Writing Maturity

2004-01-10 - 5:28 a.m.

Taking an unearned (but much deserved) break from work because I was sitting here, processing credit card orders, and realising that I had a lot of stuff I wanted to write about. I was all impressed with myself, because lately it's seemed like I would show up at diaryland, stare at the white box, and have nothing worthwhile to say. But then I realized that that wasn't true: I spend several moments each day thinking "Oh! That would be really interesting to write about on diaryland!" and then I would think about it, and how I'd word it, and I'd put it on my mental checklist. I would then show up at work, get bogged down with stuff, and by the time I would get a chance to write an entry, I would suddenly realize that I have nothing to write.

So now is when I break this horrible cycle! I free my journalistic tendancies from the shackles of routine and drudgery that have kept them...er...shackled for so long! I am free, free to write while I still have the enthusiasm to do so!

I'm also realising that this would now be the funniest time to say "But I can't remember what I wanted to write about." What a let-down that would be, eh?

I'm supposed to be writing my Next Big Novel these days, and it is not coming along well at all. However, having writer's block, it seems, is great for destroying editor's block. I've been an editing machine, finally re-reading the novel I wrote in November, and I'm starting to really get an idea of the shape of what I wrote, which is a mixed blessing.

The biggest weakness I think I have is that my writing lacks maturity. I think I can do a reasonably good job at characterisation and telling a story and all those other things that are the basics of being a good fiction writer, and what weaknesses I do have in those respects, I can usually compensate for them with some effort in the rewriting and editing processes, but what I can't fix is that my stories often lack a certain depth. It's like, the stories I want to tell are just a little out of reach, a little too complex for me to write them yet.

It's frustrating, because I know that this is something that will gradually resolve itself: my writing lacks maturity because I lack maturity. I know (and have noticed) that as I grow and change, as I gain depth of experience, my writing reflects that, but the necessary depth seems to always be just out of reach. I can see how my stories fail (or, maybe not fail, but just don't succeed quite as well as I want), but I feel helpless to fix them.

Right now, I just keep telling myself that I'll really hit my writerly stride when I'm in my 30s (I can't hit my stride any later, because I've already marked off my 40s as the decade when I start to gain a readership, but my writing starts to flag as I rest on my laurels. My 40s will be the decade that I spend doing the talk-radio circuit, hopefully most of it on the CBC, where I'll talk authoritatively with other authoritative-writer/intellectual types about the latest books and what they say about the Canadian Identity. So, for my life to remain on schedule, I must have one or two novels, or a couple short story anthologies, published before my 40th birthday), but telling myself that I'm just in an immature decade really doesn't help much.

All of that whining aside, as I'm editing, I'm seeing that I have some good stuff, some mediocre stuff, and some pretty darn bad stuff in my novel. It's enough to keep me writing, and I'm going to do my darndest to make something solid out of what I have. I need to remind myself that there's nothing wrong, and there may be a lot of things right about reaching too far, trying to tell stories that are larger than I'm able to handle. If I never explore places beyond my experience, I'll have a really hard time growing. It may be a little late in this decade to realize this, but my 20s can be the decade that I spend overreaching, testing my limits, exploring what I can and can't do as a writer.

On a completely unrelated note, has anyone else noticed a sudden and completely inexplicable explosion in apostrophe usage lately? I've been seeing apostrophes appearing in completely inappropriate places, usually in slang words that have spent years getting along just fine without them. Words like "gonna" and "wanna" are suddenly being spelled "gonna'" and "wa'nna" and the like. Apostrophes are already massively overused, so I wish that people wouldn't abuse them like this. Sigh.

Cheers,

The Magus

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