I am self-critical of my work. I am a perfectionist, so if my stories or essays or blog posts aren’t amazing/wonderful/mind-blowing/totally awesome, then I get down. Sometimes very down. I consider not writing anymore (or at least not sharing my writing anymore). Many days, I feel like a failure because I don’t have a big audience or lots of five-star reviews.
As a result of this self-criticism, I’ve been on the lookout lately for new metaphors to help me approach the writing process and the work I’m doing. Bradbury had this metaphor in Zen and the Art of Writing where he wrote about “stepping on landmines” first thing in the morning and then spending the rest of the day picking up the pieces. In other words, explode yourself — your memories, your ideas, all the things you’ve ever experienced — and see what pieces you can find to write about. Elsewhere in his interviews with Sam Weller, he mentioned jumping off a cliff and “building your wings on the way down.” I do like both of these metaphors (especially the wings one) because they advocate for courage, for jumping into the unknown, for not being afraid to do something shocking and see what happens. But both of them are inadequate for me because I don’t quite have that much courage, and also because they imply a goal or end-game at the heart of creative work. Jumping off the cliff means, “Build those wings or you’ll go SPLAT.” Stepping on the landmine and picking up the pieces means, “You had better pick up a good piece or you’re screwed.” They seem to be saying, “If you fail, then you’ll be toast.”
For a self-critical perfectionist like me, that’s not a great message. Not only do I have a fear of failing, but I think most of my work is a failure. I jump off the cliff but don’t build very good wings. I step on the landmine and can’t pick up the right pieces.
This is why I’m in need of new metaphors. Metaphors that encourage me and help get me past the fear of failure. Austin Kleon uses a garden metaphor for creative work in his book Keep Going. I like the garden metaphor, but there’s still a goal inherent in that one: what happens if I’m a terrible gardener and all my plants die?
I need a metaphor that has imperfection built-in.
This is why I’m attracted to the idea of writing as a form of “getting lost” or “wandering.” The wanderer, or rambler, has no fixed goal, no endpoint. She isn’t trying to get anywhere. For her, the whole point is to GET LOST. Wandering into the wilderness, adventuring with only a vague idea of where she’s going, traveling with a torn and faded map (ancient and indecipherable in parts). She’s willing to lose her way, to stumble through the forest.
What would writing look like that embraced this kind of ethos: that wandering is good, that getting lost is a happy accident?
I know the conventional wisdom would be that “wandering” and “getting lost” will result in a muddled, messy, incoherent story. Some might say, “That’s okay,” and suggest writers then do a lot of revision. But I’m getting less and less keen on doing major revisions in my writing. It takes me a long time to write stories and novels (due to lack of time); the thought of spending years and years writing and revising the same book sounds unpleasant. My goal is to write clean first drafts (minus the occasional typos and wonky sentences). By “cycling” through my draft as I write, I can avoid the need for major revisions.
And even more so, I think that “fix it in revision” is actually antithetical to the “getting lost” ethos. It suggests that the wandering is a mistake, something that needs to be fixed. If I have a destination in mind, then yes, getting lost is probably bad and I would need to course-correct. But what if I have no destination? What if the whole point is just to wander? To ramble and see where I end up? In that case, the “fix it in revision” model doesn’t work. If I’m not trying to get anywhere in particular, then what is there to fix?
This is what I like about the “wandering and getting lost” metaphor. When I go out for a walk, I often just walk around; I don’t have a fixed destination. I just ramble. But in my rambling, I discover beautiful things, I feel a wonderful sense of freedom, I get to enjoy myself without thinking about a “destination.” What if my own writing process could be like this? What if I could ramble, discover new things, feel that freedom, and enjoy myself? Would all my stories turn out like garbage? Would all my books end up incoherent and sloppy?
Maybe they would. Maybe this metaphor is not a good one, in the end.
But I kinda want to try. If nothing else, it’s a useful image for me to keep in my mind. When I sit down to write, I’m like the adventurer who wants to experience something new. I’m the wanderer with no fixed destination, only a desire for discovery. I’m the rambler who just wants to ramble, not get anywhere in particular. And by rambling, by getting lost along the way, I might discover something I never could’ve imagined otherwise.
But I loved Tolkien’s world: the forests; the mountains; the dragons, goblins, elves, and dwarves. Mirkwood was as real to me as the little patch of woods that surrounded my grandmother’s house. The Misty Mountains were unspeakably enchanted, a world within a world filled with treasure, ancient lore, and shadowy creatures; I longed to travel there. And the map of the “Wilderlands” and Thorin’s map were like sacred manuscripts.
Back in those days, I had never played a role-playing game before. Frankly, I didn’t have anyone to play a role-playing game with. But I wanted MERP. The cover illustration alone was worth it. Also, there was something dangerously appealing about role-playing games. These games came with a dark reputation back in the 80s and early 90s. I was forbidden to play D&D; I had to work hard convincing my parents that other RPGs were okay and not gateways to Satanism. Somehow, I convinced them that MERP was alright. Maybe they figured a Tolkien-influenced game couldn’t be too bad. But the mystique, the forbidden quality of RPGs was still there, even if the cover said “Middle-Earth Role-Playing” and not “Dungeons and Dragons.”
This memory is so strong, so central to my childhood, that I know I cannot convey to you what it really felt like. Flipping through the old MERP books brings me back to the past, to being ten-years-old, to being in the backseat of our minivan, watching the Rankin-Bass Hobbit, to being a kid who loved fantasy and who felt like she had to hide that love from the outside world. And there was the forbidden danger of role-playing games: the thrill of reading something that was maybe a bit too adult, a bit too beyond my ken.
That’s a quote from p. 78 of The Art of Noticing (“Listen Deeply”).
I have this theory that books belong to seasons. Some books are meant for fall, some for summer; some for winter, some for spring.
