Post-Draft Nervous Breakdown

This week I witnessed a writer going through the shock of sending a manuscript off after years of work. She was hurting bad, and just when she was least expecting it.

The first time it hit me--what I call post-draft nervous breakdown--I was expecting to feel jubilant: I'd finished a novel! I'd gotten it off my desk! at least for a few days. But what happened instead was the rushing-in of all kinds of mental garbage to fill the void. I found myself enraged over things that would normally be mildly irritating. And I was certain, without reason, that I had cancer, which I didn't.

I've since learned that this experience is very common. And it does go away. For me, it has never lasted in most acute form for more than three days.

Though I don't have kids, I think it must be somewhat like a quick hit of Empty Nest experience. The object of years of intense focus is leaving the house. Actually, the book doesn't even have to leave the house; I've had these little bouts merely from taking a break between drafts one and two, or five and six. It's the sudden empty mental space that, for me and lots of other writers, has led to turbulence.

I've found, though, that it's not necessary to keep going through such misery. Perhaps I've grown more accustomed to the process of letting go of a book. For whatever reason, I don't suffer so much at these times now. Part of what has relieved me, I think, is realizing that it's a temporary and normal response.

Biofeedback?

In my rough drafts that are a few days old, I find it fairly easy to see where the "live spots" are and what parts are just filler and can go.

Yet I don't recognize while I'm writing the moments when I'm producing the good stuff. (Usually, it's not the times I might guess.)

So, it occurred to me while I was driving in this morning that the state of "doing-the-good-stuff" might be trackable with a technology like biofeedback. I'd be interested in knowing what the bodily state is at those moments, so that I could learn to reproduce them. Is this possible? Does anyone know?

I have learned a couple of things about the likeliest mental/emotional state. It's intent but relaxed focus (hypnotic trance), and lack of self-awareness. That second part is hard to set out to create.

What happens at such times I imagine as an inner door sliding open onto a place that's dark and mysterious, curiously both empty and teeming. Kalifornia K talks about that in one of her comments to "Writing from the Ditch." It would be nice to know how to open that door at will. I'd like to know when it's open without it getting shy and closing right up.

Swearing Off Irony

Here's a Mid-Year's Resolution. I'm going to cut back on ironic, sardonic comments in my daily-life conversations. I've come to feel that that oblique kind of chat, is hindering my fully feeling and expressing my real reactions. That can't be good for my writing.

So I'm going to try an experiment with full-time sincerity--not total disclosure, of course, but just being direct about what I do say. Maybe, too, it will prevent the misunderstandings that sometimes occur when I cleverly say the opposite of what I mean.

Writing from the Ditch

Last night while getting my fix of televised movie-star gossip, I saw a preview of a movie about Johnny Cash. A snippet of a scene seized my attention. A man was haranguing the young Cash about what kind of songs he should write. I don't like to be harangued myself, most especially about what I "should write."

But this guy had some arresting advice. What he said to Cash was essentially this: imagine yourself lying mortally injured in a ditch at the side of a highway, knowing these are your last moments. What do you want to say to God about how you feel about the time you have had here on earth? Let that pure immediate force into a song. "Those are the songs," the guy said, "that save people."

I got up off the floor--I was doing crunches at the time--to make a note. It's not a message I want in the forefront of my mind while I write; it would make me too halting and self-conscious, would distract me from the characters and the story. But it's not a bad exercise, to play that last-moments game and see what emerges.

Anyone who has come close to death--and I haven't--probably already knows about this. If this has happened to you, did you find that it changed your work afterwards?

Celebrations, kitten heels

Yesterday two personal milestones: this blog opened its doors and I finished a draft of a piece long on the back burner up until a couple of months ago.

Big moments. Yet my little office was so quiet. No confetti, no balloons. Nobody here but me. (Though lots of wonderful e-mails, I thank you. And the everyday thump of the music from the Mexican restaurant downstairs.)

There was no way I could instantly gather a crowd for champagne and sweet iced tea. So, a mini-celebration: lo mein with Bob at the mall food court and the purchase of my first and likely only pair of high-heeled flip-flops, a concept I never imagined would attract me.

My point: every milestone, every bit of progress, even the "good" rejections need celebrating. Sandals with kitten heels may not be your thing. But I'll bet you can come up with something that will do the trick.

Ideas that Gently Shine

Here's a thought I find encouraging when I seem unable to get anything done. (It's like wading through waist-deep mud, that feeling sometimes.)

"Our idea that we must always be energetic and active is all wrong." Too much mad dashing around, writes Brenda Ueland, "and presently your soul gets frightfully sterile and dry because you are so quick, snappy and efficient about doing one thing after another that you have not time for your own ideas to come in and deveop and gently shine."

I love that gentle shining.

Peggy

Guilt, Revolution

Today is an especially auspicious one for leaping into something important. It's Bastille Day, the French holiday that commemorates the revolution that overthrew the monarchy in that country about 20 years after our own American Revolution.

I woke up this morning feeling oddly guilty from staking myself out pretty boldly yesterday. I'd told the people who are contracting with me to write a new edition of my book DONCASTER: A LEGACY OF PERSONAL STYLE that I felt "ordained" to do this work. Sounds pretty lofty, doesn't it? Well-- I do feel that way. So what's to feel bad about?

Have a wonderful, exciting, and bold Bastille Day.

Peggy