Things I Know about Writing on August 29, 2008

[Storytellers Unplugged, August 29, 2008; found via the Wayback Machine via an awesome reader]

I missed July because I was so far down in novel revisions that I simply forgot about it--I didn’t even notice it was July 29th until August 2nd, if you see what I mean.

Nine days ago, I turned in Corambis. My brain promptly shut down. (This phenomenon is not uncommon among novelists. Elizabeth Bear calls it “post-novel ennui.”) I’m still waiting for it to boot up again.

So.

What do I know about writing?

I know that it’s hard.

I know that if it was easy, it wouldn’t be fun.

I know that learn by doing is the only game in town.

I know that the only way out is through. And there aren’t any shortcuts. Anything you think is a shortcut is just going to get you in worse trouble.

I know that most of the cliches of writing advice--write what you know, omit needless words--work better as koans, as meditations, than they do as advice.

I know that fiction is all lies.

I know that you have to tell your lies as if they were truth. Lots of circumstantial evidence and telling details. And conviction.

I know that in the end, it turns out that those lies are all there to point the way toward the truth. Or a truth. Or some truth. If we could just tell the truth straight out, it would save a lot of time. But on the other hand, telling lies is fun.

I know that even now, when there isn’t so much as a drop of creativity left in me, I’d rather be writing than not.

I know that my creativity will come back--it’s like stalactite formation: slow but inexorable--and that pretty soon the whole gaudy gruesome carousel will start up again.

I know that writing never stops challenging me. And if it ever does, I’ll know I’m doing something wrong.

And I know, even when I hate it as sometimes I do, that writing is the best damn job in the world.