That Damned Novel: Why does it hurt to write and how vulnerable do I want to be?

I'm writing on my novel again. That Damned Novel. TDN, for short. I haven't touched it for a couple of weeks. It haunts me. I feel I have to start over from scratch, but I don't want to trash 36,000 + words. I've totally rewritten the ex-boyfriend from stalker to clueless. The novel still a bit too like conventional romances. I'd rather it be more like Crusie's and Rich's novels: unconventional romance. More complex. More real. Not to imitate, but because those are the types of book I like best.

I am so confused and conflicted.

It's so damned painful, too. I love to write. If there is any way in which the Universe has some sort of structure to how we are made, much like how our individual cells have specific structure and purpose, then I was made to write. I so loved writing short stories, when I wrote before. Some of them came so easily. The one I published, all those years ago, was such a one.


I now understand why so many writers talk about how difficult and gut-wrenching it is to write. Why they do anything but write, why they put it off and walk around and scream and shampoo the carpet. Why it's like swimming with the 'gators. But they are drawn to write. They can't help it. We cannot help it, for I am one of them now, though new to it.

Why is it that way?

Maybe because the creative process is so intimate. I think most writers open up their deepest, truest self when they write. Writing is a part of self, a part of one's soul. And we are trained to hide that. We are trained to hide our vulnerability, through life itself. Yet, it is life itself that requires writers to write.

I think that's why TDN is being such a problem for me. I haven't done that yet. I haven't gone deep inside of myself. I'm just trying to write myself to the end of the story, and include all the important stuff in between.

I have particularly learned to hide myself, to protect myself, to armor myself. Life has provided me with plenty of learning opportunities. I believe it's called "character building." It may be why I am such a character, when I'm myself.

I so armored myself, that it wasn't until I broke open a couple of years ago that my latest therapist realized that I had depth. She then realized that after several years of therapy, she didn't really know me. And I realized that, by putting up a thick, stone wall between myself and the world so that I wouldn't be hurt again, I not only kept people out of me, kept them from seeing me, I also kept myself from getting close to others. All of my closest relationships were superficial and limited. And I think others saw me that way too. My therapist said that I seemed about two inches deep. Until the wall broke.

So I've been learning how to be deep again. How to lay myself open and reach into myself for strength and creativity. Kind of like how I am learning how to write a novel. It's new and it's hard and it's painful.

And it is so necessary if I am to live my life, the one I am made for.

Sometimes I long for the wall and for the security of superficiality. But it didn't lend itself to writing That Damned Novel. And as difficult as it is, I am so damned proud of myself and those almost 37,000 words. Yeah, I'm going to keep writing tonight until I hit 1,000 for the night. But I just had to write this, too. And this plus that equals 1,300 words. I'm going for 1,000 in the novel. This post is just gravy.

Now I'm hungry for mashed potatoes.

Welcome to me. I'll keep trying to keep myself open and honest.

That's almost as hard as writing TDN.