Having Fun

On message boards and in hazy convention bars, writers often gather to discuss their common albatross. Sometimes you'll hear them muttering things like:

"Man, I just can't get into this new novel. It just sits there and sits there."

"Yeah, tell me about it. I've been working on a novella for close to six months and every word feels like shooting an enraged bee straight into my cornea."

I wonder if those stories end up being any good.

The common element for all of my successful work (both in writing and elsewhere) is that I enjoy doing it. My best stories were written in a few hours or days of cackling insanity at a table in a library or in a text editor between projects at work. Those are the stories that sell, the ones that people write to tell me they enjoyed. There seems to be a direct proportion between my enjoyment and the reader's.

This is not to say that writing is always easy--it seldom is. Writing is a trial of patience, courage, and dedication. We see the work of talented writers and assume they sit at their typewriters or computers, prancing in the fields of genius with a voluptuous muse, but writing is as hard for Ray Bradbury and Stephen King and David Brin as it is for you and me.

The only difference is that they don't notice.

The runner who wins the race isn't the one who thinks every step of the way, "My legs are killing me." It is the runner who focuses on the finish line, past the pain and hard work toward the enjoyment of the task.

Should you enjoy every second of writing? Of course not. You should enjoy some aspects of it, though. You should enjoy trying new things and playing around, experimenting with new words and points of view. You should enjoy telling a story, not just having told it. You should have strong feelings about your subject, a compelling reason to sit at that keyboard and get that story down. You should have a driving energy that crackles onto the page.

You have to enjoy your work enough to make the agony worth it.

Otherwise you're a galley slave rowing across a sea of futility. You may get words down on paper through force of will. You may even get those published, if written in large enough volume. If you don't enjoy your work, though, neither will any of the rest of us.

Follow these guidelines for having fun with your writing again:

• Make the choice.
• Ease up on yourself.
• This project may be beyond your talents right now.
• Express yourself in another venue.

Make the choice.

When the writing gets difficult and you find yourself stymied, ask yourself this question:

Does this story mean enough to me to focus past how hard it is to write?

If the answer is no, set this aside and work on something else. If the answer is yes, fixate on that importance and don't let it go. Remember that reason for writing and let it drive you, not the other way around.

Ease up on yourself.

Strike a balance between discipline and torture. Don't sit down to write the greatest novel of our age: just tell a story that means something to you with honesty. Don't set out to write the novel with the high concept idea. Write the one that seems fun.

One of the greatest challenges in a self-directed vocation like writing is how to discipline yourself enough to get the job done, but not so much that drudgery is evident in the product. We're unfortunately trained by many schools, parents, and other authority figures that motivation comes from fear: "If I don't do my homework, I'll get bad grades." "If I don't get a promotion, my family will starve." How unfortunate our society doesn't attempt to instill doing things for joy instead of fear.

Buck the trend. Learn to motivate yourself with fun instead of fear.

This project may be beyond your talents right now.

Once a project has gone beyond the normal strains and stresses, when it is obvious you're just grinding gears, you should stop to consider whether this is the time to work with that project. Maybe the idea isn't dear enough to you yet. Maybe there's more research to do. Maybe you need more practice in the medium. Develop a sense of when you're not working effectively and stop.

Stop. It isn't a dirty word.

This isn't license to stop whenever it gets tough. This is still work, after all, tedious at times and difficult. Learn the sound of your inner voice telling you this is not the time to write this story. Learn the difference between that voice and those of fear or apathy or laziness.

Express yourself in another venue.

I'm not going to be popular for saying this, but it just might be possible that you need to express yourself in another way than writing. Perhaps your idea is a painting or a play instead. Maybe a screenplay would convey the story more efficiently. Or a poem. Or an essay.

Don't get so involved with your own self-image as a writer that you can't step back to consider other possibilities. When you fall in love with books, it is easy to assume that your most worthwhile ideas should be enshrined there. There are other venues, some better for certain purposes.

"It is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts."

-- Thoreau

Work in the medium that suits the subject best. Don't let the medium choose the story. Don't let your own preconceptions cloud your judgement. Use the right tool for the right job, even if that tool isn't writing.