Writing Well Without Writing Perfectly (A guest post from Lisa Kilian)

I have been struggling with a short story for the past six months. 6,000 words continually elude me — well, not the words, the characters. Just when I think I’ve figured them out, I go to sleep, and wake up with a whole new realization.

Now let me clarify: I haven’t just been working on this story for six months. I’ve had other stories come and go, other projects creep up and wash away — but this story just refuses to be finished.

I long ago met the am-I-crazies, and I’ve said howdy-doody to the wouldn’t-it-be-better-if-you-just-gave-up-on-this-ones several times. But the thing is — I LOVE this story. Absolutely 100% love it. And I love the characters, however confusing they may be.

This weird, wicked, twisted love triangle of sorts had been frustrating me entirely until just recently. A few weeks ago, I went home to Austin, TX to hear Robin Black speak on her book, If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This, a collection of short stories I still to this day salivate over even though I read them last October.

Robin’s stories may qualify as longer than usual for short stories, but the prose is still as tight and succinct as can be. Every word carries weight and leaves me reeling. Naturally, I want to be just like her. And naturally, this is why my own story has eluded me for so long. I am well aware of the it-isn’t-perfect-yets.

Robin read an excerpt of one of her stories and then went on to answer questions. I let a few people go first because I’m always too terrified to start off any Q and As. But I knew what I was going to ask before we even started. Finally, I raised my hand.

“It took you eight years to write these eight stories. What’s that like?” How do you survive? is what I meant. How do you not want to pull your hair out of your head every time you sit down at the computer?

She gave me a great answer. “When I was first starting out, I used to produce stories all the time. They would just appear, one right after the other. Now that I’ve gone to school and learned the craft, these things take much more time because every decision is a much more conscious decision.”

And that about sums it up. Right there.

I started writing a long time ago. Stories have come and gone. I’m nowhere near learned. I’ve never taken any creative writing courses. But after hearing her answer, I couldn’t help but feel like I was on the right track with this story.

So far, I’ve written four drafts. Now I’m on draft five, and I’m rewriting the entire thing from scratch. The difference is that I’ve gotten to know my characters and their story so very well, that I do believe this will be the last draft — even though it’s an entirely new draft.

For six months, I’ve struggled with these characters in my mind, but my struggles are now clearly defined, and more importantly, they’re validated. I’ve been fighting for the right reasons, so to speak.

There’s a fine line between writing consciously and writing perfectly — and I’m in a constant battle to find where that line lies. It’s thin, like a string, and most of the time, I’m certain that I’m straddling it.

But here’s how I know I’m not falling into the perfectionist trap:

Every day I move forward in my drafts.

It may be slow work. It may be tedious. But every day, I progress just a little bit. I’m not on draft one — I’m on draft five. And I’m not confused anymore, I’m informed.

Perfectionism tends to take the shapes of drafts that never end, words written and then erased over and over, and time spent with characters that leave you perpetually confused and frustrated. Confusion and frustration aren’t bad — but after hours spent with your characters, they should never leave you completely in the dark.

I’m confident I’m staying away from the perfectionist trap. I’m really trying. And miraculously, I’ve kept all my hair on my head. I’ve only pulled out a little. At the reading, I noticed Robin didn’t quite answer my internal question of survival — but that’s because we each have our own methods.

My method? I focus on the ending, the feeling that I will be done, and I will have done a great job. I focus on the joy of daily discovery, on writing something that gives me just a little chill.

And when I’m sitting in bed waiting to go to sleep, I read something perfect, and dream.

Lisa Kilian is the author of the blog, What Not To Do as a Writer. Her essays on writing have appeared at Beyond the Margins, Fear of Writing, and Best Damn Creative Writing blog, among others. She plans on drinking lots of expensive champagne when she finishes her 6,000 word story.

Writing Mentors

To some extent, all of us are intelligent enough to improve our writing technique on our own. By reading books, exchanging critiques, and simply putting the time in to actually write, we can slowly become better without the help of teachers or other people who have been at this much longer than we have. But at some point, most of us hit our own limit. We've learned what we are able to learn on our own. We don't know what we don't know anymore. We need a mentor.

I've had the good fortune of coming across some great mentors in my life. I had a drawing teacher in college, Dave Hollowell, who spent thirty weeks saying the same thing over and over again. "It's all about intention." It took me about twenty-six weeks to finally hear him. And, for anyone who has been following this blog for awhile, you will hopefully remember that Mary Yukari Waters has been a strong mentor for me. (I actually get a chance to interview her in the next couple of weeks, so I'm totally thrilled about that.)

For me, it's not just a matter of stumbling upon a good teacher. I personally have to be at the right stage of my development to be able to learn from a particular mentor. In Mary's class, there were about fifteen students, and though all of them thought the class was excellent, I was probably the only one whose writing was completely transformed as a result of her teaching. I happened to be at a place where the things I needed to learn (without knowing it) coincided directly with the things that Mary decided to teach.

Lately, I've been trying to take a more active role in finding my mentors. In Mary's first collection of short stories, she thanks a man named Tom Filer for being a big help to her. I'm now trying to contact him in the hopes that he'll invite me to his Goat Alley Workshop, which, from what I hear, is simply a small group of dedicated writers who sit together in his living room and critique each other.

Last year, I also had the very fortunate chance to have dinner with Janet Fitch and Samantha Dunn. I found both of these writers to be truly intelligent, and they both recounted the same funny anecdote. They were friends, and both of them were taking a writing class from a woman named Kate Braverman. One evening, after the group received their critiques, Janet Fitch (author of White Oleander and Paint It Black) ended up crying in her car and was deciding if she should quit being a writer. She happened to look up from where she was parked on the street and she noticed Samantha and another student, ALSO crying in their cars. They all had a good laugh about it and decided to continue on with their careers.

When I heard this story, I decided I must at some point take a class with this Kate Braverman. She has unfortunately moved north to the Bay Area, but hopefully I'll have a chance to learn from her sometime soon.

Have mentors helped you in your writing? What qualities do good mentors have?