Coping with Writerly Neurosis

I love writing. Of all the steps in the process of making a book, it's my favorite. There I am, alone in my office (a converted hall closet I love), tapping away at the keyboard, making something out of nothing. Everything is possible in those hours. I can go anywhere! I can do anything! I am literally inventing people and worlds and events. No one can tell me I'm wrong. 

I've always been really good at turning my inner editor off, and that's probably why I like that part so much. The next phase, editing the draft, is much harder for me. The best my inner editor does for me in these moments is make a little tingle in my brain when something in the draft is off. I don't get much more help than that. In the immediate aftermath of writing, I don't want to make edits, even when I feel that tingle. I have to let work sit around a long time before I have the kind of objectivity I need to make it into something else.

Most of the time, I just abandon it instead. And I'm okay with that. Drafting is a form of innovating, and not all experiments have good outcomes. But every experiment teaches me something I need to know about writing--what's possible, what's not possible. What I'm capable of, and what I'm not.

In 2016 I wrote a novel and, as soon as I got through the draft, I realized I was not a good enough writer yet to rewrite it. It's been sitting around, waiting for me to catch up to it. 

My poems do that too. I love to revise a year-old poem. That's the best time. I just ran through some work I wrote last year and was both pleasantly surprised at what was there, and eager to slash away what didn't belong. My patience for mediocrity shrinks the further I get from the point of creation, and that's the fuel my editor needs.

Releasing the actual book is the worst. It's so embarrassing. 

Once I've submitted the final edits to the press, the panic takes hold. Nothing else can be changed about it. The worst part is, from the moment I submit those edits, I grow into a better writer than I was when I drafted it, when I edited it, when I tweaked it. And as more time passes, the worse that old work feels.

A book is an artifact of a person I no longer am.

But instead of being locked away in a tomb, it's freely available. Half of me wants everyone to read it, and the other half will die if anyone reads it. 

Which isn't to say I'm not proud of those books, or grateful that they've made it out into the world. I feel both of those things. Often at the same time. And it's weird.

I'm starting to reach the end of the editing process of my memoir (coming in 2024!), and I've noticed my anxiety going up as I realize there's less and less time to make any changes to the book. I'll be feeling sick for the next thirteen months, until you can have it in your hands. 

Or not. Either way, I'll be feeling something.