Wanna See Me Naked?

One of the things I've always been self-conscious about is the first draft.

Let me first just get this out there. I can be in a shit writer. I can be a pretty decent writer, but I can also be a really, really shitty writer.

I'll type sentences like "What is this, booby trap central?" or "the man's eyes widened in anger," or my personal favorite, all the times I mention Arlene's stomach "somewhere near her ankles" in a anxious moment (it's in the double digits for a 150 page novel).

This being said, I often have a really tough time dealing with people who want to "read my stuff" (especially my completed first draft of my current novel). Most of the time this "stuff" is all first draft material. Like I've said before, I've never actually crafted a piece to where I think it is complete, so historically I've abandon pieces for better, more exciting plots.

In terms of my current novel, one of the most common questions I get (because it is a completed draft) is "can I read it?" For me, this question is eerily similar to asking "can I see you naked?"

It takes a lot of trust to show someone a first draft, because as Ann Lamott so gracefully puts it, "the first draft is a child's draft, where you let it all pour out and them let it romp all over the place, knowing that no one is going to see it and that you can shape it later."

The first draft is, in all honesty, never meant to be shown. Hemingway thought less of himself every time he mentioned a novel in-process, let alone read from it. He knew that first drafts don't reflect the craft, they reflect the faults of the writer (which we all, in our God-like fashion, edit out).

Asking to see a first draft is asking for premature trust. It's like saying, "hey, I've seen you've spent the past month eating Ho-Ho's, Ding Dongs and Pringles, but how about you just slip off that top and we'll see what's underneath."

By no means am I trying to say that when someone asks me to see a draft they are asking me to get naked. As my roommate remarked earlier, "I feel like it is hard to please you. Wouldn't it seem like they are showing interest? I want to know more about you, so I'm asking about something you're passionate about."

To this I would reply yes, and I'm not saying that I suddenly want everyone to stop asking about my novel (it makes me feel better when you do), just, don't expect me to show it to you. Because without fully understanding the craft, you're always at a disadvantage. To you it seems like a kind statement about your interest in my life, but to me, if you actually want to read it, is asking too much too soon. When we are asked to prove our passions, we ultimately lay it all out on the line. We get naked.

And as a life lesson I tend to avoid asking people to get prematurely naked. Because, like seeing a first draft, I'm often not prepared for that kind of awkward.

You Always Return to the Blank Page

This has been my anthem for the past couple of days. (Also, I love this album--Nick Hornby and Ben Folds need to get together more often.)



I can do this, really, I'm good enough
I'm as good as them, but don't take it from me
Ask my friends, ask my sister
They all think my stuff is great
Up there with any of them
I just need a break

I'm a genius, really, I'm excellent
Better than them, I kick their asses
All of them, even that guy
Who thinks he's fuckin' cool
Gets all of the attention
He doesn't sell shit does he

Some guy on the net thinks I suck and he should know
He's got his own blog

I'm a loser
I'm a poser
Yeah really
It's over
I mean it and I quit
Everything I write is shit

Hey, hey
It's a working day
Hey, hey
It's a working day

Introductions: Who Am I?

Maybe I should explain who I am. Would that help? So you're not guessing my gender/sexual orientation/experience (read that how you will...)/genre/life goals/history.

Or maybe you should be guessing those things. Maybe this is a giant lie. Will you ever know?
Oh, the mask of the internet.

Penname: Miles Behn.
Given name: Emily.
Gender: Female.
Location: Born in Western New York.
Current Residence: Twin Cities.
Craft: Writing.
More Specifically: Fiction, Nonfiction.
Even More Specifically: Exploring genres at this point in terms of fiction: young adult, fantasy, science fiction, realistic fiction, post-modernism.
Current Project: In the process of editing my first novel (a young adult fantasy series [I just damned myself to Twilight references, didn't I?]); currently taking a class in nonfiction prose; writing numerous word vomit projects on the side.
Farthest a Piece Has Gotten: First draft completed of a short novel, currently editing. A handful of short pieces published in small (very small) literary magazines.
Influences: Too many.
Modern Writers I Respect: Don DeLillo, John Green, Anne Lamott, Annie Dillard, more of which I can't currently think (that always happens).
Classic Writers I Respect/Desire to Be: William Faulkner, C.S. Lewis, Albert Camus, Kurt Vonnegut, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Oscar Wilde, more of which I can't currently think.
What I Write With: Coffee, hunger, and music.
The Role of the Author: I'm not going to tell you about a piece. It should speak for itself. If it doesn't, it's not a good piece.

So. It is real or fake? Am I this strange melange of pieces crushed together in a survey?

You'll find more on the way. It'll be in the form of word vomit, I'm pretty damn sure.

So It Begins: From the Formless and Empty

Recently I've begun to come to terms with the idea that I am an artist.
Now, before I got too far on this high and mighty quest you've probably envisioned for the "artist," a disclaimer: I use artist in the simplest sense of which I can think.
The artist I "am becoming" is not at all a reference to my ability to write, paint, sculpt, or photograph. It is not about how amazing I am with craft, or how terrible.
When I say artist, I mean a way of living. An artist sees the world differently than others. They see beauty and connections where others see ugliness and chaos. They see something profound in something simple.
But perhaps the most important, isolating, and egotistical aspect of being an artist is the suffocating desire to create something.
An artist cannot escape their craft. If they run from it they find little happiness anywhere else. It is like how Christians speak of God's calling. There is a tugging of one's heartstrings that cannot be ignored. You are called to your craft because you feel little joy anywhere else. When you write the words on the page that just seem to fit together, all the demons of your life just seem to fade away. Everything will be fine if your craft is perfected. If the paint is applied the exact way you envision it, if the coal defines the lines you never knew could be seen then the nightmares will stop; the doubts will be silenced.
You must write because you cannot do anything else.
I want to be anything but a writer some days. I want to be a nurse, a banker, a marine biologist, an astronaut. I want to find happiness in something that doesn't simultaneously cause me so much pain. I want to find joy in helping others, not in attempting to define the cosmos with words. I want to find happiness in the interaction with others, not the movement of a comma, the rearrangement of a paragraph.
But the artist cannot do these things. An artist doing anything but art is an artist living unfulfilled. You've met them before. The old man in the bookstore who stares painfully at the pages of the contemporary art journal. The glassy eyed cashier at the supermarket. The teacher with the breaking heart as she reads the creative words of the students.
These people, for hundreds of different reason I will not deface with guesses, ran away from the call to be artists. They fled like birds before a storm. They flew away from the hurricane of art.
And sometimes, I wish I could flee too; and it's terrifying.