I love Alan Watt. Every newsletter he writes has me nodding and laughing and murmuring those sounds of recognition and delight. Each one is full of the wisdom of one who has been there again and again. And it always seems that the topic of the month is what I myself have been wrestling with.
— James Hadfield
Here’s what he has to say:
If there are days when you feel that every word you’ve written is inferior and you’re tempted to throw the whole thing away, then you’re probably a writer.
Franz Kafka asked a friend to burn all of his work before he died. Without his friend’s understanding of a writer’s self-doubt, there would be no Kafka canon.
We would not have written our first draft if we had been critical with every one of our ideas, but as we continue in our rewrite we can afford to ask objective questions, such as: “Does this scene move my story forward? What is the importance of this paragraph or sentence or word?”
We begin to read our work through the eyes of our ideal reader. That sentence we thought was so clever begins to stick out. We’re not so interested in showing off or drawing attention to our prose. We begin to shed the more self-conscious aspects of our work and we seek flow. We want the story to be greater than the sum of its parts.
The rewrite is where we embrace our objectivity. We let go of the idea that this work must be a masterpiece. Our job is to let it live. Ironically, when we approach our work with a certain cool detachment, we tend to write from a place of greater truth.
If you have any questions or comments about this August letter, I would love to hear from you. Please email me at: al@lawriterslab.com
Until next month,
Al
Thanks so much for posting this, it is exactly what I needed to hear right now. After spending most of the summer tied to my iPad, I am sick to death of my story and I’m not even sure it makes sense anymore. All I want to do right now is delete the whole damn thing so I can watch tv and knit for the next two weeks. But, apparently, that makes me a real writer. Back to work!
Don’t you dare trash that story! It’s brilliant and funny and totally addictive. I guess it is hard to see your own brilliance, but this piece by Al Watt makes it clear that we have to just keep our heads down, since we have no way of clearly seeing our work. I’m so glad it was timely for you.
Thanks Deepam! Like Lisa said, this slogging is really, well, slogging. I’ve been avoiding like writting has become a pla… like it’s dreary work. It helps to know that it is part of the process.
Back to the grindstone…