process notes
I wrote this essay-- three times? Four? The first paragraph was always in place, pretty much, and then I kept putting together the thousand words that came after it and reading them over and thinking: no. One of those drafts briefly seemed good enough that I sent it to my dad to get his approval before it went to my editor. His last comment was "I'm a cautionary tale, but I love it!" and then I thought, oh no. That was not an essay I was interested in publishing.
I didn't get the last few paragraphs of it, the version you read, until I was looking through my dad's Book of Changes from the 70's on New Year's Eve, throwing the I Ching with T. There are notes on his throws inscribed on the front cover of the book, drawings of hexagrams accompanied by dates or notes: "right connection" "difficult," and I thought: god, I wish he was still around, which even as I thought it I knew was ridiculous. I could have picked up the phone and called him. He was up, watching movies with my mother at home in their bed, about fifteen minutes west of me.
I wrote this one only twice: the first version went into agonized detail about the relationship and the question of balancing regret and forgiveness. I sent it to M., who told me to take out a too-personal anecdote I'd included about someone else-- a minor character, someone who I had no business involving-- so I fixed that, and then it was done, but I couldn't send it. I resigned myself to sending nothing. Then I wrote an entirely different essay about why it was that I didn't want to send the first one, or tell that story, or force myself to reckon with that version of my past self quite so often anymore.
The other two that went up last week were less fraught, mostly; I mean, they got edited and everything, don't get me wrong. My author guide to John Green went through a weird molting where a lot of the thinking and writing stayed the same but the frame shifted significantly, from looking at his work through the lens of various internet controversies around him to just talking about the books themselves, because you are allowed to do that, every now and again. MMMHops's paragraphs got rearranged by editors-- love you Ryan, love you Peter-- but I pretty much only had to write it once.
That's why some people outline, I guess. I've never been able to do it. I have to write the wrong essays to get to the right one. (It helps enormously that I write both the bad and good pieces fast.) I have to sort through the compelling but flimsy space of my instincts to get to the sturdiness of an actual thought. Even when they're "good" or "finished" or published, at least, that I can say without scare quotes, they're never quite what I meant them to be. It takes some time, I guess, is all I'm saying, which seems important to say just now, in resolution season. Sometimes sitting with it, getting half-started and then starting over, writing an essay so you can write an essay about why you shouldn't have written it, are the only things that will get you where you're actually trying to go.
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Buncha new subscribers, so hi, guys. (And thanks and happy birthday, Ann.) If you're new to this thing, once a week or so I send you an email with some thoughts about writing and links to whatever I've published and news about my books, when I have it. My books are A SONG TO TAKE THE WORLD APART, which came out in September, and is about family myths and cultural myths and how extremely devastating it is when you are a teenager and your crush is in a band, and GRACE AND THE FEVER, which comes out in May and is about how devastating it is when you are a teenager and your crush is in a very famous boy band-- and how much worse it is when you actually meet him, and he and his life turn out to be weird and complicated and, you know, actually very real.
I'm also on Twitter and Tumblr and Instagram, and Medium, actually, Jesus that's a lot. Feel free to send me emails. I love emails. I also love to send galleys of my books to people who want to write about them, and I love to write for your publication as long as it will pay me, so if either of those things interest you, hit reply and let me know.
I didn't get the last few paragraphs of it, the version you read, until I was looking through my dad's Book of Changes from the 70's on New Year's Eve, throwing the I Ching with T. There are notes on his throws inscribed on the front cover of the book, drawings of hexagrams accompanied by dates or notes: "right connection" "difficult," and I thought: god, I wish he was still around, which even as I thought it I knew was ridiculous. I could have picked up the phone and called him. He was up, watching movies with my mother at home in their bed, about fifteen minutes west of me.
I wrote this one only twice: the first version went into agonized detail about the relationship and the question of balancing regret and forgiveness. I sent it to M., who told me to take out a too-personal anecdote I'd included about someone else-- a minor character, someone who I had no business involving-- so I fixed that, and then it was done, but I couldn't send it. I resigned myself to sending nothing. Then I wrote an entirely different essay about why it was that I didn't want to send the first one, or tell that story, or force myself to reckon with that version of my past self quite so often anymore.
The other two that went up last week were less fraught, mostly; I mean, they got edited and everything, don't get me wrong. My author guide to John Green went through a weird molting where a lot of the thinking and writing stayed the same but the frame shifted significantly, from looking at his work through the lens of various internet controversies around him to just talking about the books themselves, because you are allowed to do that, every now and again. MMMHops's paragraphs got rearranged by editors-- love you Ryan, love you Peter-- but I pretty much only had to write it once.
That's why some people outline, I guess. I've never been able to do it. I have to write the wrong essays to get to the right one. (It helps enormously that I write both the bad and good pieces fast.) I have to sort through the compelling but flimsy space of my instincts to get to the sturdiness of an actual thought. Even when they're "good" or "finished" or published, at least, that I can say without scare quotes, they're never quite what I meant them to be. It takes some time, I guess, is all I'm saying, which seems important to say just now, in resolution season. Sometimes sitting with it, getting half-started and then starting over, writing an essay so you can write an essay about why you shouldn't have written it, are the only things that will get you where you're actually trying to go.
-
Buncha new subscribers, so hi, guys. (And thanks and happy birthday, Ann.) If you're new to this thing, once a week or so I send you an email with some thoughts about writing and links to whatever I've published and news about my books, when I have it. My books are A SONG TO TAKE THE WORLD APART, which came out in September, and is about family myths and cultural myths and how extremely devastating it is when you are a teenager and your crush is in a band, and GRACE AND THE FEVER, which comes out in May and is about how devastating it is when you are a teenager and your crush is in a very famous boy band-- and how much worse it is when you actually meet him, and he and his life turn out to be weird and complicated and, you know, actually very real.
I'm also on Twitter and Tumblr and Instagram, and Medium, actually, Jesus that's a lot. Feel free to send me emails. I love emails. I also love to send galleys of my books to people who want to write about them, and I love to write for your publication as long as it will pay me, so if either of those things interest you, hit reply and let me know.
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