My creative anxiety

Phil at Asymmetric Creativity wrote a really good Medium post about creative anxiety.

“Dr. John Kounios’s research revealed something that changed how I think about creative doubt: people who experience moderate levels of creative anxiety produce significantly more original work than those who experience either very low or very high anxiety.

There’s a sweet spot where doubt actually enhances creative output. Too little doubt and you skip the refinement process. This often produces work that might be fluent but not meaningful. Too much doubt and your evaluative system overwhelms your creative system, leading to paralysis.”

This explains my experience, or at least a part of it, because my anxiety never really goes away. Not even when the book is out.

My requirements

I’m a simple person. All I want is to always write a better book than the one before, and each of my books is the best I could write. So, I have to keep getting better. I’m a perfectionist. This is perfect recipe for anxiety. What if I don’t get even better this time?! I have only rewritten Why Odin Drinks seven times instead of my usual 20+, what if it needed some more rewrites?

I’m working on my most complex book ever right now, The Blue King (The Ten Worlds #3). It’s got a double timeline. I have to ensure that each part follows in some vaguely logical order and that the necessary information is provided without what I call the as-you-knows. (I once stopped reading a book, because it opened with a letter to a friend who clearly experienced amnesia. “As you will remember, we did X at Y. You know best that this resulted in Z.” etc.) It’s good to have a person who actually doesn’t know what happens and requires explanation.

The Blue King is made even harder by two facts: 1) it overlaps with Land (a part of it is a retelling of Land from Thorolf’s point of view); 2) I want it to work as a standalone. My life would have been exponentially easier if I settled for one out of those two things. Originally, I made it chronological, which meant that the whole Land overlap was one long chunk that I’m pretty sure some readers would skip, because they’d think ‘I’ve heard this one before’. Now…I don’t know whether it works. I’ll have an alpha reader who hasn’t read Land and whose only task will be to tell me whether it does.

Revision anxiety

I have my editor, because I rewrite. And I rewrite. The book keeps getting better, until I either realise that I just rewrote the same sentence using the same wording, i.e. retyped it, or that I just made it worse, or that I can’t even tell anymore. I need someone to read the text at this point and tell me what needs changing, explaining, what can possibly be removed, what simply doesn’t work, etc.

I get anxious when I send the text to my editor, because I’d obviously like it to be completely finished before anybody reads it. So, my second draft is – in case of Bloodbath & Beyond – the ninth rewrite. It’s almost, but not quite, entirely not good enough to go. My editor is luckily a strict, but kind person. An author I know posted on their blog that when their editor (it’s a trad-published author) has one single nice thing to say, it’s time to open champagne. If I had an editor like that, I’d stop writing altogether and devote my life to meditating in a cave.

Generalised anxiety

…is something I have in, er, general, but that’s a different story.

I’m anxious about the whole concept. Is this book any good? Yes, it will be the best I can make it and then a bit better than that, but is it any good? The first reviews of Storytellers were a shocker, because they were 4-5* and positive. I honestly didn’t know whether that book was any good. I did my very best and hit ‘publish’ and hoped for a miracle that actually came. Then I had a minor breakdown upon realising… this isn’t a joke… that I haven’t used the word ‘seldom’ even once, which obviously made me a shit writer. (I seldom use the word ‘seldom’. I don’t think I used it in any of the other books, either.)

I’m unfortunately a multigenre author. Having a series with TWO books in it – The Ten Worlds – is a shocker coming from me. If you liked Children I finally have something else to recommend! If you only liked Why Odin Drinks or Storytellers I don’t! Unless you’re open-minded and read wide! *cue in a breakdown*

Publishing anxiety

THERE IS BOUND TO BE A TYPO. There always is. In trad-published books, the expected number of typos is one per 10 thousand words. Land is about 160k long, which means there might be SIXTEEN typos in it. My standards are way higher than those of trad publishers. I aim for zero. But there is always bound to be the One Typo To Rule Them All, no matter how many people read it. Even my proofreader can’t catch them all. The One Typo To Rule Them All is like The One Ring. It’s always there. Even when the book’s been out for five years and I reuploaded fixed files a hundred times, there is still The One Typo.

I have the same anxiety when writing a newsletter. You might have noticed that I haven’t sent one since December. This largely has to do with my Mum’s death – I spent months not writing anything at all and barely functioning, to be honest – but in the last weeks I’ve been doing well enough to write a newsletter. I have to get in the habit again, I guess…

What have I forgotten anxiety

When I’m working on a book, and I rewrite it 20 times, I learn everything about the characters, plot, setting, etc. I know exactly how Thorolf’s childhood looked. I know what he looks like, what his sister looks like, what his parents look like, what are their names, I know he prefers dogs to cats, what his favourite food is, and so on. But after all those rewrites, I lose track of what needs to be said versus what has been said in this latest revision. This is another reason why I need my editor. She is able to point those things out. But, like with The One Typo, there’s always bound to be just one bit that’s unclear, and I won’t know that until it’s TOO LATE *breakdown*

The whole package anxiety

Is this cover good enough? Is it any good? IS IT HORRIBLE? IS IT WRONG?

Am I really any good at this? Thanks for saying yes, but what do you really think? No, I mean, what do you really think? Thanks a million, but what do you really really think? (I can go on like this.)

Do *I* even like this book? Is this what I wanted to say? Have I said it clearly enough? I’m a micromanager, I know exactly what I want the reader to feel, but I’m also autistic. Have I really conveyed the right thing using the right words?

How will I feel about this book five years from now? (My mission statement hasn’t changed: I want to write books I’ll be proud of five years later.)

Why am I so slow? Why did it take me so long to finish? Also, have I rushed things? Should I have done just one more rewrite? This one is actually the most persistent. Could the book have done with just one more rewrite?

And…

It’s been five years. I’m re-reading Storytellers. And… now that I’ve learned more… I would really like to rewrite it. Just once. Maybe twice. The only reason why I haven’t changed a word is that I got an audiobook deal, and the audiobook comes with Whispersync on Amazon, meaning I actually can’t change a thing or stuff will break. But *squealing* maybe just this bit here and there won’t hurt…? Except it’s never going to be just one bit, it’s always going to be a complete rewrite, because that’s how I roll…

I hate what I write… until I don’t

Back to the original post by Phil: my first drafts aren’t written, they’re vomited. I write quickly and don’t revise a thing. The point is to figure out what I know and what I don’t. This tends to be the only version of the book I don’t hate at any point. Partly because I don’t read those again.

Every subsequent draft produces anxiety. It generally remains at moderate level, but there is invariably a point where I feel like just quitting. The book is THE WORST EVER. I don’t know what to do with it. It just is. Even my ‘the’ is worse than any other writer’s ‘the’. Then I figure it out and suddenly the book is not the worst ever. It can be saved. The question is whether it can be saved by me, or if someone more skilled should do that…

I don’t publish a book until I love it. All of it. Until I know it’s the very best I can do. But it’s never good enough. The next one will be better. I could actually skip this one and move on to the next one. That would be a good idea. This is how I find more readers and sell more books. By not publishing them.

Argh.

Right. Time to go offski. I have two WIPs, one freshly back from my editor, one almost ready for the alpha reader. Who will hate it, because it’s the worst book ever. Oh Gods, I hope she doesn’t hate it. But she will, because it’s the worst book ever. I think I might be repeating myself. That’s because it’s the worst book ever. Is my anxiety at moderate level right now? Because Phil says it should be at moderate level, otherwise I’ll write the worst book ever… why, yes, I am my own worst enemy. ANYWAY. Off I go. Wish me luck. Thank you and good night.