Giving Up On Good

Our assignment this month was to write a story, poem or essay with a surprise ending or an ironic twist...a la O'Henry. To be honest, my initial reaction to that assignment hasn't changed much.... I'm still at a sort of low level panic. How in the world am I going to pull this one off? Where do I even begin? And even more fundamentally, why even begin when I don't have a hope of succeeding?

Now, while I'm not experienced with surprise plot twists, I do have quite a lot of experience with that feeling of numbing, freezing self-doubt.

The particulars vary but the tune is the same: I want to do something good. I can't see how I can write a good poem, or a good story, or a good essay. I probably will fail. I don't know how to do it. So, why even start?

You might think this is all about insecurity and a lack of confidence. But I'm not sure. I think the basic problem is one of beliefs. Beliefs that are flawed.

Let me list what I think are some of those beliefs that keep writers from writing, and then let's examine them together. I'd LOVE your help on this problem, so, please comment.

First, I believe that if I am a real writer, I should know how to produce good writing. I should be in control of the process, and I should be able to control the quality of the product. There's also the belief that only the finished product is important. And that only high quality literature is worth writing. I want to examine these beliefs with you in reverse order.


If it's not literature, it's not worth writing.

I think this is the most fundamental of these beliefs. If it's not "good" writing, then I really probably shouldn't waste my time. But this belief begs the question: what is "good art" anyway? Who do I let decide for me what is worth doing? Whom have I chosen as my editor or critic to decide whether my thoughts are worth granting a voice to?

Of course, I can recognize that there are great writers, but I think it's important to get over the idea that my writing is worthless if it doesn't match theirs. Gerard Manly Hopkins or Emily Dickinson (as two examples) are amazingly gifted poets, and in a comparison, my writing doesn't do too well. But I think a little closer inspection reveals that no one, including God, expects me to be Hopkins or Dickinson. They did that well enough. My goal is not to be a "great writer" (or a great anything), but rather, to be myself (more specifically as a Christian, to be myself redeemed in Christ), and to use my abilities and gifts and cultural context and personality to tell the stories and write the poems that I need to write, and that perhaps, in some cases, my community needs to read.

Only the finished product is important

Almost any artist will tell you that something happens in the process of creating that is even more wonderful than a succesful product, or at least the process is so linked as to be irreducible from the product. As I recognize this, the need to know I will have a great poem at the end of a week or a month of writing becomes a little less strangling.

Don't get me wrong, I still want to write poems and stories that I and others appreciate as good reading, but, more and more I don't feel the need for any particular poem I'm working on to be successful. What I need is to write.

I should be in control of the process and the product
We've all heard that good writing doesn't happen in the first drafts. But I've found that even when I accept the rough draft is going to be rough, I still try to demand some assurance that I'll be able to get to "good" by at least draft three, or five, or ten. But this anxiety and need for control usually prevents me from really "going for" it in the first few drafts. I keep trying to know what I'm saying, what I "mean," trying to guess how it will be received by readers who can pronounce it "good." If I stay in that space, I can write something that people generally like. I know the tricks to the writing that follows the rules. But that's not the writing that keeps me writing. That's not the writing that reminds me I'm alive. And that's not the writing that ultimately really excites the thoughtful reader, either.

To get to the writing I care about, I have to say every single time I begin that this time I might very well fail miserably. In fact, I probably will. And then I tell myself, "just have fun, just go for it."

All that matters is that I write, and that I write holding nothing back, without any thought of whether it will turn out well, or whether it will ever have any chance of being understood or appreciated by another soul.

This poem or story will not necessarily be good literature, but this poem or story-- if I am faithful in the writing, in the listening, in the truth-telling, in my work--will take me on a journey. The journey might be two drafts or eighty-two drafts long, and it might result in a "masterpiece" (although that hasn't happened yet), or a rather complicated, rambling journal entry, but "good" or not, it will always be worth the time and attention I have given it.

And so, I come to this "surprise ending" assignment with the same unknowns about the product. Right now all I have is a vague memory of some funny family stories that had little twists to them. I don't know how to write them down, but I'm going to start writing. I don't know if I will let anyone else read what I've written. But I'm very much looking forward to beginning. I'm looking forward to the "playing," and to the journey.

This is where I've come, even through the writing of this blog, but I'd like to hear from you. What are some of the beliefs that prevent you from writing or producing art?


---Jenny