Working on getting back into new book this week. Last week’s chaotic day job ate headspace. As I discovered last few months with last book, getting deep into Weird Novel headspace is fabulous way to spend These Times. I want to get grounded into this one more. Trying to think what made last click.
A lot of the process there was figuring out what the book was ABOUT. I thought for a long time it was about these three women in an abusive relationship who betray each other. And it IS that. But it’s ABOUT the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters and generational trauma.
And it’s also ABOUT going through the absolute worst trauma of your life, giving up in despair, and coming BACK from that. Unfortunately, I often don’t know these core emotional ABOUTS until I actually get pretty far into writing the thing. I find it frustrating because it feels like “wasting” time
@madelineashby.bsky.social shared great metaphor on the podcast likening drafting process to shopping at IKEA. First time thru, you go slowly, wander every room, pick up and examine each object, make notes of what you might want. Second time, you go a little faster, focusing on specific rooms noted.
THIRD time through, you notice there are ACTUALLY SHORTCUTS TO THE ROOMS YOU WANT!! So you can skip some rooms entirely and get quickly where you’re going. This is when you start noting down bin numbers and march out emboldened to the warehouse, knowing exactly what you want and where it is.
And I HATE that I have to wander through a NEW IKEA WITH NEW PRODUCTS AND UNKNOWN SHORTCUTS EVERY TIME. You think you’ve been through IKEA once, so you know the way, but you DON’T. You still have to go through the fucking process every goddamn time (I do, anyway).
As someone who was very dedicated to the book-a-year-schedule in my early career (and paid the burnout price), I became acutely aware that my IKEA process was not conducive to book a year writing. I would skip a lot of the process at the end, leaving me with wrong-but-close-enough decor.
I never once read STARS ARE LEGION or THE BROKEN HEAVENS all the way through before they were published. I spot checked and got them out the door (LIGHT BRIGADE was outlier because there’s no skipping ahead to shortcuts in time travel books; I did four complete final passes on that one).
It got to point where I didn’t even REMEMBER what I’d written (rereading RAPTURE years later was a joyful discovery. I still love those Nyx books). It was that realization that made me wonder what I was doing. What’s the point of churning out work when I’m not engaged?? I had fallen into common trap.
It’s capitalism trap that has us focusing on PRODUCT instead of PROCESS. Of course I would be frustrated about performance of every book. I was wholly focused on book as product, as career building. What I realized talking to other writers is that no matter how successful, you’ll always chase that.
If you’re making lots of money, you complain about not getting awards. If you have awards, you complain about sales. If you have both, you are constantly worried your next book will tank and you’ll lose your rep, and eventually, your large advances. No matter success,you’re waiting for the long fall.
That is an EXHAUSTING mindset. I started to feel like I was on treadmill to nowhere. The FIRST thing people ask after you finish writing a book is “So what’s NEXT book you’re working on?” (My coworkers asked me this, like clockwork!! ?). You get stuck trying to push a book thru instead of WRITE one.
A big shift I’ve made to my mindset is accepting that THE WORK IS THE REWARD. Remember the story of Sisyphus? About how sad and doomed he is to push a rock forever and never reach the top? What if that’s NOT a story of doom and failure? What if the rock pushing IS the point? What if THAT’S reward?
What if the point ISN’T to get the rock to the top of the hill, but to PUSH THE ROCK?? What if winning is getting back up every time the rock rolls down the hill and starting to PUSH IT AGAIN??? The joy is not in reaching a mythical hilltop; the joy is in the push. That reframed everything, for me.
There was an amazing quote in Stephen Marche’s book ON WRITING AND FAILURE that sure hit different when I reread it last month. And it’s this: “If you are not defeated in the end, have you been fighting the right battle?”
Have you been fighting the right battle??? Maybe we’re not here to optimize our routines and maximize productivity. Maybe we are here to engage in ambitious efforts that are so fucking ambitious that we LOSE. We lose again and again. And it’s the losing that tells you you’re fighting the right fight.
Humans are storytelling creatures. We are all the sum of our stories. It’s literally how we create the world. We can’t change facts or events or shit that happens to us. But we can change how we FRAME those things. We can change the STORY we tell about them. Changing meaning changes our lives.
So I am working on REFRAMING my work process. I am not going to try and power my way through IKEA and find the most optimal route and then have to go back and redo the whole thing because I overlooked a room or forgot to take down bin numbers. I am going to let myself ENJOY wandering thru IKEA.
Because there IS joy in wandering through that labyrinth. It’s MADE to be enjoyable. Stressing myself out trying to hack my way to the end, focusing only on Billy bookcases, is great way to ruin a Saturday that could have been spent enjoying Swedish meatballs and browsing 10,000 lamps I’ll never buy.
And with that: I’m off to the day job. I hope you do something today in a non-optimized manner that brings you joy! ?
