Abandoning My Art

In September 2014 I started attending a creative writing class to motivate me and to focus my attention on writing and so that one day of the week, at least, I could call myself a writer.

My writing consisted of editing my book, writing for my MA and this blog I started in a effort to stimulate learning and a postitive outlook and motivation. On the 29th of September I set out to do One Thing Every Day that scared me, including submitting my book to agents. On the 3rd of October in  Yesterday's Fear I talked about the crisis of finding something lacking in my book I couldn't identify and when I did figure it out, how the editing process opened up again. On the 18th of October I wrote a post Eating the Elephant (having given the first 3 chapters to people to read) discussing the fear of it being read out loud in class and getting feedback. It all went surprisingly well and the feedback was useful so I set out to start work again on the first three chapters for submission based on the feedback. I then started thinking about the rest of the book and how it lacked the polish the first chapters had got. On the 9th of December in The Art of Writing: SMART Blogging and Elephant Eating I set a SMART goal to be achieved by the 6th of January, to get the rest of the book up to the same standard. Again this deadline passed, for various reasons, although I was still writing and working through issues in the book. 

I am eating the elephant one bite at a time, but its taking longer than I expected. Whether its because the elephant is larger than I thought, or parts are unpallitable or because some bits need a lot more chewing than others, its all the same.

On the 24th of January, preparing to go to my writing class I thought about why I still had so much to do with my book. Why I couldn't even figure out what it was I had to do. Why I couldn't even see some parts of the elephant I was trying to eat.

I realised that there was a problem with the ending, and while I showered, ate my cereal, travelled on the bus to class I came up with, not only the ending, but the last word of the ending and possibly an opportunity for a sequel.

Maybe when we fear something we have created isn't good enough yet - maybe we are right. If I had sent my book out without all the work I have done on it from September to now it would not be half the book I am capable of writing.

Of course I can't edit forever and one day I will abandon it. As Paul Valery said, and I mentioned in the post of December 9th :

Art is never finished only abandoned.

I continue to work on the abandonment of my art.

The Art of Writing, SMART Blogging and Elephant Eating

The problems of writers can vary from finding the initial idea, format or media, to their realisation in form to the way they reach their audience. Writing like any art has so many variations that saying something is finished feels almost impossible.

'Art is never finished only abandoned.'

(Paul Valery, 1966)

There are many times I have felt like abandoning my novel and calling it 'finished'. How many drafts does it need? How will I know? When is it ready? When do I show it to people?

At a writing course I subjected my prologue and first 3 chapters to the scrutiny of the tutor and the nine other people on the course, who I had either only met twice before, once or not at all. The build up to it was horrendous. The actual reading and feedback was bearable. And the editing afterwards, based on the feedback, was surprisingly productive and enjoyable. However I did tend to ignore what I didn't agree with and anything which I'd already had suspicions about was reinforced and I made changes accordingly.

Continuing to Eat the Elephant

Referring back to the Eating the Elephant  and the One Thing Every Day posts I realised that although my commitment to submit to agents every day until successful was a good idea it was not one I was ready for. Or more importantly not one the book was ready for. After editing the first three chapters I realised that the rest of the book now needed the same treatment.

So how do I get there? What is my goal (aside from the ultimate one of having my book published and appearing on children's school reading lists)? So in the meantime, what is my interim goal and how will I know I have achieved it? 

We learn at school or at work about SMART goals or targets - could that system work here?

Specific

Measurable

Attainable & Agreed

Relevant & Realistic

Time bound

SMART makes sense and is a template used in various other motivational strategies. For instance Locke and Latham (1990) talk about 5 Principles of  Goal Setting and needing the have the following to motivate (the brackets show the relevance to SMART:

1. Clarity. (Specific, Measurable, Time bound)
2. Challenge.(Relevant & Realistic)
3. Commitment.(Agreed)
4. Feedback. (Measurable)
5. Task complexity. (Attainable)

Any success I have enjoyed in any area from formal education to writing practise have worked in this way without me knowing it.

SMART Blogging

Take for instance, even the act of blogging. When left to my own devices in the past I might have blogged intermittently on anything that took my fancy, whereas this blog 52 Quotes has taken a new turn from previous efforts with regular posts, researching in between and a focus for every week on a new area for development. I did not apply any of the goal setting strategies at the outset but now can see why I am achieving more than I have in previous efforts, when I apply the formula now.

I have been clear in what I am trying to achieve from 52 Quotes - learn from the learned. The time frame is 52 weeks, meaning at least 52 quotes and at least one blog post a week. It is relevant to my work as community worker and realistic in terms of scope and time management and skill base. It is a commitment I can make and have agreed with my peers to keep me motivated and challenged. I can measure success by by my learning (recorded here) and from feedback from peers. It is a project that is complex enough to engage and challenge me while also able to be broken down to attainable parts for an attainable overall end result.

Applying the Formula to My Writing

My  Goal: To complete the rewrite of the book and synopsis by the end of Christmas Holidays (Jan 6th) and start sending out submissions every day from the 7th to agents and seeking critique from them and others who I send the full book to for feedback.

In other words one elephant will be eaten by the 6th and I will start on another one on the 7th. That's how you eat the elephant - one bite at a time.

Locke, E. A. and Latham, G. P. (1990) A Theory of Goal Setting and Task Performance, Prentice Hall College Div
Valery, P. (1966) Quoted in Friends, p. 74, The Princeton University Library Chronicle: Volumes 28-29,  Princeton University

Not So Wonderful

Today I failed to in my efforts to eat the elephant 'one bite at a time'. I had mustered the energy I wasn't feeling and had, as James put it, 'switched on' for the group of school students to the point where it wouldn't be noticed that I felt like throwing up and lying down in a dark room. Whether it was my sinuses or side effects of the medication I just started, it didn't matter, I couldn't shift it. All I could do was rise above it and tackle one task at a time. I was doing well, acting as if nothing was wrong, welcoming the students and cheerfully asking them to join me in circle time, catching up with their activities that week. As I took the sign-in sheet out, I thought I'd inject a little humour and positivity into the proceedings, so as I read out each name to mark them in I adding adjectives to their names like:

The wonderful ...

And here we have the great....

And the fabulous...

And we have the lovely...

I went through all the young people', who on hearing how wonderful, great, fabulous or lovely they were reacted with shy smiles and delighted laughter. It was really sweet. Then I went through the workers names and the students enjoyed hearing each adults name being called out in a similar fashion and even reminded me of a missing worker and I made sure I mentioned that the 'Wonderful Avril' was missed and they were pleased. Then I asked the name of the replacement teacher. She said 'Miss Muir', that her first name was too hard to say and anyway that's what the school expected.

I didn't swallow it. Instead, after saying 'and the wonderful Avril', I followed it up with a quieter lower toned, 'And the not-so-wonderful Miss Muir' to the shock of the few who heard me, including Miss Muir. I quickly redressed the error and said,  'I'm joking,' and said more loudly and cheerily, 'And of course the lovely Miss Muir.' And I clapped and whooped to overcompensate and bring proceedings to an upbeat end.

I was a little ashamed of myself. I should have risen above it. Although she was the only one to want only her surname used, I should have dealt with it better. I suppose I was disappointed that such a wonderful moment with the young people was slightly tarnished by her need to keep an authoritative distance between her and her students.

So to prevent this occurring in the future I will write into the contract between the schools and our centre that part of the way our informal education works is with everyone starting and being treated equally, which begins with our identities and our names - our first names first.

And I will try to continue to eat the elephant one bite at a time...however unpalatable the bite.

Another bite again.

The doctor looked me in the eye and said, 'I know you're trying to convince me that its nothing to do with your heart but you are going to have to take this seriously.'

I had gone to the doctor with vague worries about my sinuses and a chesty cough (because of pleurisy I had a few years ago) and came out with a prescription for aspirin, beta blockers and GTN, as well as appointments for a blood test and hospital cardiac assessment.

I laugh when I tell the story. And worst thing about it is I can't have caffeine!

But whatever happens I will always savour the moment that I was told by a doctor not to exercise!

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time, they say, and some bites are just more palatable than others...and sometimes it takes a spoon full of sugar to help the medicine go down.

Eating the Elephant

'A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.'

 Lao Tzu

AKA 
Q 'How do you eat an elephant?'
A 'One bite at a time.'

I realised when Carl asked if he was in my book that every young person I ever knew including myself probably was. Then next morning, hearing Timmy identify with some lines he read, I thought some more about it. How much we identify with characters we read and write. How much we want to learn about ourselves in what we read and write. How much we take comfort in empathising with these fictional people with realistic character traits. And how we know they are real because they are feeling what we feel. Why we start to care about them because we feel what they feel.

When someone tells you that their life has been summed up in two sentences that you have written, you must be doing something right - at least in those two sentences. The trick then is to get the other nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety eight to the same standard.

Why do these sentences resonate?  The character Jez, a thinker and worrier who's thoughts on the infinite consequences of his actions and their domino effects, freeze him and prevent him from making choices and doing anything, Timmy could relate to this, as could I. Its why I have stalled on writing until now.

I am learning about myself. When I pick up a book it feels like I am asking the author to tell me about myself. When I read what a character says or does or feels I measure against what I say or do or feel. Would I act in the same way as the character? Why? What would I do, say or feel differently and what does that say about me? What part of me do I leave on the page? 

So the part of Jez I wrote about being locked in a state of frozen inaction because of his ability to see so many possibilities and their domino effects is the same part of me that has had to be worked through to get the book to the next stage. Now when I am making a decision, I try to ignore the zillions of other possibilities (my very active imagination brings to mind) and concentrate on one issue at a time. For instance before I sent out the first chapter to my writing class (nine people I had only met twice), all I concentrated on was getting the last few bits of editing done of that draft and only thought of it in terms of the feed back I would get from the nine people reading it, as that was a daunting enough prospect on its own. It was only last night (Thursday) I remembered, with genuine shock, that it is going to be read out in class on Saturday. I had completely blocked it from my mind, I think if I had thought of that aspect it might have prevented me doing the first action - sending it out. And once the first action was done - I could do nothing about it and at least that was done. All of it together would have been too much to contemplate. 

I am now somewhat calmer but can still barely believe that I had forgotten that the first chapter is  going to be read out by the tutor to this group of people I have only met twice. The mind works in mysterious ways, to protect us. Or maybe we just take our natural ability to freeze the action, to pause it a while until we are ready, to deal with one thing at a time, until its time for action again and we can press 'play.' 

Unfortunately I always think of that stupid elephant joke, even when a more eloquent way to say it would be: 'A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step'. No, that seems too serene, too whimsical, too lovely an idea. Whereas the stupid elephant joke seems to be more in keeping with how I feel about daunting prospects and the overwhelming sensation and the 'bigness' of stuff feeling like an elephant sitting on my chest or just being the cliched 'elephant in the room'. The question, 'How do you eat an elephant?' and its answer 'One bite at a time' says more to me about my issues. However distasteful it is at first, its only a bite and once you swallow its gone and the next bites the same and eventually the elephant is gone. I am not advocating eating elephants but for me it works and sometimes to get one bite down you have to forget about how much of the elephant is left.