I know a lot writers. Some of them are of are very good. They are good enough that, when you read their work, it fires you up, makes you want to sit down and pump out some fiction of your own.
Writing fiction is a focus of much discussion. Books, podcasts, workshop, college classes, whole degrees are focused on it. The place of tale-telling in human society has been a treasured one since the dawn of time, even before we knew to call it fiction, back when the words were myths to explain the will of the gods. It is time-honored, and some would argue, it is indispensable.
Fiction is also difficult. It takes a vivid and robust imagination to dream the dreams that lead to good fiction, and it takes even more perspiration to get the right words on the page in the right order. The agony of fiction is that the right words will refuse you, your muse will go on vacation, or you’ll lack the requisite enthusiasm to push through and complete what you have started.
It’s safe to say that 80% of the people I know have told me they want to write fiction. Less than 5% of them ever produce. Less than 5% of those ever finish a first draft. Of the last group, even fewer send their work to a publisher.
We read the writing advice blogs. We listen to the writing podcasts. We feel guilty because we do not produce. We feel like we’re falling behind, like we are not living up to our own dreams.
I submit that, maybe, just maybe, this isn’t a race. The plain truth is that many people like to write. Writing fiction is not the only sort of writing there is.
In this age of bread and circuses where entertainment is king, we are drowning in fiction. Think of the subcultures that develop around popular fiction franchises like Firefly, Star Wars, Lost, and Harry Potter. With the dawn of computer games, interactive fiction has crossed into more people’s lives. Ask yourself, how much fiction takes up my attention per week? I think you’ll be surprised by the answer. There’s no shame in this: fiction is, at its most basic, a useful and necessary escape from the mundane, and at it’s best, a transcendent experience which reveals something about the nature of the universe. Fiction serves the function of dreams; release, reflection, and renewal.
And yet…it is not the only sort of writing there is. This sounds obvious, of course. After all, we define all that is not fiction in the terms of its relationship to fiction: the word we use to describe it reflects which value more on a psychological level. We do not call it “fact” or “reality,” we call it “non-fiction.”
I have loved writing since I was a child. I have been complemented on my ability to put words together. I have been published here and there over the years, and yet, like many, fiction eludes me. I have read a great many books on the subject. I, too, have listened to the podcasts, taken the classes, gone to the workshops. Still, I find actually writing it a chore. I do not care deeply for the characters. The situations are interesting, but only in the abstract, as facts about a world, not in relation to the human beings in the story. In short, I care less about the writing of my fiction than I do about being known as one who writes.
There are two ways I can think to deal with this. The first is to do what I have done for years; continue to push at it, to flog it, to to pick at it. The second is to simply admit that I enjoy writing non-fiction more, and to walk away from the fiction for now.
It is a maddening paradox: I love reading fiction and shy away from reading non-fiction for pleasure, yet I find writing non-fiction fascinating and fulfilling. I love telling stories about real events, exploring the world around us and relaying it for those who may never experience it. I have a passion for talking about the inner lives of we humans, about how we grow, about how we find ways to carry on. The real world, the world of human interaction and history…this is what I love to talk about. What I love to explore. What I love to write.
I came to realize this while writing TRICKSTERS. You’ll notice there has not been a new installment for a while. I have blamed this on a number things: being busy, not known where to go next, trying to plan an interesting next step, etc. This is, of course, crap. When I am truly honest, I know it is because I just do not care where the story goes next. I do not say this to be cruel, nor to be a jerk. I say it because it is the truth, and I think that if a person is going to take on or continue a project, they need to be very, very honest with themselves. If you are working on a project, especially a project you hope people will read and enjoy, it behooves you to be brutally honest with yourself and, if you are not able to find the enjoyment in it, put it away for a while or stop entirely. Don’t waste your time, and do not waste your audience’s time. They will not thank you for it.
I wonder how many of you are in the same position? I have been trying to write fiction for years because I see it all around me, because reading it makes me happy, and because, like all of us, I want to take some of the qualities of the people I admire who do write and adopt them as part of my own personality. This works for some. For some, it is mere mimicry.
Mimicking someone you admire can serve as a good starting point, but the goal of any creative person is to find their own means of expression, their own medium, tone…voice. Many teenagers start bands because they are inspired by an artist, and in the beginning, they sound like that artist. Eventually, the sound needs to evolve. If it does not, the band will be an also-ran, just a faded copy of someone greater. But it is also possible that the band will find something in themselves that is more fulfilling than copying someone else. This may take them out of one genre and into another, and there is nothing wrong with that. It’s a natural evolution, the discovery of their voice.
If you are a frustrated fiction writer, perhaps it’s because you need to look at other purposes for putting the words on the pages. There is nothing wrong with this. It is far, far better to find what kind of writing you are truly passionate about than to walk away completely, feeling crushed because you gave up on your dream. Your means and medium are fluid, and should change as you change.
We are writers. Go love something, then write about it.
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Jun.8,2010
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