On Passion and Writing

One of the reasons my first novel manuscript took me years to complete, despite being relatively short and simple, was passion. I loved my story — you have to, to pull off writing of that length — but sometimes I didn’t feel like working on it.

Because I was only 11 or so (well, 13 near the end), there was no time limit, no sense of being required to dedicate myself to writing as though it were a job (what would privileged 11-year-old me have known about jobs?). True, the inspirational picture book of famous Canadians I’d received as a toddler did mention that Gordon Korman wrote This Can’t Be Happening At McDonald Hall at 13 and suggested I aim for the same. But I also had no concept of the publishing industry, so I figured that whenever I did complete my masterpiece, it would be on the shelves within a month or two.

I carted my tattered notebook everywhere, not because I thought I’d write everywhere I went, but because I didn’t want to be without it when inspiration struck. Writing inspiration was like lightning: you couldn’t summon its brief brilliance, you just had to let that current rock you when it was there.

Today, I think about writing differently.

Writing isn’t pouncing gleefully on inspiration whenever it shows itself and praying for it to turn up when it doesn’t. Writing is a career. It’s sitting down at your desk every day, whether you feel like it or not, and churning out words you may not even keep. It’s setting yourself time or word-count quotas each day, keeping a spreadsheet of submissions, always thinking of the ticking clock.

And that clock ticks loud. Publishing moves so slowly. Aging seems to move fast. I panic that stories and themes that seem relevant to me now may be old news by the time an agent or editor ever sees them. I set myself arbitrary deadlines (agent by 30? Published before 31? Finished this draft by May — no, June — no, the end of the summer!) and then feel bad when I can’t meet them.

To even try, I can’t wait for passion.

Because the idea of being a writer is more attractive than the reality of actually writing, a lot of writing blogs, advice columns, and books emphasize the idea of sitting down to write every day. Daydreaming about writing and what you will have written is easy; actually writing it is hard, especially when there are so many other fun things competing for your attention.

There are a lot of reasons writing advice stresses making yourself to write even when you don’t feel like it. It’s the only way to get past a tough place in your story or essay. It’s the only way to finish a piece in a timely fashion. And, most importantly, way more people don’t write enough than force themselves to write too much.

Until recent years, I didn’t think the latter was possible. Even bad writing is better than a blank page. Even the silliest, tiredest ideas can still hide gleams of brilliance. Real writers were writers like now-me, making myself sit at the computer or notebook every day, not childish-me, who might never have finished her book if she hadn’t been lucky enough to feel like it every once in awhile.

I’m fortunate: my day job is almost as flexible as my writing. They both require large amounts of work mostly at whatever time I feel like it. Major projects have to be completed by a particular date, but no one will be on my case if I decide to finish them in ten-minute stints between 1am and 5am instead of sitting at a desk for eight hours for a regular work day.

Together, being an instructor and being a writer have taught me that bad work is a waste of everyone’s time, and straining my mental health for no reason is as counter-productive as straining my physical health for no reason.

Even “real” writers need breaks. Sometimes that story isn’t coming, and it’s not because I’m not trying hard enough or I need to write some more. It’s not coming because I’m literally out of mental energy and need to spend some time regenerating. Just as I can identify the point in my grading when I need to take a breather so I can continue to be both efficient and fair to students, I’m learning to identify the point in my writing when I need to stop and do something else or risk spending a week writing only ten terrible words into my WiP.

I guess I should’ve figured this out earlier: in Shakespeare-in-the-park training as a teenager, I learned that an actor’s first responsibility is not to do whatever the director says or to take care of his or her colleagues. An actor’s first responsibility is to keep him- or herself mentally and physically safe, precisely because the company depends on each performer. If you go into your scene when you’re in a dangerous place for you, you make that scene a dangerous place for everyone else.

Other actors need to be able to count on you to support them. They need you to be able to share the energy that makes the scene run, or aim your stage-fighting blows correctly, or remember your lines. Failing yourself — well, we all do that sometimes. But when you fail yourself onstage, you fail everyone around you too.

Likewise, I’m learning, when I fail my mental or emotional health, even for the sake of something as important to me as my writing or my job, I’m failing my coworkers, classes, and characters.

Learning to balance work ethic with health ethic is difficult, because the two are often at odds. And it’s even more difficult to figure out whether I actually need a break or I’m making lazy excuses — like those days when you’re borderline sick enough that you could go to the gym if you tried really hard, but you’re not sure if trying really hard really will ruin you or if you’re avoiding pushing yourself because you secretly hate cardio in the first place.

I don’t think the balance will every be easy, or that I get it entirely right, but I do know this: trying new things, meeting new people, and reading new books help my writing. They fill my memory trough with fresh creative fodder and give me perspective on my story.

After all, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.