Learning to fly
When writing feels like crawling through the abyss
Have you ever had one of those days where the writing flows and you think, dang, I’m a genius. Only to read the excerpt later and decide it’s rubbish? That the good stuff is unoriginal and the original stuff is garbage? Then you’re in good company.
“Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.” Samuel Johnson (1656-1732)
Samuel Johnson, who wrote, among other things, A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), pared down the writer’s dilemma more than 300 years ago, and we have yet to fix the problem.
We believe we have something to say; we fear no one will listen. We hope we’re good; we fear we’re awful. We dream we’re geniuses; we fear we are idiots.
Every writing day is the best and worst of times.
It’s easy to get demoralized when we listen to the fears and not the beliefs, the hopes, and the dreams that tell us otherwise.
The truth is generally somewhere in between. We are neither genius nor idiot. Most of us are not (yet) in the realm of genius, and most of us are not new to the literary life. We are in the liminal space where most people reside.
Liminal Spaces
When we are creating, we are in the liminal space between the idea in our head and the finished book, and it’s not a safe space.
Humans don’t handle uncertainty well, but our ability to grow is based on how well we deal with the frustration of not knowing. The more we resist, ignore, and blame instead of accepting the frustration as normal, the harder the process.
Resilience is learning to accept the frustration so we can navigate the space between.
Trust the process.
It’s all about perspective
At work earlier today, we had a bit of drama as the nearby red-tailed hawks were making quite the noise. One of the pair (red-tailed hawks mate for life) circled the small park next to us while another perched on a park bench, unable to fly. We thought maybe it had been injured.
We were heartbroken. This particular pair has been nesting in the church belfry for years (they can live 20-30 years). We feared that one of the pair was injured. The other was mourning, we worried. What to do, what to do?
Now a THIRD hawk circled.
Were they fighting over territory?
No, in fact, the one we thought was injured was a fledgling. He or she had hopped off the roof before he could fly.
Now that we knew the truth, it was comical to watch the younger bird (nearly as large as the parents) attempt to fly. The only thing that changed was our perspective.
So today, or any day when the fears are winning, consider changing your perspective. You are in the liminal space where you’re learning to write this particular book, even if you’ve written a dozen before. You may have jumped before you were ready, but you’re in it now.
Nothing to do but write your way through it.
Nothing to do but learn to fly.
Cindy Skaggs is a writer, book coach, public speaker, and military veteran who holds an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University and an MA in Creative Writing from Regis University. She is an advocate for military and veteran issues, mom to two humans, and an avid traveler. In 2022, she moved to Ireland to study Irish Literature. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
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