So I’m writing a book at the moment. Yeah, I can hear you groaning for fuck’s sake is this gonna just be some self-promo drivel? I thought you actually wrote stuff that was useful.
I’m not going to talk too much about the contents of the book, as it isn’t far from being finished and I’d like it to be a surprise. A good surprise, hopefully. Not like finding out that you have an STD.
What I want to talk about is the challenge of it, and a little of my process behind it. I started it last July. Back then, it was all guns blazing. I was smashing through 1.000 words a day, and they were good words. Not like those inflammatory tabloid words.
It’s not a work of fiction. It’s a combination of some techniques and philosophies that I’ve found useful, with a large splash of me opening up and spilling out some vulnerabilities onto the page.
Partly, it’s been driven by a need for catharsis. Getting these thoughts and ideas out into the universe makes them somehow tangible. As though they’re manifesting in reality and no longer a part of the ethereal dream that is my mind. I guess that’s why people find journaling so helpful. I guess it’s why I push myself to write these newsletters most days.
Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist (if you’ve not read it, immediately buy it) said that
Writing is a socially acceptable form of getting naked in public
I can see where he’s coming from. If we can write authentically, if we have enough trust to be able to examine ourselves and to open ourselves up, there can be a real “bare all” nature to it.
Even when we’re writing fiction. That openness is no different. We’re expressing ourselves creatively, and creativity is (in my opinion) a state of pure self-actualisation.
One thing I’ve had to learn over the years is to let go of the self-critic. He feels like a separate little entity that crops up just to be a dick and tell me how what I’ve done isn’t good enough. I’ll refer to him as Timmy. It’s not weird, just go with it.
I used to listen to Timmy a lot when I was younger. These days, I tell him to go fuck himself and hoof him down a hole like Leonidas did to that Persian emissary in 300.
Part of kicking Timmy down the well has led me to no longer repeatedly go back and rewrite and rewrite and then start again and then rewrite, which, as you can imagine, means I finish nothing.
That used to lead to a raging sandstorm of self-doubt and frustration and apathy. A fundamentally shit combination.
Now, I have to let go of what I’ve done and accept that it’s good enough. I’ve stopped striving for a state of perfection because that state doesn’t exist. I’m imperfect. It’s a wonderful part of being human. I embrace that, and I finally recognise that perfection cannot come from imperfection. So I’ve thrown that idea down the well alongside Timmy. Hopefully it lands on him.
The past few months I’ve been lax with the writing. I got a good way though it, and then stuff got in the way. Stuff being generic crap that I allowed to get in the way of the writing. On reflection, I think there was some real fear around finishing it. If I finish it, then people can read it and they won’t like it, and then Timmy will be right.
These are all emotions that I have to push through. To stop avoiding the suffering and step into it. As Buddha said, you can’t avoid pain but you can avoid suffering. It all depends on how you frame the experience that you’re having in the moment.
Can I control people’s reaction to the book once it’s released to the wild? No. Are people’s reaction to it important? Honestly…no. What’s important is that I focus on the catharsis of writing, on the journey of creating it, and not the destination of it being done. That’s where the growth happens.
Much love
David
PS
As a special treat, if you’re a paid subscriber to this Substack then I’ll send you over an e-book copy of it for free.