Antichapter 12: The Second Step

“He’s destroyed his draft,” said the antimuse. “So part one of the plan is complete.”

“Great,” said the Voice.

“And he’s making a list of authors to invite to the meeting I’m going to set up. I told him that they would help him,” said the antimuse.

“Great,” said the Voice. “You said they wouldn’t help, but you didn’t tell me why.”

“I didn’t?” Asked the antimuse.

“No,” said the Voice. “You told me it was a three part plan, and you cut yourself off in the middle of the second part.”

“I did?” Asked the antimuse.

“Yes,” said the Voice.

“Well,” said the antimuse. “I told him I’d invite them so they can help. But I’m not going to invite them.”

“So no one will show up!” Said the Voice. “Brilliant! That should really discourage him.”

“Actually I’m planning something different,” said the antimuse.

“What?” Asked the Voice.

“No time,” said the antimuse. “Got to get back to the story.”

Refs:

11He Gave Up136

13The Third Step146

New Chapter 3: Writers I Admire

What a great idea! I thought. That muse is great! I thought. She’ll get the writers who are my heroes to help me! That’s so cool! I thought.

I stopped typing thoughts with exclamation marks and started writing writer names.

Kurt Vonnegut, of course. And Neal Stephenson and Tom Wolfe, I wrote. Douglas Adams, Isaac Asimov, Anthony Trollope, PJ O’Rourke, Robert Heinlein, I added. Gordon Dickson, Harlan Ellison, Frederick Pohl, I wrote.

And Selden Edwards. Selden was the only published author I knew. His first novel, The Little Book, had taken him forty years to write. It had self-referential elements. He might have some practical knowledge. His second, The Lost Prince, had taken just a few years. Selden’s a friend. I’m sure he’ll help.

“Or course, I’ll help,” said Selden. “I’m one of your NaNoWriMo writing buddies this year. And we’re only a day away from starting. You need to get this wrapped up.”

Selden was right. I was determined to finish this draft, print it and have friends and family review it while I worked on my next book, and he worked on his.

And I can invite people who have helped me understand how to write! I thought. They’ve helped me too.

Annie LeMott, Julia Cameron, Brenda Euland, Barbara Baig, I wrote.

And people who wrote things that influenced the thinking that went inot this book. Simon Singh, Norman Doidge, Daniel Khaneman, Steven Pinker, Malcom Gladdwell, Jesus, Buddha, I wrote. And Ron Hubbard, I added. Some of his ideas are here.

It’s going to be great! I thought. I can just imagine what it’s going to be like.

The End Is In Sight

“Are you smiling?” Asked my metanovel. “I feel like you’re smiling.”

“I am,” I said.

“Why?” Asked my metanovel.

“Because I’ve figured out how you end,” I say.

“You have?” Asked my metanovel.

“Yes,” I said.

“I’ve heard that before,” said my inner critic.

“No you haven’t,” I said. “You’re thinking of the time that I reorganized the chapters. I didn’t say I knew how it ended. I said that I knew how I needed to organize it.”

“I don’t remember that,” said Mom.

“That’s because this is the first draft you’ve been in,” I said. “It happened earlier in time, in another draft, but later in the book. I’ll point it out when we get to it.”

“So what does this mean?” Asked my metanovel.

“It means you’re going to be finished,” I said. “There will be more drafts, but I know what I’m aiming for.”

“I’m sure it’s a stupid ending,” said my inner critic.

“Actually it’s a very good one,” I said.

“I can hardly wait,” said my inner critic.

The Imagined Meeting

The conference room was large, well lit, and well appointed. An enormous teak table sat in the center, ringed by chairs.

They were my heroes, and they were all there, seated around the conference table, muses by their sides, copies of my draft in front of them. A few were leafing through their copies. And they were smiling! Several were talking with one another, or with their muses. And they were smiling! They were smiling!

“You’re imagining this,” said my inner critic. “It isn’t happening. Get real!”

“He can imagine it if he wants to,” said Mom. “He’s my son. He can imagine whatever he wants. Go ahead and imagine.”

“Right,” said the metanovel to me. “Listen to your Mom. Go ahead.”

“Stupid,” muttered my inner critic.

I imagined.

My muse stood. The room quieted.

“Thank you for coming,” she said. “You’ve all read the draft. It’s pretty much crap. He’s destroyed out all his copies and I’m going to destroy these as soon as we’re done. We want to help write something that’s not crap. Maybe even something that’s mediocre.”

Anne LeMott raised her hand. She’d written Bird by Bird, one of my favorite books on the craft of writing. “I’ve been writing a lot longer than he has,” she said, “and what I wrote in Bird by Bird is still true: the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.”

She turned to me. “It’s a shitty first draft. And you should be proud of it.”

“It’s not a first draft,” said the muse. “He’s about twenty drafts into it. And it’s still crap.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Annie said to the muse. She turned back to me. “Don’t worry if it’s perfect. Don’t even worry if it’s still crap twenty drafts in. Remember what I said about perfectionism: it will keep you cramped and insane your whole life. It’s the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft, a shitty second draft, a shitty twentieth draft. Perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it. In other words: just enjoy what you are doing.”

“That’s not what she said in Bird by Bird,” said my inner critic. “You’re misquoting her. Can’t you do anything right?”

“He’s paraphrasing me,” said Annie. “And he’s doing a fine job adapting what I wrote to this context.”

“Stupid,” muttered my inner critic.

“Quiet,” Kurt Vonnegut said to my critic

“I agree with Annie,” said Julia Cameron, who wrote The Artist’s Way: A spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. “Don’t listen to the voice that demands perfectionism. Perfectionism has never heard that anything worth doing is worth doing badly—and that if we allow ourselves to do something badly we might in time become quite good at it. Perfectionism measures our beginner’s work against the finished work of masters. Perfectionism thrives on comparison and competition. It doesn’t know how to say, ‘Good try,’ or ‘Job well done.’”

From Finding Water: The Art of Perseverance

“Hey!” said the muse.

“Thank you,” I said. “ And thank you for Morning Pages. It’s helped me a lot.” I’d written three longhand pages, every morning as Julia had recommended in The Artist’s Way. I’d kept it up consistently for three years (Three years!!) Every morning, three pages. There was no life-changing transformation, but I’d found that whenever I ran into problems, pulling out my notebook and writing pages cleared my mind wonderfully. I realized I needed to get back to that practice.

“You do,” said the metanovel. “You really do.”

“I know,” I said.

“No, really,” said the metanovel. “You need to practice that practice.”

“You need to expect setbacks,” said Steven Pressfield, who wrote The War of Art, and Do The Work. “As I told you in The War of Art, ‘The artist committing himself to his calling has volunteered for hell, whether he knows it or not. He will be dining for the duration on a diet of isolation, rejection, self-doubt, despair, ridicule, contempt, and humiliation.’”

“That’s a good point,” said Annie.

“Hey!” said the muse.

“And that fear that you wrote about?” Steven said.

“Yes?”

“That’s a good sign,” he said. “Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember one rule of thumb: the more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.” ― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles

“Wow!” I said. “So I’m not a pussy for feeling afraid.”

“Hey!” said the muse.

“That’s right Steven,” said Mom. “And remember what Marianne Williamson said. ‘Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.’”

It was completely unlike my mother to say something like that. “Mom, where did you find that quote?”

“I’m in a dead people’s book club,” she said, and shrugged. “You’ve got a lot of time when you’re dead.”

“Stupid,” muttered my inner critic.

“Quiet,” Kurt Vonnegut said to my critic

Brenda Euland spoke up. She was author of If You Want to Write: A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit. She’d been a prolific writer and had taught writing for years. “Remember what I wrote,” she said. “No writing is a waste of time. With every sentence you write, you have learned something. It has done you good.”

“I remember that,” I said.

“Remember me saying: Everyone is talented, original and has something important to say?” She asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Apply it to yourself,” she said. “You are talented. You are original. And you have something important to say. Keep looking for your own authentic voice. When you find it, your metanovel will come together for you.”

“Hey!” said the muse. “Hey! Hey!”

“What?” I asked.

“I must have called you a dozen times,” she said. “What’s going on?”

“Oh,” I said, “I was just imagining meeting some of the writers on my list.”

“No need to imagine them,” said the muse. “Give me the list and I’ll get them here for real.”

“Do you really think you can get them to come?,” I asked.

“Of course,” the muse smiled. “In fact I guarantee it. Every one that I invite is going to come.”