Don’t Worry, Be Happy—or—Whuppin’ The Self-Doubt Dragon
You probably wouldn’t know this, but I’m a pretty confident guy. I seldom to never engage in self-doubt, recrimination, or handwringing. My background and training stresses prompt, logic-based decisions, highlighted by follow through and forward movement. If my choices prove faulty, I don’t fret I reassess and make another, hopefully better, choice–and move forward.
Jim Lovell, of Apollo 13 fame, said–after their space capsule nearly blew up—that the crew, and I paraphrase, could have…
Pinged off the walls for ten minutes, but at the end of that time, we’d have wasted ten minutes and our problems would still have been there, and very probably would have been worse.
Amen, Jim! You da man!
Well, all that sounds very brave. Nonetheless, I’ve recently violated all those nice precepts. Why share this embarrassment? In Vietnam, we conducted safety meetings where the pilots were called upon to voluntarily, “Stand Up and State Your—uh—Mess Up.” (Not the four letter word we used, but this is a family blog.) The idea was to prevent others from wrapping their aircraft and crew around the problem you just barely avoided…
Accordingly, though it’s embarrassing, I’m sharing the following in the belief that maybe what happened to me isn’t all that unusual, maybe we all occasionally go through something similar.
Here’s the detail… I’ve been trying to get smarter about writing as I re-visited my second novel—which sits in a publisher’s to-be-read queue. I decided that the writing should be tightened, and it should be scrubbed for compliance with the various, and infamous, “writing rules.” (I’ve come to hate these arbitrary rules by the way.)
So, I set out to either review, or learn, these holy grail rules. I scoured the internet, reading countless “how to” articles. I spent hours reviewing a bunch of “how to be a better writer” books at Barnes and Noble, actually purchasing a few.
I discovered there were a thousand rules floating about in the “how to” ether. I also discovered I either flat didn’t know them, or had ignored them, or had poorly implemented them. In fact, I decided that that there was a chance I’d violated every rule, ever written. I fell into deep self-doubt….read that as panic.
Solution: I spent more time reading internet how tos. I bought more books, I secreted myself away and poured over these tomes and tomelets.
Of course, it didn’t help. In fact, it reinforced my panic and sense of being overwhelmed. How could I possible scrub my work for ALL these things—some of which made little sense. Nonetheless, I was positive I’d violated every writing rule ever promulgated by…whomever does that stuff…the Great Writing Rule Promulgator, I guess, cousin of the Great Pumpkin. I was feeling pretty low.
I concluded I didn’t know anything. Nothing. The neighbor’s barking dog made more sense than anything I’d ever written, or ever would write. I sat back, looked at my stack of books and printouts and just knew I was, without question or debate, the worst writer in the history of writerdom. (Yes, I understand all of you have know that for sometime. Welcome to the party, Galen.)
Then, with some reassuring words from my wife, Donna, bless her supportive heart. I started to pull out of my, I-suck-as-a-writer syndrome. Well, of course, I can count on Donna to always say the right thing. It’s just her sweet and supportive nature. But, somewhere, somehow, the total body of what she said began to make sense and proved to be the lifeline I needed to pull myself out of my rare, self-image death spiral.
So, here’s the point. If this happens to you, know you aren’t alone. Step back, take a deep breath, find the long term perspective. Consider your prior successes. Look at other published or famous work…you’ll find rule violations aplenty. The only place you won’t find violations is in the How To books. So, do whatever it takes to get a grip. Mostly, don’t fret. Don’t worry about these imaginary dragons to the point of stress or debilitation. Just like Apollo 13, it’ll do you no good, and in the end, you’ll be right back where you started.
P.S. The neighbor’s dog is a pretty fair writer, by the way. Maybe I’ll host him on the blog. 
Themocracy
This post will speak to all writers, Galen. We all have moments where we feel like we’re the worst writer ever or that our manuscript is the worst ever. Good for you for getting out of that trap!
I think as long as we know what the rules ARE, we can feel free to violate them at will. My last book had a prologue…and I kept it in there on purpose, even though I know the rule on them.
Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder
I totally agree with Elizabeth–those rules out there are maddening… you know what else–they are contradictory, and if you read anything that too closely follows all the rules, it has no personality. I saw a formula for ‘writing a great book’ recently. You know what I did… I spit at it… okay, not literally, because it was on my computer monitor and I have to spend 9 hours a day here…
Still, I went through this EXACTLY a little while ago.
What pulled me out was reading some things I LOVED that broke the rules. We should all ascribe to some subset of grammar and spelling rules, because that is the English language… but even those can be successfully circumvented (think The Color Purple)… nope. Never let it be said that the tart follows rules…
I’m very glad you have such a wise wife (she must have some tart in her too)
So glad you pulled yourself (with a little help from Donna) out of the self-doubt pit. You are a gifted writer, Galen. Rules are made to be broken. It’s really about saying what we want to say in the best way we know how to say it.
Karen
Sometimes the words don’t seem to come (actually, they come, but they seem to stink), rules or no rules. I think every writer thinks they stink from time to time (or almost daily, I suppose). Just gotta push on through, keep working at it, keep plugging away.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Writers can be moody people with extreme ups and downs, sensitive to all kinds of weird and funky feelings. That’s when I have to capture the main ideas in bullet form, then step away and do something totally different. Problem is, I’m away from my laptop and then another geat inspiration comes to me, and I’m like, “Oh crap, I wish I was sitting at my laptop and not working on this stupid project.”
Stephen Tremp
http://www.stephentremp.blogspot.com/
I wonder if there is a writer alive who hasn’t experienced bouts of self-doubt? I think if it’s a good story, the reader could care less if the author followed the “rules.” Somerset Maugham said it best, “There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.”
Every writer has doubts and everyone has to find their own way to get past them (or at least shut them up for a while).
Getting obsessed with ‘writing rules’ is -in my opinion-a short ride away from locking yourself into a padded room. Trust yourself and your knowledge and remember editors aren’t expecting perfect manuscripts. It’s part of their job to look for grammatical errors. I try to make as few as possible but one or two always slip by and so far my editor hasn’t thrown me to the curb.
Elspeth
Thanks for the encouragement, Elizabeth. Yeah, I know most of the rules…some, however are pretty obscure and arcane, gotta admit.
Oh, Hart, how right you are, they are contradictory. Look long enough and you can find something that says, “Do X,” when earlier you read something that said, “Never do X.” Sometimes the rule names differ as well. If they’re so important, can’t we get a common and accepted name.Grrr.
Yeah, Karen, rarely to I have problems with the I’m a dumb ass syndrome, but, it does happen. Doesn’t last long though.
Alan, that’s kinda what I’m doing. I’m trying to ensure a basic compliance with, “The Rules” and then, not worrying about it…particularly with some of the more obscure rules.
Great inspirations would be wonderful to have, no matter when they strike….if you have some extras, Steve, can you just sorta send ‘em my way? Collect postage is fine.
I’m printing that quotation out, Jane and hanging it on the wall by my desk, or better yet, draping it like a crime scene tape across my How To books so I can’t get to them.
Yeah, Rule Obsession is a good way to put it, Elspeth.
Good post, thoughts and advice on an important topic. I also found this-
“Solution: I spent more time reading internet how tos.”
to be true. The internet is a mighty fine force for writers.
Marvin D Wilson
Thanks for the honesty in this. I often suffer from the I-suck-as-a-writer syndrome, and it can be bad. Usually it comes when I haven’t had a good night sleep and am tired and trying to do too much. Luckily, I’ve begun to realize that and help myself out by not trying to write on those days.
Loved the quote as well.
Be proud, Galen. You’re just like all the rest of us poor, miserable writers who periodically think our work is crap. And yet, we go back and write more anyway. Isn’t it the craziest thing?
Oh, man, I do this all the time. Doubting myself, that is. I’m terrible about writing something at night, thinking it’s great, and then waking up the next morning afraid to open the document for fear I’ll discover what crap I’ve written. It’s a terrible affliction…
Definitely a post I can relate to. I think everyone feels this way at some point. Have you read Stephen King’s book on writing? It will remind you it happens to all of us – even him. He completely threw out a manuscript…I think it was Carrie…and was ready to give up.
Hang in there, my friend.
Nancy, from Realms of Thought…
LOL are you sure you don’t write comedy for a living??:)