Storytellersunplugged

I’ll bet few writers around these parts have read things they’ve written in the past and not yelled “PHEW! YUCK!” loud enough to frighten their children (or their neighbors’ children) slap to death. Some of my own exclamations of dismay have brought sheriff’s deputies from two counties over to investigate.

I know some writers who refuse to read their work after it’s been published. I seldom do, except when I go back to re-edit something in hopes of selling it as a reprint. Oftentimes reading my old stuff is painful. Not necessarily because it’s terrible, but because it rarely says things the way I might say them now. Sometimes it’s like reading the work of a stranger, but a stranger who knows too much about what’s in my head.

As with virtually any creative endeavor, no matter how good one becomes as a writer, one can always get better. For me personally, I don’t see the process of growing ever stopping. I may lurch and stumble, or pop off the occasional misfire, or wrack my brain only to come up with crapola, but this is part of the journey, yes? These things mean I’m doing something besides resting on my laurels or contenting myself with whatever meager accomplishments I might be able to claim in my past.

Looking at older work and cringing (or yelling) means that one’s eye has grown sharper, that skills are evolving. Looking at older work and cringing a little (or yelling at a lower volume), but finding that for the most part you nailed it, that’s good too. It means you’ve hit a landmark. However — and I can’t speak for anyone else — almost every time I identify a landmark in my bibliography, I find other works in its wake that miss the mark; sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot. This usually means I’ve tried to extend myself to another level, and sometimes it takes some grappling to snag the right ledge.

But snag it one must.

I know from a lot of years writing as well as from wearing my editor’s hat and working with other writers how frustrating it can be to reach and reach and crash and burn repeatedly. It makes it hard to have faith in your work, to really believe you’re reaching new levels. Or that you’re even friggin’ competent. But if you’re not reaching, you’re stagnating, and if you’re stagnating, you’re not grabbing the attention of editors, and if you’re not grabbing the attention of editors, you’re going nowhere fast.

Learning from the hard fall is where faith in your work begins.

In my experience, faith in one’s work shows in the writing; faith in one’s voice (see Janet Berliner’s excellent essay from October 26); faith in one’s ability to hook the reader’s attention. Even if the work has rough edges, sometimes an editor will latch onto that certain subtle something that confidence brings to the page. When I was editing DEATHREALM, as well as my subsequent anthologies, I’ve witnessed this elusive trait in writers who may have limited experience but display serious devotion to their craft. Just this week, in a relatively new, well-respected small press magazine, I read a story that, from a technical perspective, simply was not the shit; in fact, on the surface, it seemed fraught with errors. But the writer’s voice was so damned enthusiastic, so strangely, crudely lyrical, that it drew me right into the tale, and in the end, it really made me smile. I suspect the writer will go places — assuming he keeps the faith.

Who knows, maybe he’ll come back one day and read his story and cringe, but at the same time, maybe it was a landmark. It got into a decent-paying publication, so one can’t cringe but so much, right?

So how, you ask, does one pick one’s self up from the hard falls, shake off the dirt, and begin to ooze confidence from every page?

Heed the timeless wisdom: write and submit, write and submit, write and submit. Take seriously constructive criticism offered by perceptive editors. Listen to the voices of experience. Above all, get out and live. Go places, observe, meet people. Verisimilitude begets belief. Not just for the reader but for the writer. If you believe it…well, there it is. Faith. Once you’ve got it, you’re that much closer to snagging the next level.

And the one beyond that and the one beyond that. If down the road you look back and cringe a bit, so what? It only means you’ve been doing your job.

Of course, that’s not always my first thought, and the yell just comes out. Sorry ’bout that.

–Mark Rainey