Writing Badly And Cringily Is Actually An Essential Part Of The Writing Process, Both In Terms Of Individual

I like writing a lot…..

But when does it stop being soul sucking????

How can both be true??

(sigh) Easily. All the arts are full of apparent contradictions like this.

Re: writing, specifically: This work is a very particular kind of magic. And like all real magics, the use of it inevitably has a price.

"Soul-sucking" strikes me as a slightly harsh idiom for the payment of the Writing Price. But that's okay, because the idiom itself points at the remedy. And it's really simple! Just this:

Every time you sit down to write, you have to consciously work to do it well enough so that you grow some more soul.

(I mean, you don't think that souls run out when you use them, surely? Or can't regenerate over time? They can be surprisingly resilient... assuming you don't buy into the idea that they're limited to what you feel like you started out with, or what you've got at the moment.)

Repeatedly pouring your soul into your work is very much like bodybuilding. At first it hurts like hell. Then the body starts to adjust to the increased demands you're putting on it. After a while you look back and find you've blown way past the boundaries that you earlier thought were impassible.

When you start getting that soul-sucked feeling, it's just a sign that the workouts are having an effect. It's the equivalent of the lactic-acid ache after a session at the gym. But you still need to keep working at it to improve your results. If you find you need to take more rest time between writing bouts to replenish your reserves, fine: work out what your best refractory period seems to be, and adjust your workload to suit that as best you can. But at all costs, keep writing, at whatever interval works best. Over time, it does get easier.

Does it ever stop "sucking" / demanding that price?

Nope. Sorry! But you can learn over time to grow into those inevitable demands on your time, energy and commitment. Just keep reminding yourself: Nothing truly worth doing ever comes without a price tag. And the more you work at your craft, over time, the bigger the price tags you'll find you can afford without flinching.

...So get back in the gym. (And I hope this helps!)

I used to hate it when people said the trick was to just do it until ‘do it scared’ started going around, because that’s truly it. Life didn’t start changing until I applied for jobs with one hand in front of my eyes and a trembling hand navigating my computer mouse. Or until I said everything on my mind (in moderation) with my fists clenched and my legs weak. Or until I refused to accept that I’d ‘just’ be shy forever while also kind of being nauseous at the idea of trying to be the opposite. Two things can coexist and that’s exactly the point of believing that you can do anything.

Hello! I just wanted to write to thank you.

One of my favorite lines I've ever read is “Jim was already familiar with the incessant activity of that cool, curious mind as it tirelessly hunted answers. But now he saw where the activity came from - Spock’s utter certainty that there was no higher purpose for his life than to burn it away in search of truth, and to give that truth away when he found it. More, Jim saw what fueled and underlay that certainty: a profound vulnerability paired with a great, unreasonable joy”. That, combined with the YW series (which I recently reread), is very good for my soul.

You and your work are truly an inspiration to me! That Wounded Sky quote resonated with me for the theme that joy and curiosity really can underpin an entire, happy, successful life. Young Wizards has so much of the same - books and libraries are magic, but so is nature, and space, and manmade machines, and whales and sharks. Your stories strike a balance I can't always put into words - that curiosity and joy can be self-sustaining. They are not dependent on a single field, a single datum, a single discovery. They can be a lens and a philosophy and they can fit in your pocket for everyday. Curiosity as a mindset, and an exercise in loving and engaging with the world; joy as a result of realizing how many exciting things there are to love and be curious about.

On a parallel note, I am fascinated by how you seem to blend fantasy and sci fi - your Star Trek feels loving and magical, and your fantasy feels grounded and tangible. I am in awe of how many things you've been a part of creating, because it gives me hope that I, too, might avoid having to pick a narrow niche. But in the meantime, I am so grateful to be able to escape into your books, because I fall in love with them again every time, and then I come back and fall back in love with life.

I’m glad to hear it! Thanks for letting me know. ☺️

Also: generally, I think niches are best left to statues. Create what works for you and makes you happy. Life’s too short to waste doing otherwise.

this poem. bro

(by joseph fasano)

what kills me is

she was correct that this is a TOTALLY BRILLIANT and APPROPRIATE basis for a children's book, and

I would say I want to know what higher plane her mind is in, except, well, dare I say

...I'd need the theoretical physics for that

...reread, anyone?

absolutely no one:

Madeline L’Engle, writing a wrinkle in time at some point in the early 1960s: what are kids into these days? comparative religious studies and theoretical physics, right? Yeah?

It’s easy to forget JRR Tolkien was a fairly prolific academic translator with an interest in early medieval literature and philology. It’s so inspiring that he found time to write The Hobbit while fighting for his life over Beowulf.

In another life, I think I would have really liked just having tea parties and telling stories with you <3

Has anybody else noticed that it seems that nobody tells children fairytales anymore? It seems that they only read them books or have them watch movies; oral storytelling appears to have vanished. Perhaps it’s just in my area, but it has quite literally been years since my friends, family, and I have met a child who has even referenced a fairytale character that didn’t appear in a Disney movie.

Bilbo really is such a high-quality little person, and he amazes me again and again. Gollum was ready to go back on the deal they made, that he'd show Bilbo the way out of the mountain if he won the riddle game; he was plotting to put the ring on and slay poor Bilbo instead. Bilbo, when he was in an advantageous position to slay Gollum, would do no such thing.

When he escaped, he luckily heard voices nearby and was relieved to find that everyone had escaped too. The dwarves were arguing with Gandalf, because the latter wanted them all to go back in and find Bilbo, and one of the dwarves actually said, "If we have got to go back now into those abominable tunnels to look for him, then drat him, I say." (Its probably best that we don't know which one said it.) But right before this, Bilbo had been unsure about whether they were all still inside and he had just made up his mind to go back in and rescue them - this little hobbit, all alone.

Bilbo is loyal, brave and true; he has a deep sense of honor and won't waver from it, come what may. This is what being a hero is all about.

One of the things that’s really struck me while rereading the Lord of the Rings–knowing much more about Tolkien than I did the last time I read it–is how individual a story it is.

We tend to think of it as a genre story now, I think–because it’s so good, and so unprecedented, that Tolkien accidentally inspired a whole new fantasy culture, which is kind of hilarious. Wanting to “write like Tolkien,” I think, is generally seen as “writing an Epic Fantasy Universe with invented races and geography and history and languages, world-saving quests and dragons and kings.” But… But…

Here’s the thing. I don’t think those elements are at all what make The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings so good. Because I’m realizing, as I did not realize when I was a kid, that Tolkien didn’t use those elements because they’re somehow inherently better than other things. He used them purely because they were what he liked and what he knew.

The Shire exists because he was an Englishman who partially grew up in, and loved, the British countryside, and Hobbits are born out of his very English, very traditionalist values. Tom Bombadil was one of his kids’ toys that he had already invented stories about and then incorporated into Middle-Earth. He wrote about elves and dwarves because he knew elves and dwarves from the old literature/mythology that he’d made his career. The Rohirrim are an expression of the ancient cultures he studied. There are a half-dozen invented languages in Middle-Earth because he was a linguist. The themes of war and loss and corruption were important to him, and were things he knew intimately, because of the point in history during which he lived; and all the morality of the stories, the grace and humility and hope-in-despair, was an expression of his Catholic faith. 

J. R. R. Tolkien created an incredible, beautiful, unparalleled world not specifically by writing about elves and dwarves and linguistics, but by embracing all of his strengths and loves and all the things he best understood, and writing about them with all of his skill and talent. The fact that those things happened to be elves and dwarves and linguistics is what makes Middle-Earth Middle-Earth; but it is not what makes Middle-Earth good.

What makes it good is that every element that went into it was an element J. R. R. Tolkien knew and loved and understood. He brought it out of his scholarship and hobbies and life experience and ideals, and he wrote the story no one else could have written… And did it so well that other people have been trying to write it ever since.

So… I think, if we really want to write like Tolkien (as I do), we shouldn’t specifically be trying to write like linguists, or historical experts, or veterans, or or or… We should try to write like people who’ve gathered all their favorite and most important things together, and are playing with the stuff those things are made of just for the joy of it. We need to write like ourselves.