{"id":1201,"date":"2020-10-07T08:00:55","date_gmt":"2020-10-07T12:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/?p=1201"},"modified":"2020-10-07T08:00:55","modified_gmt":"2020-10-07T12:00:55","slug":"burnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/2020\/10\/07\/burnt\/","title":{"rendered":"Burnt!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On January 3, 2020, Maddie wrote, Hi, Ms. Levine! I\u2019ve got a bit of a long-winded question. Several years ago, when I was an exceptionally awkward young teenager, you were kind enough to answer a few of my questions. Now I\u2019ve graduated college and am slowly but surely overcoming my writer\u2019s burnout (I\u2019ve got an anthropology degree, so I did almost nothing but write for 4 years). I\u2019ve finally decided that I want to try to write fiction seriously again! But I have a problem that I can\u2019t figure out how to get over.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back when I was first asking you questions, I believed in my writing. I knew it wasn\u2019t great and that I had lots to improve on, but I had confidence that I was a storyteller and that people would want to read what I had to say. Now that\u2019s completely gone.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A large portion of it comes from having the worst imaginable Comp 2 professor freshman year. She would do things like spend required office hours yelling at me that my work was terrible without giving advice for improvement or ask questions in class and berate me for answering them. I struggled to write all through college after that, and the standard microaggressions from being a Native woman only made it worse.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I still love my characters, but now the only potential I can see in my writing is the potential for people to hate it. I\u2019ve still had encouragement from friends, and even other professors, whose opinions I honestly respect a lot more. Heck, even the tutor I tried to take a Comp 2 paper to told me that the awful professor was just being cruel! But I can\u2019t find it in me to have confidence in any part of my writing anymore.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was going through some of my old stuff (I still always save what I write!), and I saw a lot of things I had written off of your prompts. I figured that if anyone could help me, it\u2019s the writer who made me believe I could be a storyteller in the first place. How do I get that back?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three responses came in, one from me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Me: There\u2019s a book! Writing on Both Sides of the Brain by Henriette Anne Klauser is about exactly this\u2013the negative voice in our brains that tells us whatever we do stinks. It was more helpful to me than any other book when I started writing seriously, and I\u2019ve gone back to it a zillion times over the years.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I\u2019m writing, I try to never make judgments about my writing on a global level\u2013just specifics: work on pacing, smooth out this sentence, a little word repetition going on here. Never that what I\u2019m writing isn\u2019t any good.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christie V Powell: You can also try it NaNoWriMo-style. For one month, you write everything down, good or bad, and you\u2019re not allowed to edit. Our local group leaders print out pictures of little gremlins to represent our \u201cinner editors,\u201d and they lock them up in a box at the beginning. You ignore the critical voice inside you and just throw things out. I\u2019ve heard it described as making a pile of sand. Only once you\u2019ve got a big sand pile do you start shaping it into a pretty castle. It works for some people. You might give it a try.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Song4myKing: When I get discouraged, I remember why I started writing in the first place. So far, most of my stuff has been middle grade and young adult. And when I started, I was that age and those were the stories that fascinated me, the stories I wanted to read. Now when I get to thinking that my book is too far fetched, or has a too perfect ending, or a too cliched premise, I try to put myself back into my twelve-year-old self. If my book would have pleased me as a twelve-year-old, then that\u2019s all it needs to do. And chances are, it will please other twelve-year-olds as well. Their parents might roll their eyes, but what does it matter if the intended audience loves it?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I guess what I\u2019m saying is, write for yourself. Ask yourself if you, or rather, a pre-college version of yourself likes it. If so, that\u2019s all you need for now. And most likely you won\u2019t be alone in enjoying it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I completely agree with us!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did I ever talk here about Mr. Pashkin? He was my Creative Writing teacher in high school, and he wrote on the top of one of my stories, \u201cYou know your problem. You\u2019re pedestrian.\u201d Pedestrian<\/em> meaning boring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He didn\u2019t even say just my story was boring, but that I was. I had the absolute worst response. I was too embarrassed to ask him what he meant. And I believed him. I\u2019m a very practical person and was even then, which I understood as boring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I stopped writing stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For twenty-five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because how could a boring person write an interesting story?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do not want that to happen to any of you who follow the blog!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What got me back to writing was a job. I worked in the Small Business Division of the New York State Commerce Department, where they had me writing correspondence, meeting notes, and public service announcements. They loved my writing, and I especially loved writing the public service announcements, which had to be a certain number of seconds long. I relished fooling around with the phrasing to pack the most possible meaning and punch into the fewest possible words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During my nine years of rejection by editors, I might have repeated my response to Mr. Pashkin, because one rejection letter in particular was pointedly unkind. But I was sustained by the encouragement of writing buddies, who were going through the same experience I was. And I loved learning to be a better writer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also gained some perspective when an editor rejected a picture book manuscript by saying it was too clever. I understood by that that some editors at least had limitations. Later, after Ella Enchanted<\/em> was published, my editor asked me to expand that very manuscript into a chapter book, which became The Fairy\u2019s Mistake<\/em>, the first book in The Princess Tales series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More recently, as some of you know, I went to poetry school for a Master of Fine Arts, which was a marvelous adventure. However, in one class, a teacher yelled at me. I spoke to the assistant director of the whole program about dropping the class, since it was early in the semester, and I said, \u201cBut maybe, at this late stage of my life, I should learn how to deal with a bully.\u201d He said, \u201cI guess, but why should you have to?\u201d I found that single sentence healing. And I dropped the class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why should we accept and even internalize teacher and editor cruelty? We shouldn\u2019t. It truly is their problem, just as a stink bomb that pollutes the air isn\u2019t the fault of the person who breathes it in. I hope this analogy is startling enough to be remembered!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some people, but very few, think more highly of their work than it deserves. Most of us are too hard on ourselves. We need to learn that this is an obstacle, even a flaw that we have to fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few days ago, I sent a manuscript to my editor, who thanked me and said that she\u2019s swamped and it will be a while before she gets to it. I am busy thinking of all the reasons she may find to hate it. However, I managed to keep those thoughts at bay during the writing. They\u2019re unpleasant now, but earlier, they would have made it hard for me to continue. As I say in Writing Magic<\/em>, we have to tell that negative voice within to Shut up!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are three prompts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Earth is invaded by tiny worms that crawl into the ear and infect the brain with negativity. The worms\u2019 strategy is to wear people down so that when the entire worm population spaceships in, humanity will believe that even quarter-inch worms are better equipped, smarter, and more qualified to rule the earth than they are. Write the story of the resistance to the worms. Decide who wins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Long before Cinderella goes to the ball, she figures out how to deal with her step family. Write the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 At the ball, Prince Charming says to Cinderella, \u201cYou are lovely. No one else here interests me.\u201d How does she receive this? What happens? Write the story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have fun and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On January 3, 2020, Maddie wrote, Hi, Ms. Levine! I\u2019ve got a bit of a long-winded question. Several years ago, when I was an exceptionally awkward young teenager, you were kind enough to answer a few of my questions. Now I\u2019ve graduated college and am slowly but surely overcoming my writer\u2019s burnout (I\u2019ve got an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[86],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1201"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1204,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1201\/revisions\/1204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}