What I learned about myself while writing my fourth novel.
Like many of us, I’ve experienced a life-long struggle with feelings of low self-worth. A core belief of, “not good enough”, as my therapist and I like to call it.
In the last year, I’ve been actively engaged in EMDR sessions to heal the trauma I experienced as a child, in relation to negative experiences I had with my father (now deceased, rest in peace).
Unbeknownst to me and despite decades of therapy, this trauma had been impacting the way I show up for my writing. And I want to succeed at my writing as much as I want to succeed at building and maintaining relationships.
I mention the trauma and the healing work because I believe it helped me make better choices in writing the first draft of my fourth novel.
Not that there is anything inherently “wrong” with my first three books. I don’t believe there is. It was the process of writing that I now see as vastly different compared to the experience I had with this novel.
In writing my first three novels, I rushed the process. I feared being intimate with the work. I struggled to sit with the feelings involved. I don’t shame myself for this. It was what I knew at the time.
That core belief of “not good enough” manifested as a heightened, urgent desire to “hurry up” and “get it over with”. Much of my trauma centered around not feeling heard. Not feeling seen. Not being understood and known as my true, authentic self. Looking back now, I see how I projected that trauma of not being seen onto my own writing. Writing stories was always my number one way of expressing myself. Of showing myself who I am, and then showing it to others.
Vulnerability.
And sitting down to take my time to write was way too frightening. Rushing the process to get the books done and get them out into the world, that was a form of self-sabotage. Because I did not find myself worthy enough to give the one thing I loved most in life any time of day.
Because I did not feel worthy, my writing could not feel worthy.
What changed…
As I began to heal, I wanted better for myself. I started attending writer’s groups and connecting with other writers so I’d feel less isolated. I decided to write a story that is deeply personal to me, and that helped me process my own grief, and provided catharsis.
I started being kinder to myself.
When I got involved in a local critique group, I emboldened myself to start submitting early drafts of my work each week. In the beginning, the work wasn’t that strong. I decided to write literary fiction, and in a minimalist prose. Something I had no familiarity with.
I started taking risks.
As time progressed, the feedback I received from the group improved exponentially. At one point, a group member had told me that in all his twenty years of being in this group, he had never seen anyone improve “so vastly in such a short amount of time”. That was the healing happening. That was the trauma, being addressed week by week as I worked diligently on my novel. When group members gave me advice, I took most of it. I read a number of similar, minimalist prose books so I could learn.
I opened myself to the process.
My writing process shifted. In the past, I used to write the first draft of a novel from beginning to end before revising. I’m not saying this is bad. What I found that helped me to slow down and sit with the writing was to write the first draft of a chapter, type it up, and revise it right then and there, before moving on to the next chapter.
I started listening to myself.
I realized that I preferred the editing and revising process over writing a first draft. It was in those quiet moments, sitting at my laptop and seeing the chapter on the screen, where I began to learn how to focus. I took what I knew about my ADHD and instead of trying to force myself to work differently, I worked with what I had. I learned that when I practiced mindfulness, sitting with each sentence and each paragraph and feeling out the best word and best description, my writing became stronger.
I began to believe in myself.
Eventually, this process became so natural for me that I was able to complete strong drafts in shorter amounts of time. Early on, I set an expectation that I would not rush this book. That I would give it a number of years, if that was what it took. I quieted the external world by reducing social media input, and I sat and I worked. What resulted was a beautiful, surrendering process. A letting go and trusting that the right words and right next steps would reveal themselves if I just took the time to sit and be with the writing.
I began to let go.
As I came to the end of the novel, I hit a few snags. Some of those old thought patterns of, “not good enough” began to arise. I fumbled with the climax, fearing I would not get it right. Fearing it was not good enough and that I’d messed the whole thing up, which meant the ending chapters would be ineffective and that I’d failed.
Perfectionism set in.
And I chose not to fight it. As a Taoist, I like to encourage myself to embrace what arises, and to be curious about it. Perfectionism is there for a reason. For me, it’s a signal. It’s my inner child and/or my body trying to get my attention. It isn’t something to be pushed against or pushed away. It’s there. It’s a part of me.
I began to accept myself more.
It may seem like a paradox, but it’s been my experience that those things in life that I am most insecure about, or that I struggle with, such as a fear of intimacy or a fear of “not good enough”, are actually misalignments. It’s my brain not being able to see what my body already knows is true:
I am perfect already. I just need to see it and find ways to accept my perfectionism. I am that which my ego fears.
And so I consoled myself. I got quiet and reminded myself that nothing about my book has to be perfect because it is already perfect. It is already perfect because it is good enough. And for someone like me, who’s had a lifelong history of struggles with feeling “good enough”, good enough is far greater than perfect.
I finished the novel and I let it be. It’ll be critiqued by other writers soon enough, and their feedback and my own revision process will allow for uncovering what needs remedied.
So anytime you might be feeling down about your work or yourself, maybe keep in mind that your body already knows what is true about you, which is that you are perfection because you are here and you are human and you are of value. Nothing in life makes you perfect.
It is you being you that brings perfection to life. Not the other way around.
Thanks for reading.
Jay VanLandingham
Author
Guest Blogger
www.jayvanlandingham.com