say: "that's my expertise." Do I have to be truly outstanding at something to be considered/consider myself successful, and do I have to be successful before I feel it's okay to claim an identity for my own? And who is it that defines "outstanding" and "successful"? Do I really need external validation? And if I'm not particularly good at something, who am I? What's my identity hook(s)? Isn't it enough just to be a good person, to treat others kindly and fairly, and leave the world better than you found it in some small way?
I don't really have any clear answers. Hence, the thrashing around in the sludgy pool. I'm going to keep writing, that's for sure. (And really, is it surprising in the least that the main characters in my novel are both struggling with what prophecy means and with who each of them really is at the end of the day when what they were always told about themselves comes into question?) If it's a long and painful process, well, just look at all the bonus things I'm learning along the way about discipline, determination, priorities, goals, compartmentalization and identity. This is certainly not an unexamined life I'm living here. And speaking of which...time for Identity Work, Part Two.
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