Deadline Panic and the Dark Night of the Soul
- At May 01, 2013
- By Roxanne Snopek
- In Roxanne Writes On
- 3
I love playing with words. Except when I’m on deadline.
Then the fears begin to raise their ugly, chattering mugs:
“You can’t write. You’re a hack. You got lucky before. You’ll never do it again. If you can’t do it better – and you can’t – why bother? Plus, get a haircut! Oh, and you’re fat.”
Listening to Michael Hauge‘s workshop From Identity to Essence on my iPod last night (about the sixth time I’ve heard it now, you’d think I’d catch on wouldn’t ya?) gave me some more last-minute things to change/add/emphasize about the main characters in my current work-in-progress.
The one due… um… yesterday. (Don’t worry, I got an extension.)
It also gave me some fresh insight into my own fears. All of my writing contains some degree of truth and truth can be pretty freakin’ risky. So yeah, maybe this will be the book that proves me a failure. Maybe everyone will snicker at me behind my back. Maybe I’ll end up a WalMart greeter, after all.
Maybe that’s a risk I have to take because if I don’t, I’ll never get any closer to being the real person I am. To living my essence. My best, truest, self.
It’s funny, I’ve heard it said that the Dark Night of the Soul for characters generally rides in on the Dark Night for the writer. It seems you can’t write about character change and growth without taking just the tiniest peek into your own tortured psyche.
Oh man, talk about an occupational hazard.
So yeah, this is me. Living’ the dream. Dealing with exactly the problems I’ve always dreamed of having. I am lucky beyond measure that I get to explore the stuff that makes us human, take characters to the brink of despair and then lead them to their true selves. Every hero and heroine who becomes more, better, stronger than they thought they were, helps a tiny part of me become more, better, stronger.
All life is story, and all stories start with words. These are mine. Thanks for reading.
A Merry Mennonite Christmas
Hello. My name is Roxanne. I’m a Mennonite.
I know, you’re thinking how is that possible, since I wear make-up and jeans and don’t have a little black beanie pinned on my braids? My pacifist rebel blood set me on a different path from my ancestors but there is much I cherish about my Mennonite heritage.
Wareneki… noodle-y, cottage-cheese-y, creamy…
Rollkuchen and watermelon… the perfect summer supper, well, except for the deep-fried batter bit…
Cabbage borsch… thrifty, delicious – and nutritious!
…and plumi moos, that cold sweet pudding-y soup filled with prunes and raisins and cherries.
Watch out, though; those prunes pack a punch. Hm. Maybe, with all the noodles and bread, that’s the point.
Anyway, since carbs aren’t my friend and I don’t spend my days hitched to a plow, I rarely indulge my Mennonite appetite.
Music, however, is a different story. Especially at Christmas.
Despite a deep suspicion of the arts, the Mennonite culture embraces music as form of worship. (Nothing you might want to dance to, though. Dancing is Very Bad. There’s an old joke among us Mennos: why don’t Mennonites have sex standing up? Because it could lead to dancing.)
So although we do not dance, few Menno kids grew up without music lessons of some sort; most of us sang in the church choir. Some of us sang in chamber choirs that even went on tour.
That’s a life-time ago, but I can still sing along with The Hallelujah Chorus of Handel’s Messiah and it remains one of my favorite pieces of music, especially at Christmas.
My family tree is filled with humble, hard-working, painfully honest people who are probably deeply concerned for my soul. After all, as a fiction-writer, I am, by definition, a liar. And although I can’t dance, I dearly wish I could, which is just as bad.
Nevertheless, I am grateful for the bedrock of love and faith I was raised with. I am grateful that we can celebrate Christmas together despite our differences, with simple pleasures.
Like music and food.
Hallelujah!
Merry Christmas!
“Self-Doubt…
… doesn’t do anyone any good when you’re right.”
Or so said Hugh Laurie’s Dr. House, if I recall correctly.
Most of us are plagued with self-doubt at one time or another. I seem to have it a lot. Which doesn’t make sense, given that I’m also right a lot of the time. Or at least, pretty self-righteous. It’s an unfortunately combination, which may explain why I don’t go out much. It’s better for us all.
Or maybe it’s a writer thing. Nora Roberts said “Writing doesn’t make you neurotic; neurotics become writers.” So I guess it was inevitable.
But, writers, plumbers, doctors, ranchers or whatever, we’re all prone to human failings and frailties. It’s a fallen world, after all. Despite our best intentions, we all inflict bone-headed, self-centered, blindly stupid mistakes on those around us, for which we end up scraping for forgiveness.
And sometimes, we have to be big enough to do the same for others.
I’m at that wonderful stage in my book where my characters have slipped off each others’ masks just enough to see the true person beneath. It’s an ugly, painful experience, but wildly, truly, whole-ly human. I love being able to orchestrate this from above, putting true words into the mouths of made-up people, giving them honest actions and reactions in fictitious lives.
I wish it would come together the way I see it in my head. It would be The Best Book Ever.
But who knows? I could have it right already. And self-doubt doesn’t help anyone, when you’re right.