More About Anxiety

I've got a well thought out blog waiting to be typed in. I keep going over it: I've revised it three times. But I don't think my heart's in it. And I have a feeling it's never going to be blogged. The times I blog are really when I have the guts/or desperation to write right here on the Blog page where the PUBLISH button is visible below: a frighening orange square screaming PUBLISH.

Today's anxiety is about being told I'm doing good work. I wonder how alone (or not alone) I am in this. I am "on a roll," I guess, in that I'm writing a lot, every day, and more material is in there waiting to come out.

I often go to bed thinking about my characters. They are with me everywhere. I wonder if it's Marilyn or Sharon who should die. And cold-bloodily I figure it out. I write about the developing love affair. Must admit I like getting to those parts; particularily fun to write.

I'm intrigued by what will happen. How can I play with it. How can I be in this flow and yet manage to make sure it's gritty true. I don't want to write superficially. But the gritty truth is probably what is making me anxious. And it's the truth I so much want to have the courage to write.

I have a pretty long history of thinking I could write nonfiction, could teach writing, could do some reasonably good personal essays, but a novel--no way. A novel would mean opening me up. And I never thought I'd be ready and willing to do that.

OK. So, I'm on a roll. But does that mean it's good or just that I'm on a writing "high."

Emily tells me it's good. I poliltely tell her I wished I could connect with that belief. I tell her I don't think she would lie, but, but, but. She says I'm one of her toughest cases re inabity to assess one's own work with some objectivity.

She tells me again she thinks this is good. The characters are alive and moving on. They are doing my novel for me.

I get off phone and e-mail a friend about how anxious the hour with Emily made me. Now here I am at the blog saying the same thing.

I worry about the deeper waters coming up. Some of the most raw material is yet to be written. Is the writer up to it. The character is. She's really pretty cool. And she's in a lot worse situation than I am. This back and forth dialogue in my head begins to feel a bit crazy. I'm glad I'm meeting a friend for dinner. She's a writer also. I need more feedback on this.

This is new territory. I feel like I'm surfing. And I'm going for the best wave there is. Nothing second rate, the best.

My character, Julie, isn't going to cop out. She's going the whole nine yards.
It's the writer I worry about. This is about what I believe and feel and can imagine or have experienced. Anyone reading it would know a lot about me.
I use four letter words, I'm not too hip (and I so want to be cool), and I know about the darker side of life. The things you almost never talk about.

So, another page of learning about the art and craft of writing. It's dangerous and frightening. It may be the road to healing the characters as well as the author.
probably to be continued...