Punching myself in the face
Get back in the ring, champ, just swish your mouth out and spit. That’s how I always thought of the people in a boxer’s corner back when I was into boxing.
That’s the beginning I had planned for this, and as you can see, I’ve kept it, but as I started that opening metaphor I wondered about why I was reaching for boxing in particular as a metaphor for writing. Writing is really unlike boxing. It doesn’t involve any serious athletic effort (though I know it can have physical consequences, I’ve known people with tendonitis, carpal tunnel, pinched nerves, etc), and there’s no real combat component. I wonder if it’s partly cultural testosterone thing: boxers are tough, manly men. If I liken writing to boxing then I’m like one of them. That is among my impulses. I was raised in what I’d call a pretty macho household and I work the least athletic job of anyone in the family. As I am sometimes reminded by relatives, I have soft hands. I’m quick to point out I have calluses… and they come from a recreational activity, rock-climbing. This is both a way to claim some cultural testosterone and to agree with those criticisms from my relatives. I don’t want to play that kind of game, even though I kind of do.
On the other hand, the suffering in writing is real. I have an impulse to overlook that, to minimize it. Boxing is hard (in lots of meanings of that term), in a legitimate way. Writing feels less so. But it is really difficult and painful. Just differently so. I’m of two (or more) minds here, in that I want to claim that because it’s real - my experiences are mine! - and I want to deny it because of the voices of my relatives in the back of my head but also because I’ve seen self-congratulating priveleged douchebags whine about how bad they have when they actually have it really well and I don’t want to be one of those. I suppose, everyone’s struggle is a struggle. I don’t want to rank them, and I kinda do. Anyway. Metaphorical aside is set aside starting…. Now.
It’s important to have people in your corner, that’s where I was going with this. I figured out in the past year or so that I get more done if I have people physically present with me while I’m writing, people who are writing. This keeps me writing. It’s nice to be able to talk with other people about writing in realtime; it reduces my long freakouts to short moments of tension. As in: my writing partner talks me down when I need it, and vice versa. It’s good to talk specifics of craft as well: what are you doing? How will you do it? Can I make a suggestion? Stuff like that. I also find it helpful to say what I’m doing, so I commit to it, and I like to check-in partway through the day about how it’s going and at the end about how it went, and I like to have these be honest: have I been really hard at work, or have I been meandering? That honesty makes me get more done when I’m working.
It’s good to have people in my corner even if they can’t be physically present. Talking with other people who are struggling with writing helps me to keep it up, in practical tips and in motivation and mindset. One of my go-to people said to me recently that his current view is that everyone has some good writing inside, but it’s buried under a renewable well of bad writing. So, to get to the good writing, first the well of bad writing has to be drained. And it’s never permanently drained. It refills and needs draining again, and again.
The point is in part to write even - no, especially! - when it sucks. Get it out, so the good stuff can follow. This isn’t to say that every time the prose sucks it will eventually get good. I wish. But it is to say that overall continuing to write bad prose is a better way to get to writing good prose than stopping and waiting for the good prose to be ready to come out. I like to call this the courage to suck. Writing can be so uncomfortable, and that’s compounded by having the results suck: I’m hurting myself so much, and for THIS?! The discomfort can be further compounded by the fear that results that suck mean you’re doing something wrong, and/or that they mean you will only and always produce results that suck.
There are always some tweaks to be made to improve technique and craft, but most fundamentally the only way forward is forward and the more time spent moving forward the more forward motion there is. Of course, it’s easier to say “write when your writing sucks” than it is to do. It hurts to write and have it suck. It’s just true, though, that writing will hurt, and over time, at least early on anyway, we discover new and different ways for writing to hurt. As far as I know the only way to make it stop hurting is to stop writing: committing to writing means committing to endure discomfort. The writing will suck. You can cry if you want to, but you have to be brave. And mostly, what makes it suck is you: you’re boxing yourself. And there’s the bell. Someone bring me my water bottle. Let’s hope this is a win by decision.