Yeah, but...
I have not posted here in too long. Many thanks to all of you for your generous support and what I hope has been your mostly patient waiting for something to show up in your mailbox. I’ll make up the shortage with more frequent posts as the rest of the year unfolds.
Here’s what happened. I had every intention of writing essays that addressed writing as a craft and a practice. I had thirty years of experience to dig into. I had many successful clients, who finished their poetry chapbooks, memoirs, novels, and short stories. I had many of their published works on my brag shelf. I had ideas, I tell you! Wonderful ideas! And maybe even some worthwhile and useful advice. I had lists, I tell you, and stacks of index cards, each with a one sentence summary of what I planned to write. I know the tricks, heck, I pass them on to clients all the time. And I had hopes that these essays would be of use to everyone, but maybe especially to folks who could not access my professional services.
But no. Nothing. Blank pages. False starts, lots of backspacing and deleting, lots of noticing that there was dusting to be done, a litter box to scoop…you know the routine.
Editor ennui? Writing coach karma? Maybe. Possibly. But here’s the thing.
Every time I sat down to write something about, say, writer’s block, or about reading other authors critically and then learning from them, or about useful software, or about how to approach revisions, every darn time, after a few paragraphs, I slammed right into a great big wall of what I call the Yeah-Buts.
The Yeah-Buts are usually excuses, so I should have known, but hear me out. In this case, the Yeah-Buts would whisper into my ear about how my coaching and editing services were deeply and intrinsically personal, bespoke, tailored as well as I could manage to each writer's individual talents, tastes, ambitions, and circumstances. How could I write general advice, when thirty years of experience proved that what worked for or assisted the young queer poet in New Jersey would crush the divorced mom in Alaska who was trying to write a memoir?
I have sent some writers off to use real bully-boy software that actually ERASES what you have typed if you stop typing, or don’t type fast enough. I have encouraged other writers to take some time off from trying to write anything at all, and instead to go fill their creative wells with poetry and art and anything else that nourished them, especially after finishing a big project. I have invited writers to join the WHWN Zoom Writing Workshops so that they could have a cohort and community of other writers, and I have encouraged other writers to take some time off from attending the Workshops because they needed to write and focus on their own work more urgently than they needed to be listening to and offering feedback to others.
I could list so many contradictory bits of advice and encouragement I have offered to clients, and sometimes even to the same client over a long relationship. Because writing is a practice. Our practices, whether they be spiritual, relational, athletic, or artistic, change and shift with our lives and our circumstances. At least, if they are to be lasting and fruitful, they do. And if my advice and encouragement to one writer changed and shifted over time, how on earth could I put anything on the page, even a page as ephemeral and yet oddly permanent as your email inbox?
I also come from a part of rural Maine where you will often hear us end even the most heartfelt and convicted statement with a quiet and drawn out, “buuuuuuuut….” Because we don’t want to sound like know-it-alls, and because we know that there are many ways to look at anything, that the world is complicated, and that neighbors (and community) are good to keep friendly.
Buuuuut…truth told, these Yeah-Buts are just the same as all the others. Excuses and hesitations as pervasive and as tenacious as black flies. For me, they are often attempts to protect myself from doubt and fear and who knows what else. Sometimes those doubts and fears need a whole lot of space and compassion, and other times, as a dear and lost too soon friend, also a Mainer, would say to me when I fell into these sorts of pits, “Get over your cheap self, yuh fuckin’ puke.” She meant it kindly. She meant that the Yeah-Buts were not always my friends. She meant we all had work to do and that I had best get on with mine.
Well. Yes.
What are your Yeah-Buts? Tell us about them in the comments, and maybe we can give you some advice and encouragement
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Thank you for this, Tony!
for me, it's less 'yeah but,' and more, 'who cares?' 'who wants to hear about this?' yes, i know, you should write for yourself, but... 'yourself' gets complicated with DID/OSDD. which self am i writing for? which self am i writing -about-? the characters in the fiction -- are they actually another set of selves, their backstories and internal lives maybe not as full and deep as the ones i consider Others, but still ... whole enough, or close enough to whole?
if so, then that should be motivation, right? to tell the stories of a Someone who needs fingers to type their words? but it's actually the opposite, because ... if they are me, then who would want to hear about them? because, who would want to hear about me? that message soaked into my soul, our souls, so, so very deeply, from so very early, that i (we) can't even wrap our head around the whisper of a thought that maybe someone would want to read about us. or about anything that is important to us. the more important it is to us, the less likely it is that anyone could care.
i don't know that there's any writing-coaching in the world that can arm me against that, because it's not just a writing issue. it applies to every interest i have, down to the most basic self-care: why bother cleaning up the living room when i'm the only one who lives here? why go for a walk along the river that only i will enjoy? it's so, so much easier to do a service for someone else, because of course -they- matter, -their- feelings matter, -their- needs matter.
i don't know if there's a solution. the closest i can get is the opposite of what normal folks seem to consider healthy and sane: the opposite of the 'integration' that used to be the desired outcome, back before the rebranding of 'multiple personality disorder' to 'dissociative identity disorder.' if i can only motivate myself to do nice things for others, then... why not do nice things for the Others? if it isn't worth bothering with making dinner for -me-, is it worth it to make dinner for The Husk? i know how glad they will be to not being eating cereal or cheez-its as a meal, and i get up and boil water. maybe The Night Six would like to take a walk along the river. i would never -dream- of yelling at an external 4-year-old for spilling a cup of milk, so i'm trying not to yell at the one who shares my clumsy hands.
this is all a recent epiphany, and easier to write about the theory than to actually implement it. but i'm juuuuust starting to see if i can apply it to writing, and more specifically, to the characters i write about. "who cares about my half-finished novel about the astronaut's wife?" "yeah, but... -she- cares. -she- matters. -she- deserves to live to see her story told."