anna katherine

Author crazies — we all have them. Fears and worries that — as artists, craftsmen, and business people — drive us a peculiar kind of nuts. One of the biggest crazies, though, is the thought, “I’m the only one thinking this.” One by one we’ll be taking those thoughts out of the back of our brains and showcasing just how universal they are. In this entry, Anna talks about impostor syndrome.

Kat and I wrote Salt and Silver in six weeks. Then we had a week for editing and a week to review the copyedit and a week to review the proofs. It’s true that we were editing right through the proof stage — part of that is because we knew we could, and part of it is because we hadn’t had enough time to properly write and get feedback. (That’s why there’s a huge plot hole in Salt and Silver, although I am told by readers that they consider it a feature rather than a flaw. To each her own, I guess!)

We’ve been writing the sequel for almost two years. Kat had a baby, I moved across the country, a lot of other life happened. But we know what it’s about. We know who the characters are. We know what the ~~artistic theme~~ is. We know what our creepy-cool twist is, and what makes it all sexy, and what the romance trope we’re turning on its head is. We know the characters’ voices.

Yet we’ve been writing and rewriting and rewriting the same 20,000 words for almost two years. First we wrote it in the first person POV of the hero. Then in limited third person POV for just the heroine, then just the hero, then swapping back and forth. At some point in between there, we changed the plot — twice.

We’ve finally settled on first person from the heroine’s POV — and we’ve got the plot pretty worked out — so now it’s time for us to buckle down and write. Kat’s already done a lot; I’m working on it now. Since she sent me the file, I’ve written five short stories (between two and six thousand words each), edited almost eight hundred thousand words of other people’s work, watched both seasons of Fringe (twice!), both seasons of Southland, Nigella Lawson’s entire oeuvre, and read several million words of novels, nonfiction, fanfic, blog posts… Oh, yeah, and I write two blog posts every day (sometimes three!).

The book’s file sits on my desktop, and I look at it every day. Sometimes I even click on it, open it, write a word or two. Then I am gripped by a paralyzing fear and I close it again.

After all, if Kat and I ever do finish this book, it will be completely obvious to everyone that Salt and Silver was a fluke, that I am not a writer, that I am holding back Kat’s literary genius, and that my computer should be taken away for the good of everyone. Or, almost worse than being a bad writer… it will be discovered that I am a mediocre writer. Not the worst, not the best, always missing that one something that makes characters come alive on the page.

This is, of course, ridiculous. I know I am a good writer. I know there are people who enjoy my writing, that it works on a fundamental level. I know that I can put together an excellent sentence, a compelling scene. I know that I know what my real flaws as a writer are (plot, as anyone who’s read my solo stuff can tell you!), just as I know that sometimes I can actually make my work stronger by writing my flaws into it. I know that Kat will fix whatever missteps I make, just as I fix hers — no ego, no bullshit; I have her back and she has mine.

But I can’t really convince myself of all this. I still sit in front of my computer and think, “Kat should write this book by herself so that I don’t ruin it.”

How to get around this? I still don’t know. I am still paralyzed by these thoughts of my perceived inadequacies. Even telling myself that I am writing my parts of this book for Kat, who loves my writing (as I love hers) doesn’t help.

Friday night, though, as I did my daily staring at the file on my desktop, I thought about when I started writing original fiction again. I’d stopped writing fiction in 2000, when I started working in publishing — and didn’t go back to it until after I’d left my full time job for freelancing. (In between, I wrote hundreds of thousands of words of fanfic, which I found — and continue to find — deeply satisfying.)

In March 2007, one of my friends thought I wasn’t writing enough (fanfic) for her entertainment and she offered to pay me a dollar to write her a one hundred thousand word science fiction novel — “the crappiest science fiction novel you can,” is what she said to me. I wrote 25,000 words of what eventually became Salt and Silver, and the responses of the people I sent it to were wildly varied. Some, like Kat (and the friend for whom I wrote it), really liked it. Others told me that the protagonist (proto-Allie, then completely unnamed) was “unlikeable” — and some other words I won’t reprint.

The response that tickled me the most, though, was from one of my mentors, who pinged me on IM to say, “Great googly mooglies, you really can write.”

When I read those words, I got a rush of wonderful warm sparkly happiness — and reading them now, remembering how good it felt to impress this person whose opinion I thought (and continue to think) very highly of… well, that’s awesome. It makes me feel awesome. It makes me feel like I can do anything.

I also went back and read a bunch of old emails Kat and I exchanged while writing and editing Salt and Silver — that was intensely fun, and rereading those emails reminded me of that. It reminded me that I love writing stuff she’s going to read, because she loves reading it — and the more I write, the more she’s going to write, and I love reading what she writes. It’s a symbiotic relationship of total awesome — and if I don’t write, I don’t get to participate in it.

Finally, I thought about all the other times I thought that if I did something, people would see me for the impostor that I am. Things like taking that job in publishing in the first place, and starting an imprint at age twenty-three, and doing a photo essay for my undergraduate thesis, and working with the expensive, professional audio/visual equipment in college. Learning Greek. Writing articles about the publishing industry, negotiating contracts for hundreds of thousands of dollars, deciding which books should be published. Baking a soufflé. Sewing a quilt, competing in a cartwheel competition, knitting a sweater, partitioning a hard drive using DOS commands.

I don’t know that I’d agree that “the best way out is always through,” or that the only way to handle fear is to stand up to it and bring it into the light of day — but the old adages seem to hold true in this case. The more I write, the better I feel, the easier it is to keep writing, the less I feel like I’m faking it and someone’s gonna call me on it.

All I can do is keep saying, “I can do this” — and then do it.

Author crazies — we all have them. Fears and worries that — as artists, craftsmen, and business people — drive us a peculiar kind of nuts. One of the biggest crazies, though, is the thought, “I’m the only one thinking this.” One by one we’ll be taking those thoughts out of the back of our brains and showcasing just how universal they are. And to highlight this, Kat starts us off with a discussion of what every author fears — or at least, she thinks every one does…

A comedian goes onstage and starts a routine.  Let’s say she’s got two choices:

1) She starts an anecdote that the audience can relate to on a universal level (i.e., something that anyone in the audience might be familiar with, either personally or through someone they know) — the humor comes out of exploring this universal concept, sometimes from a new or personal angle.

2) She starts with an anecdote that is, on the face, supposed to be universal, but instead is so deeply particular (and often disturbing) that the humor first comes from the audience realizing that the comedian’s “universal” experience is actually just her own, sometimes embarrassing one — and then again from watching the comedian realizing that her “universal” is anything but.

That second option can be funny in a comedy routine, but it’s something that I worry about all the time: What if I’m trying to describe something I think everyone can relate to, but instead it just shows how weird I am?

Here’s an off-the-cuff example: I happen to love the smell of cigarettes and cigars. I don’t smoke, but I’m happy to inhale and sigh dreamily if someone happens to be smoking near me. I know I’m not in the majority, though, so it’s important for me to remember when it’s appropriate to use the scent of cigarette smoke as a description.

I mean a couple of things when I say “appropriate” — obviously no one out there can tell me what I can and can’t write (though in reality, I have to keep in mind my editor, the copyeditor, the proofreader, and a few thousand readers…), but if I’m in the business of creating an experience in the audience’s mind, then writing something confusing or jolting isn’t going to help me. An unusual description can be appropriate when using it to highlight a character; it can be inappropriate when setting a scene using a third-person omniscient narrator to evoke a particular image in a reader’s mind.

Examples!

Good idea for a general positive-smoke description: Early morning, and the air was thick with fog and wet-wood campfire smoke.

Bad idea for a general handsome/yummy description: He leaned forward, the sweet smell of an early morning cigarette still fresh on his clothes.

In modern Western society these days, smelling like cigarette smoke isn’t going to be seen as a positive — in fact, without further description, the poor character might be immediately labeled as a bit untrustworthy, or deceptive. I find it hot, but my reader probably won’t.

This whole “hot or not” issue can get particularly awkward in romance, where the author is explicitly trying to induce a state of arousal in the reader. (Um, right? That’s what we’re all doing… aren’t we?) A particular description could be absolutely perfect for a vast number of readers, and completely horrible for the rest — as authors, we can’t know what’s going to work. We have some ideas — these days, for instance, a dubious-consent sex scene isn’t necessarily going to be something the majority of readers are going to find attractive as a major romantic jumping off point. But other times, our “universals” may just be whatever floats our own boat, and it’ll be a hit-or-miss proposition for any readers out there (who may then judge us for it. “This author likes dubious consent! GROSS.”).

For me, there’s a difference between knowing that you’re using a maybe-not-universal, and not realizing that your “universal” description is anything but.

My author crazy about universal descriptions: I can’t tell if what I’m describing is actually going to be universally understood! And what if someone thinks I’m weird for thinking it is? This haunts me as I write, and can be a big writing blocker — here’s my process to get beyond it:

1. Who cares if it’s not universal? It’ll probably work for somebody, and that somebody will be very, very happy.
2. Okay, I care that’s it’s not universal. Double-check whatever the problem phrase is with a trusted beta reader.
3. What if the beta reader is just as weird as me? Go back to not caring.
4. Not caring still doesn’t work. Fine. Recast the description to be a bit more universal.
5. I don’t want to give up my beautiful prose! That thing with the cigarette smoke really works. Is there a way I can recast the scene to make it clear that the smoke is supposed to be attractive? Well, if I make it a judgment call on the part of the female character, and maybe tie it in to some memory… maybe having to do with a past relationship that ended badly? But was worth the heartache? Hm…

And the next thing I know, maybe I’ve got a more rounded character and a better setup for my plot. This crazy might have a positive spin to it.

…or maybe not! Such is the power of the author crazies. Is there a description you’ve stumbled over that didn’t fit the bill? Did you write something that someone else choked over? Everyone’s a little mad here — join in!