Away from the Manuscript
I’m on a vacation from the memoir (not from writing). It’s good.
I really lost my confidence when I finished the draft. I felt I’d wasted six months of my life. The book was so failed in so many ways. This is my third major draft and I could only see the ways I’d made it worse from Draft Two.
I was so happy to return to teaching—so easy! So festive! Students writing really well! So rewarding. Instant gratification. It’s like getting published on a daily basis. It’s like being married again, all safe and happy and secure, teaching. Yum.
Writing a book is like having a dangerous affair. Yikes.
All I could see was horrible parts of the book. All I could want was help, rescue, someone brilliant to fix it. There’s this whole lopsided chunk that I love it was so fun to write but the proportions of it screw up the arc of the book; I can see that, but fixing it means dismantling everything. And then the ending is so rushed. And some people want more face blind research and some people don’t…. I do not feel smart enough to write this book.
But now, working on my essays (an essay about the south, an essay about Alyssa, an essay about dating, an essay about pica, little face blind moments) I’m starting to see that I haven’t done anything wrong. I finished my draft.
And the book went into its necessary hibernation and now its nudging me again, just a little bit here, and there. It’s going to come and get me and when it does I’m going to be so happy to see it. I’m going to know what to do. I’m going to flip from seeing all the ghastly horrors of the book to seeing what’s alive and beautiful and fascinating to me, and I’m going to be able to push it closer to what it wants to be. I don’t know what that is, but I know I’m going to know.
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I’m actually anticipating to read your memoirs when it finally comes out. I’m sure many of us are feeling the same way too.
Don’t stress over the book, it’ll come to you eventually. I’ll wait. I can be patient for good things. 