When I finished the rough draft of my novel, I expected to go out of my mind. Tears maybe? Dragging Bo to the beach so I could run off some energy? Bowling over Mike with the atomic force that comes from crashing through a lifetime spent telling myself I just don't finish what I start? Blinking at my computer screen as my brain came to the surreal realization that the fifth book was the charm?I did feel joy, and I did celebrate. But there were two celebratory obstacles.
The first was the easy one. The end of the rough draft means the start of the revision. While embracing a forward-ho! approach did wonders for powering through this draft, it left quite the mess in its wake. Think of it like hosting a literary block party in your living room--all cocktails and music and fun--only to wake up with so much cleaning to do you have no idea where to start. Not to mention the gaping holes in the wall...
The second obstacle was harder.
On November 5, I learned that one of my closest friends has stage four pancreatic cancer. I heard the news the way a sister might take such news about her brother--hard. But when I started to shut down, I rallied myself. My friend is a brother-in-art who helped me embrace the pioneering spirit of creative living in a largely apathetic world. He believed I was a writer before I believed it myself. His enthusiasm for this novel was and is unconditional and constant. Shutting down was just about the best way to spit on everything he taught me. So I rallied. On November 7, I finished the draft. It was fucking done!
But with exhilaration came whiplash.
That first weekend, spikes of joy alternated with the flatline of loss. I finished the book with a stubborn insistence that putting it off was to dishonor all the ways my friend has supported my writing, but any joy I felt about reaching "the end" gave way, eventually, to guilt. A wise friend told me this guilt was natural, but I had to let it go. That life is too short to waste worrying. That I had to embrace joy when it comes.
People say life is a roller coaster--you're up then you're down, screaming and scared one minute and laughing like a loon the next. But there's got to be more to life that strapping yourself in and bracing for the loop-de-loops. We have more control than that. We have to. Life is more like a see saw--one minute you're riding high and the next you're on you're ass, but you have the power to stay on the ground or launch yourself back skyward. And no. I'm not quite on board with my life-as-see-saw metaphor, either, but you get what I'm saying about our hand in pushing ourselves up and away from the ground. What I'm trying to say anyway. Embrace joy when it comes? I did. I tried. I'm trying.
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First, I'm really sorry to hear about your friend's illness.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I totally hear you on the post-creative emotional minefield. I recently went through the same thing myself (though on a smaller scale). It was the first time since I graduated college 14 years ago that I conceived and executed a large-scale creative project and I had forgotten all about the strange combination of satisfaction and loss that comes afterward. I had also forgotten that the bigger the project, the bigger the hole that's left when you finish. I think that's why so many writers wind up obsessing over commas in the 98th draft of their novel – the prospect of doing what comes next is positively terrifying. The best thing to do is to just allow yourself the time to process and then move on to the next thing.
As far as life metaphors, I think that life is definitely a carnival ride, but we get to choose between getting on the roller coaster or the merry-go-round. It's only lately that the idea of the merry-go-round has become the more appealing choice. I guess that's maturity for you.
So much in such a short column!
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