Tess Gerritsen is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University. Tess went on to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, and was awarded her M.D. in 1979. After completing her internal medicine residency, she worked as a physician in Honolulu, Hawaii. In 1987, Tess's first novel was published. CALL AFTER MIDNIGHT, a romantic thriller, was soon followed by eight more romantic suspense novels. She also wrote a screenplay, "Adrift," which aired as a 1993 CBS Movie of the Week starring Kate Jackson. Her thriller, Harvest was released in 1996, and marked Tess's debut on the NEW YORK TIMES bestseller list. Film rights were sold to Paramount/Dreamworks, and the book was translated into twenty foreign languages. Now retired from medicine, Tess writes full time and lives in Maine.Sandra Scoppettone writes one of the most honest and heartfelt blogs on the web. On January 24, she wrote:
“I have the awful feeling that I can’t write anymore. Some part of me is fed up with the whole process. It’s not that I have to feel pleasure all the time I’m writing. That would be unrealistic. But I feel no pleasure at all. It feels like I’m simply hitting keys. Writing for the sake of writing because I’m supposed to be a writer. “
Oh man, do I understand what she’s saying. From time to time I’ve shared her feelings of hopelessness and ennui. I’ve wondered when writing stories stopped being fun. I’ve felt fed up with the process and the constantly churning anxiety of fast-approaching deadlines. But who are we to complain? We’re published authors! We’re living the dream, and we should shut up and be grateful!
Yet Sandra’s blog (which strikes me as incredibly brave and just a touch foolhardy in its honesty) points out the downside of writing as a job, and it’s this: your whole career, the whole rickety house of cards, rests entirely on your continuing ability to spin something out of absolutely nothing. It’s not like, say, building doghouses. Building a doghouse takes materials which are readily available at the hardware store, a set of tools, and maybe a blueprint. Follow the instructions, and you have your doghouse. Every single time. You can pretty much count on having those tools and those materials handy, and as long as you have the time, you can build endless numbers of doghouses.
But a writer’s primary tool, beyond the pen or the keyboard, is his imagination. And that’s a damn unreliable tool. It fractures with just the slightest stress. A serious illness or a divorce or a few sleepless nights can make that tool completely unusable. Suddenly you can’t figure out the next plot twist. You can’t hear the dialogue. As the days go by, and no writing gets done, you start to panic and that warps your tool even more. You just want to be writing again, but because you’re now so anxious about the whole process, the short walk to your desk starts to feel like a trip to the salt mines. All because your most valuable tool as a writer, your imagination, has gone missing.
How do we get it back? In Sandra’s case, it sounds like she plans to take a break. She doesn’t know how long it will be, but she knows that in her bones she’s a writer, and she expects she’ll be back.
I’m sure she will.
Such a great post. Thanks. There must be something valuable to the idea of sabbath and jubilee. I wonder how much we shortchange ourselves as writers when we write-write-write without strategic breaks of rejuvenation.
ReplyDeleteThe imagination is the first casualty of a hurried life.
I think the key lies in the DEADlines. It used to be common for writers to take one to several years to complete a single manuscript. Now, not only our technology but our society has become voracious, often demanding two or more manuscripts a year (especially if one writes for several genres). Considering we still only have the same twenty-four hours a day, the same fingers and brains to manipulate essentially the same keyboard that was first introduced nearly a hundred years ago, it’s no wonder we have run into such dragons as writer’s block and burnout.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, the human brain is still the most amazing piece of creation there ever was. It comes fully equipped with the remarkable capacity not only to rejuvenate itself, but also to continue working during the process. While it can go for an incredible length of time without “food or rest,” it still seems – like all flesh – to demand these two things to keep working at its optimum levels.
Personally, I take great comfort in believing that my writer’s brain has a cycle of absorbing (good reading and information gathering), working (new ideas and problem solving), and refreshing (taking pleasure in the good things of life). If it seems a while since I have “produced” anything, I am confident that moment can’t be far off when my brain will have enough fodder to suddenly kick forward into high gear and start humming at full capacity, again.
And what pleasure that is!
Thanks for this article. It's a perilous journey sometimes, being a writer. And it's hard to know when to take a break and when to write through it.
ReplyDeleteTF
This was real balm to my soul today. I don't think so many of us would feel burned out if we were "allowed" to take a year or two to produce a book, then rest, then take time to produce slowly again. And it would be more fun! But the truth is, I'm the only one who can resist the pressure and "allow" myself to work slower!
ReplyDeleteYes! I've blogged about the same thing before. I think it's scary that we just don't know where the stories come from or when they'll come. We sit staring into space, waiting, like someone trying to catch butterflies in the dark, when she isn't even sure there are any butterflies there. Just when we start thinking a story won't come, we feel the fluttering wings of one in our palm. I've "quit" before. Never really works though. If you're a writer, you're a writer.
ReplyDelete