Stories That Have Broken You

I would be interested in other opinions on this.

If you mean loathing your work makes you work harder at the craft, because you're cursed with the ability to recognize really great writing (whatever that means to you), I agree. You set the bar higher, and never give up until you get over that bar, or die trying.

If you mean that the best work comes from writers who are never happy with their work, I don't think I agree. It's not a bad thing to says 'Damn, I nailed that.' Occasionally, it might be true.

Maybe I'm reading too much into your post, but it's an interesting question.

 

I waited a couple of days to post on this thread, just to see where it might lead.

What's most interesting, I think, is the number of ways in which story can kick a writer's ass. We've got a few of them here, certainly.

The reporting, the writing, the edit, the politics of getting it out - sometimes all of those, sometimes just one. Never none. Sometimes it's a single terrible thing you can never unsee. Or it's the travel - monstrous or monotonous - that weakens you. Or the argument with legal. Or the exhaustion that sets in when try to turn one more shovelful of words into a 10-inch game story. Any story can bend you double under its weight. Every story takes something out of you.

Like The Jones I earn my way longform. And I can't think of one story, not one, that didn't have its foot on my throat at some point. The story where no one will talk. The story where they never stop talking. The story that takes a year. The story that should take a year, but you've got a week. The story that keeps breaking. The story that never breaks. The story you write in the front seat of the rental car. The story that costs you a Christmas or a birthday or an anniversary. The story you can't start. The story you can't stop. Too big. Too small. Too much. Not enough. All different, all the same.

I've spent six months on a 10,000-word story, only to have legal swoop in the day it ships to suggest a number of "small changes." To avoid "actionable upset." That number was 68.

I've been kicked, threatened, shot at, spat on, screamed at, lied to, spun, seduced, wined, dined, ignored, dealt out, bucked off, lunged at and leaked to. Standard stuff, on which this craft and profession are built. I was 18 when I saw my first murder victim. 32 years later, that picture is still packed in there somewhere with all the other emotional baggage this job and this art and this life ask us to carry.

The ones that crack you open along your own fault lines are the hardest. The ones that deserve and require some new means of telling, some new language, some new and never before seen architecture. The ones that deserve better than you can give. Those are the ones that bend you down under the weight of your own fear and expectation.

Sometimes a long piece or even a book comes to your imagination as a single perfect thing, unified and beautiful, a finished sculpture. All you need to do is chip away the surplus marble. It seems so simple. It is not.

Others are stoopwork, you walking the rows hour after hour, picking something small and fine off the plant until the bushel's full. Then the long walk to unload. Then back to the row. Hour upon hour, day after day, week after week. You're done when you can no longer stand the sound of your own weakening footsteps.

Some require hauling the darkest parts of yourself up to the surface and into the light, the ugly things you loathe in yourself, trying to boat your weaknesses so you can find in them a more common humanity.

Other times you're just trying to get that one big fish home. Read The Old Man and the Sea again, and you'll find that Hemingway was writing for every writer everywhere. That writerly idea, that perfect idea - full of life, huge and red-blooded, as beautiful and powerful as a thing can be - never makes it all the way home in one piece. Nothing perfect ever does. Not the fish. Not DiMaggio.

Still, Santiago sails on.

 

This is the 2008 SportsJournalists.com Post of the Year. Hands down.

 

It's the middle of February.

 

That's a pretty good lede, 21, kind of New Yorkerish, but taking a risk with the present tense. I like that.

Middle of February or not, that's a damn solid post, jgmacg. I like how Hemingway keeps popping up on this thread, especially because he blew his head off. It gives me hope for the future.

21, to answer your question -- and I've been thinking about this for a few minutes now -- I can't remember the last time I wrote a story and thought I nailed it. I have felt that way, but it's been a while. Maybe the space story. But even then, I thought it was a good story, but that I'd flubbed it a little. I read it not long ago (I hardly ever read my stuff again) and cringed in a couple of spots. It could be better. I think I'd probably say that about everything I write.

In short, I guess, I'm rarely happy with what I've written. I mean, I don't often read it and think, That's horseshit, but the opposite doesn't happen much, either.

Of course, with that answer, and with my previous comment, I'm saying my stuff is good, because I'm not happy with it. That's not what I mean. I'm just trying to answer you honestly. I can think of maybe four or five stories in my career where I feel today that I did them right.

 

One time I had feature I really liked but couldn't come up with a good ending. I sweated and sweated over it and threw up my hands. The desk would probably just lop it off anyway.

So I turned in this story that just kind of ended and it ran as is.

Sports editor pulls me aside the next day and says, "That was a good story, but a good story really needs a good ending."

I never forgot that I gave up on that story and that it was noticed.

 

I'm hoping to sell it as is. Make 'em think.

I understand what you're saying. We know too much. What we left out, what we didn't get on the record, what we wanted to say but just ran out of red blood cells. The reader won't know. But we do. To me, that's not masochism, it's just an occupational hazard.

But I know writers (as do you) whose angst defines them as writers. It's cliche and tired, as if suffering somehow validates their commitment to the art of writing. You tell them, 'Hey, great story!' and they give you twenty minutes about how it sucked and they didn't get it right and they didn't eat or sleep for a month and look at this bald spot and this rash, just look at it!!

Not talking about you or anyone else on this thread--just a general observation. I'm sad for writers who genuinely have the gift, and never allow themselves to enjoy it.

 

I think there's as much false modesty (and hidden self-satisfaction) in that posture as there is anything else, 21. I mean, if someone loathes their own work so, or the process, why do it?

I've only ever met a small handful of artists who tortured themselves genuinely this way. They hated what they did, but had no other means of expression in the world and couldn't do anything else. It honestly didn't matter how good the work was to anyone else. They simply couldn't not do it. In them, real genius seemed a miserable thing.

Having said that, like Jones, I can't think of a single piece I've ever been entirely satisfied with - whatever toll it took. But there's always the next one.

 

jgmacg, let me be the second to say thanks for the great post.

I think what it all boils down to is that we're our own worst critics, and in order to grow as writers, we can never be satisfied with a story. Just keep moving on and learning with the creative process.

 

That was my initial question to Jones, about whether the best writers truly loathe their work. I think the opposite: it's all about the love. Loving the craft, the process, the challenge.

Like raising an unruly teenager, who drives you out of your flippin mind and makes life completely unbearable, and you sit up nights wondering what the hell you did wrong, and how you're going to fix it....but only because you love that kid with all your heart. (I know, not the greatest analogy, the kid keeps growing, the story gets ripped from your hands and heart, but you get my point.)

And yes, that was a great earlier post. I just didn't want you to stop trying for the next 10-1/2 months. 8)

 

See, there's the distinction for me: I love journalism, love to practice it -- I love finding a good idea, I love reporting, I love writing -- I am compelled to write -- but I don't always love the end of it. Again, most of the time, I feel like I could have done better, if only I had more time, more space (or less space), done that one last interview, started the story with a different foundation, slogged through one more edit. That's the difference for me. I love the process; I rarely love the result. I don't think many longform writers do.

 

Not to say I'm any great shakes as a writer, especially compared to legends such as Jones or jgmacg, but I find I love the craft and the challenge of it, but I usually find myself thinking I could do so much better with it.

Compared to the luminaries on this thread, I'm still trying to learn cursive.