The writing blahs

I’m in that place where I’m starting to get feedback on the novel I sent to beta readers but not all of it so I can’t start fixing the problems and it gives me the writer blahs. You know, where you feel like you can’t do anything right and will never be able to fix the novel, the story, the blog post, so why even try? That’s where I am and it’s terrible.

But…

I have some methods to trick myself out of this feeling and the one I’m resorting to today (and probably the rest of the week) is index cards that I’ve written affirmations, quotes, and things I’ve learned and want to remember. I have a stack of about 50 that I’ve compiled over the last 10 years and I read them to myself (sometimes more than once, often out loud). This way, past me, who was in a better place, has a chance to boost my mood, remind me of how ridiculously stubborn I am, or kick me in the butt. Here are a few examples that have helped today:

Not writing is not an option.

When I feel stuck what am I telling myself?

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing —Henry Ford

Failure is part of the game. Get up and try again —Barbara Stanley

Writers steer by wonder desire — Heather Sellers

I am tenacious in achieving my goals.

As long as I’m facing the right direction it doesn’t matter the size of my steps —Erica Jong

How does one become a butterfly? You must want to fly so much that you’re willing to give up being a caterpillar —Trina Paulus

Some Quotes from Anne Lamott Today

Because this is where I am today:

E.L. Doctorow said once said that ‘Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ You don’t have to see where you’re going, you don’t have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.

And here, jealousy living inside my head, while I wander lost in the morass of a first draft. I was looking for the quote about shitty first drafts:

I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. We do not think that she has a rich inner life or that God likes her or can even stand her. (Although when I mentioned this to my priest friend Tom, he said that you can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.)

Those are both from Bird by Bird. I don’t know where this one is from, but it’s where I want to go.

This is our goal as writers, I think; to help others have this sense of–please forgive me–wonder, of seeing things anew, things that can catch us off guard, that break in on our small, bordered worlds. When this happens, everything feels more spacious. Try walking around with a child who’s going, “Wow, wow! Look at that dirty dog! Look at that burned-down house! Look at that red sky!” And the child points and you look, and you see, and you start going, “Wow! Look at that huge crazy hedge! Look at that teeny little baby! Look at the scary dark cloud!” I think this is how we are supposed to be in the world–present and in awe.

And a bonus interview with Anne Lamott on the Powell’s  website