I agree with your disagreement with Hemingway. I hope ghosts can’t punch. But I always feel the rewriting bit is so much easier than the abracadabra bit. You have *something*! In only five months! Good job.
The whole purpose of SFD is to get the noise out of your head so you can go back and do the fun stuff. Stephen King compared the process to unearthing a fossil and brushing back the sand slowly, deliberately, until the big dinosaur bone of your story is revealed. Guy was aptly named.
I think about my SFD and going back to it. It is exactly the same as yours, characters in search of a plot, loosely connected scenes with occasional moments of brilliance.
Thank you Michael! By sharing your experience, you are leading the way. I‘m still at the „before my first novel“ stage, and your words are encouraging.
One of my many projects is a graphic novel that I never expect to draw. It's too long and, frankly, I think I'd be creeped out by anyone who claimed to love it. It's a whole bunch of id vomited into my Google docs. I wrote a first draft three years ago. I'm on my 30th draft (I think) now. What started as a series of torture porn vignettes is kind of a story now. Working on it is calming. I don't worry about what I'm writing because I expect no one else to ever see it.
Wondering if you feel that by writing this post you are taking your depression to task? What I mean is, just sharing your observations can me so powerful. I, too, suffer from depression and it can be a total mindfuck. Glad you are able to work past the noise--that's huge! I also recommend Dr. Burns' Feeling Good Handbook just for his list of cognitive distortions: https://feelinggood.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/checklist-of-negative-and-positive-distortions.pdf. Can't wait to read your book!
Thanks for sharing this, Heather! To answer your question, I'm not sure if writing this was taking my depression to task or not. I know what you mean about the power of sharing. I have found power by talking about my depression with friends and family -- people who know me very well. Sharing something like this post is helpful, I suppose, but I don't look to posts like this in the same way that I look to sharing with friends and family. For one thing, I can be more vulnerable with friends and family. For another thing, they have a lot more context on me, so I find that when I share with them there's a kind of feedback loop that gives me power over my depression. I guess what I'm saying is that writing this probably was helpful, but only to a point. Does that make sense?
Mental health is like a crime novel. Twisiting plots, double crossing, dead end leads, femme fatales, car chases, shooting and getting shot at. Then, you get that one break - how did you not see that? - and the case is solved. The good guys win. Always.
Like Jim Morrison singing on the song "The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat) ...Comes out of the Virginia swamps, Cool and slow with plenty of precision, With a back beat narrow and hard to master. Mental health is The WASP.
I can be a real moron. I really need to pay more attention when I read. Michael, I thought you were putting stickers on your "Dong." I was thinking, "Wow, that's a man with a very unique way of motivating himself." Well, of course my next thought was, is there enough of "you" to put so many stickers on? (I don't know why I think like that) Don't take it personally, please, they could be very small stickers. On the other hand, you could have "enough" for three novels down there.
My main reason for this comment is to applaud your willingness to share your life challenges with potentially anyone who has internet access. It's brave, takes "stones" to put yourself out there. What if just one person who is too embarrasesed to even admit depression, much less take medication, reads your very funny stories and sees that someone with depression is mananging their life and making people laugh? Might give them some hope, then they get help, and their lives are changed.
Chances are you would never know. However, I'm just crazy enough to think that you get a free spin of the Karmic Wheel.
Thanks Bob, I really appreciate this comment, every word, but especially the hilarious confession that you thought, briefly, that I was putting stickers on my dong. Now *that* is indeed a very unique motivational method. :)
I felt so much of this post, Michael. 🥹
I'm super proud of you for finishing your novel. That is so fucking huge, man. 💜💜💜💜💜
Keep fighting the good fight and slapping stickers on dongs and anything else you need to do to stay on track.
Love you, buddy.
Thanks for plugging the podcast, too. I think we did alright. 😉
Thank you, Meg! There are more drafts to go on this one and at some point I'll enter query hell... so lots to talk about for next time!
As someone who is in desperately trying to get her first novel's first draft done, this is the essay I needed to ready today. Thank you.
Thank you, Noor! From one former lawyer to another, I'm pulling for you to finish that novel.
I so resonate. You describe depression and writing under the influence of depression perfectly.
Congrats on the first draft! Hope you celebrated in some way. 👏💐🎉🎊
Celebrations were somewhat muted last night. I had to watch the debate for work. But I did have a really good popsicle, so that's a win.
Popsicles can be quite satisfying.
Yes, and it's been brutally hot here, so the popsicles are giving me life.
I agree with your disagreement with Hemingway. I hope ghosts can’t punch. But I always feel the rewriting bit is so much easier than the abracadabra bit. You have *something*! In only five months! Good job.
Thank you, Ros!
Congratulations on your shitty first draft!!
The whole purpose of SFD is to get the noise out of your head so you can go back and do the fun stuff. Stephen King compared the process to unearthing a fossil and brushing back the sand slowly, deliberately, until the big dinosaur bone of your story is revealed. Guy was aptly named.
I think about my SFD and going back to it. It is exactly the same as yours, characters in search of a plot, loosely connected scenes with occasional moments of brilliance.
Don’t give up. Just keep swimming! ❤️
Thank you, Meridith! Diving back into my manuscript in the next few days. The SFD will became a MBSD (marginally better second draft).
This is exciting! Who’d have thought that writing the first draft of novel could be done with self-awareness?
Which, by the way, is very un-Hemingway
Self-awareness is a wild concept. Here's hoping it catches on.
But. What was Tom Clancy doing in Key West? :)
Classified.
Thank you Michael! By sharing your experience, you are leading the way. I‘m still at the „before my first novel“ stage, and your words are encouraging.
i love you and love that you shared all this Michael
Way to go, Michael! I like the quirky inward-facing journey leading to an outward-facing book.
Thank you, Andrew!
One of my many projects is a graphic novel that I never expect to draw. It's too long and, frankly, I think I'd be creeped out by anyone who claimed to love it. It's a whole bunch of id vomited into my Google docs. I wrote a first draft three years ago. I'm on my 30th draft (I think) now. What started as a series of torture porn vignettes is kind of a story now. Working on it is calming. I don't worry about what I'm writing because I expect no one else to ever see it.
Hemingway: Are my methods unsound?
Estrin: I don't see, any method, at all, sir.
Haha! I also have some thoughts about The Old Man and the Sea.
You and me both.
Wondering if you feel that by writing this post you are taking your depression to task? What I mean is, just sharing your observations can me so powerful. I, too, suffer from depression and it can be a total mindfuck. Glad you are able to work past the noise--that's huge! I also recommend Dr. Burns' Feeling Good Handbook just for his list of cognitive distortions: https://feelinggood.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/checklist-of-negative-and-positive-distortions.pdf. Can't wait to read your book!
Thanks for sharing this, Heather! To answer your question, I'm not sure if writing this was taking my depression to task or not. I know what you mean about the power of sharing. I have found power by talking about my depression with friends and family -- people who know me very well. Sharing something like this post is helpful, I suppose, but I don't look to posts like this in the same way that I look to sharing with friends and family. For one thing, I can be more vulnerable with friends and family. For another thing, they have a lot more context on me, so I find that when I share with them there's a kind of feedback loop that gives me power over my depression. I guess what I'm saying is that writing this probably was helpful, but only to a point. Does that make sense?
Absolutely! Glad you have support. Hugely helpful.
Congratulations on making it through the first draft! Keep on writin’! Keep on dongin’!
Keep on dongin’ needs to be a bumper sticker. Although I fear it’ll be misinterpreted.
Here’s to the present, my friend.👍
Thank you, friend!
Mental health is like a crime novel. Twisiting plots, double crossing, dead end leads, femme fatales, car chases, shooting and getting shot at. Then, you get that one break - how did you not see that? - and the case is solved. The good guys win. Always.
Like Jim Morrison singing on the song "The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat) ...Comes out of the Virginia swamps, Cool and slow with plenty of precision, With a back beat narrow and hard to master. Mental health is The WASP.
I can be a real moron. I really need to pay more attention when I read. Michael, I thought you were putting stickers on your "Dong." I was thinking, "Wow, that's a man with a very unique way of motivating himself." Well, of course my next thought was, is there enough of "you" to put so many stickers on? (I don't know why I think like that) Don't take it personally, please, they could be very small stickers. On the other hand, you could have "enough" for three novels down there.
My main reason for this comment is to applaud your willingness to share your life challenges with potentially anyone who has internet access. It's brave, takes "stones" to put yourself out there. What if just one person who is too embarrasesed to even admit depression, much less take medication, reads your very funny stories and sees that someone with depression is mananging their life and making people laugh? Might give them some hope, then they get help, and their lives are changed.
Chances are you would never know. However, I'm just crazy enough to think that you get a free spin of the Karmic Wheel.
I walk the talk. Keep up the good work...
Bob
Thanks Bob, I really appreciate this comment, every word, but especially the hilarious confession that you thought, briefly, that I was putting stickers on my dong. Now *that* is indeed a very unique motivational method. :)