How do we dance?

By Dana

I was sitting down to work on a short story yesterday, one I’ve been looking forward to working on for a while, just waiting for the time to get to the keyboard.  But time after time, I’d write a line (or a part of a line), and then find a reason to get up and flee.  I was getting far more solitaire played than I was generating pages and it was freaking me out.  I knew what I wanted to do, I knew I could have fun with this, where was my focus?

I kept thinking about writers famously resistant to writing (Dorothy Parker, for one) and giving myself the willies. 

I don’t believe in writer’s block.  I don’t believe in writer’s block. I don’t believe in writer’s block.

But what if this was the time that I learned there really was—?  Oh, great mother pus-buckets…

It was IM’ing my husband that sorted it out for me.  Having to type out why I thought I wasn’t getting the job done dragged the problem out of my subconscious.  Once I realized it, I sighed great, heaving sighs of relief and offered libations to my own personal pantheon.  Then I got down to work.  Five and a half pages, zip, boom, squish.

When I was four and going to ballet lessons for the first time, I’m told that I was more than resistant.  It turns out that, yes, I wanted to dance, but I didn’t want to go to classes because I didn’t know how to dance.  I didn’t want to look like a dope while I was learning.  A four-year-old’s logic, but apparently potent enough to stick around for the next forty years.  I went and I had fun (though the teacher had to remind me to keep my tongue inside my mouth; it kept peeking out at one side, I was concentrating so hard). 

I wasn’t writing the story because I was afraid I’d disappoint myself.  I was afraid there’d be goopy bits that didn’t belong or that would be embarrassing, or that I’d get off track.  And while I know that a writer has to get some stuff down—anything down—to be able  to edit it into something readable, I was jumping way ahead, letting the inner critic off her leash before time.  Paralyzing myself.  Typing out, “I don’t want to write it because it won’t be perfect” reminded me that it didn’t need to be perfect, no one was going to see the raw stuff right away, and that yeah, the early product might look precious or sloppy, but then came the glorious chance to improve it.  How many times in your life do you get retries on anything?  Glorious.

I remain a huge fan of the series Northern Exposure.  When the writing was good, it blew the doors off many, many shows before or since.  There’s an episode where Ed is trying to get a crane reintroduced into the wild.  He and Chris take her out to the lake at mating season and teach her to dance, so she can join up with the other cranes.  The last scene remains one of my favorites:  Ed asks Chris what they do next (I’m paraphrasing):

Chris:  We dance.

Ed:  Oh.  Well, how do we dance?

Chris:  With abandon.

Sit down.  Start typing that scene you really want to write.  With abandon.  Anything that doesn’t belong can come out (and may tell you back-story that you need, even if your reader doesn’t), anything that’s missing will be apparent once you have the whole to work with.  And if you’re stuck, type out why you don’t want to write.  Acknowledge it, figure out a way around it (just like Toni did when she was helping her daughter learn to ride a bike).  Then blow it off the road.

Comments

[mary]

Thank you, Dana. I'm printing this out. Why is it so hard to remember? Maybe it's like skydiving. Each time, you begin with fear at the door, but once you're out of the plane, you're euphoric. And maybe nothing but a greasy spot on the freeway a few minutes later. :) But, you keep doing it anyway. Going into a project with joy and abandon not only makes the work of writing better, I think it also makes the story more engaging. Sure, you're still going to need to edit, but some of that excitement in letting your mind run free and naked will still be there.

[Dana Cameron]

It's something we keep learning, Mary, and sometimes it's harder than others. Maybe it's overcoming that initial resistance that actually creates the energy we need to invent a world.