The Writer's E-Zine Home

Writers' Village University - F2K: Free Fiction Writing Course - ePress-online
Writers' Village University Membership Information

Craft of Writing

Audrey Higgans

I Dare You

This article is not meant for those who can churn out hundreds or thousands of words everyday, whether the muse hits them or not. No Siree. My hat off to them, as well as an honest, generous dose of good-natured envy. My words are aimed at people who, like me, tremble at the mere thought of putting pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, ink to blank page—you name the phobia, I have it.

Here's my take on the subject. If we want to write a novel, we must gear up for sweat and tears. If, in our fantasies about the writing life, we have imagined ourselves with a sharpened pencil stuck behind our ear, the stem of a red rose between our teeth, eyes narrowed in concentration while our hands fly over the keyboard, we have another thing coming.

Writing is hard, writing is agony. Writing is virtually impossible at times.

Therefore, we procrastinate. We wail and moan into our journal, spin our tales of woe to long-suffering critique partners, badger our better half, (if we have one), with a long-winded monologue about our plot and the message we mean to deliver to our unsuspecting, hypothetical readers.

Our masochistic mind drives us to trillions of how-to articles. We read about grammar and punctuation pitfalls, characterization, backstory, dialogue, hooks, sagging middles, satisfying endings, editing, rewriting...until our head spins. At this point, we're convinced we'll never live up to all that sound advice—if we ever get down to writing, that is.

Then, of course we turn to books by our favorite authors. Doesn't part of that wonderful advice out there say we must read, read, read? We gobble up those new stories waiting on our bookshelf. Once we're finished, we proceed to read some of the old ones. Books we had forgotten about that can still tickle our spine with a special thrill. Alas, too late, we realize they're all bloody geniuses.

We're never going to write anything even close to what they achieved.

Sound familiar? If so, why do it? Why finish the novel, plod through the rewrite like a dead man walking and send queries and synopses to a bevy of agents? If we're lucky, only a good number of them will send a rejection. The others will send a request for a partial. Meanwhile we're left with our tongue hanging out, like a dog beneath a food-laden table. That dog knows the likes of him will probably never taste the mouth-watering savories meant exclusively for the elite group on Mount Olympus. So why bother?

Beats me, but I still do it. In my case, what drives me is probably the urgency, deep in my soul, for someone to pay attention. To point their finger at me in a class of swots and say, "You, I like your style, there's something good here."

Recognition, acceptance—we all need it, crave it, desire it with harrowing intensity. Not so much for the money as for the simple need to hear someone admit that we're special, that we write stuff dreams are made of, that we can touch people where it counts.

In the end, what it really boils down to is guts. We have to put everything, all of ourselves on the line. All our eggs in one basket, so to speak. I admit, it's pretty scary—we either make it or we don't, but isn't courage a matter of acting despite the fear? If this is true, I do have courage. Enough to make it worth my while. With every word I put on paper I'm daring to dream the impossible dream, pushing myself to the limit. I for one could never stop trying. If you're a writer, neither can you.


About the Author
Audrey Higgans is a professional freelance translator residing in Sicily with her husband. She is Maltese by birth and her passion is writing novel-length fiction and poetry in English. Her poem "Antidote" was published in the August 2004 issue of T-Zero. She has been a member of the Writers' Village for the past two years and is well on her way to finishing her first novel. She's currently taking the Synopsis and Query Letter course and finds her inspiration in everyday life.