Knurd to Writer’s Block

Unless you’re a hardcore Terry Pratchett fan, you are probably wondering what knurd is. Knurd, on Terry Pratchett’s Discworld, is an extreme state of sobriety, where all the pink illusions we comfort ourselves with are stripped away to leave stark, bare reality. It is described as being all the way through sobriety and out the other side. Someone who is knurd needs a couple of drinks just to be sober. Put simply, it's the complete and absolute (not Absolut! ha!) opposite of drunk. In fact, read it backwards...

So what do I mean when I talk about the knurd to writer’s block (assuming writer’s block is a state of drunkenness).

I’m referring to someone who has so many writing ideas, and is so dedicated to the idea of their craft, they become paralysed by indecision. I think this complex is tied to perfectionism. And I am guilty as charged.

Because last week I had a serious case of writer’s knurd. 

I realised this when I I was struck by recognition that I have eight short stories and one novel, none of which are finished. I mean, they are finished in the sense they have a beginning, middle and an end. But I have never completed the editing process. Which is not to say I haven’t edited them to the end. Because I have. Many times. I just… keep editing.

It kind of goes like this:

 

Step 1 – Write story.

Step 2 – Revise story.

Step 3 – Give story to alpha and beta readers.

Step 4 – Consider feedback and revise and edit as needed.

Step 5 – repeats Step 1 – 4.

And there should be a Step 6 – Finished, but there isn’t! Why not? Two reasons:

• I’m constantly trying to improve the work. Part of this stems from the fact I am nearly always studying my craft, learning new things, seeing old errors in the work and then wanting to correct them. The other part is just a complete inability to recognise when the work is finished i.e. no longer needs improving. 
•  I don’t know what to do when I get polar opposite feedback from my readers, and I mean polar opposite e.g. ‘I love this’ versus ‘this is terrible’.

So I went into emotional meltdown when I realised all this, or otherwise had a knurd moment, and suddenly reality was so tangibly real I couldn’t cope. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t see how to fix this. OK, so I’m a control freak who always knows the answer (or at least has a strategy that might lead to the answer) and this is most likely a contributing factor. 

Not knowing what else to do, I sought advice from some people I know, and what I got back helped. 

Summed up, it went like this:

• Are you a perfectionist? Because you might have to let go of that;
• Don’t listen to the critics and be true to yourself;
• Don’t let someone else edit your own voice out of your work;
• There is no way to know when a piece of work is finished; you just have to decide that it is; and
• You are a perfectionist, I know this. Creative writing is an art, like the performing arts, and often the pursuit of perfection is encouraged but is ultimately unattainable. Recognise that.

Probably no one piece of advice I got was enough on its own, but together they all helped me to get some perspective. So I came up with some rules:

• Disregard any feedback which is not supported by at least two readers. For better or worse, if it is a solitary opinion I will treat it as a subjective opinion until someone else agrees there is an issue. For my own sanity;
• I will not entertain changes that don’t feel right to me. I don’t mean of the variety of ‘My writing is perfect and nothing needs to be changed’ but more the variety of ‘If I make these changes I will be changing the very nature of the piece’. Or, put another way, it would destroy my voice. Someone else might write the same story a very different way, but it doesn’t mean my way isn’t right for me, or that either way is better. Just that I am writing with my voice and not the voice of another! 

As for finishing… I’ll just need to let go of my perfectionism. That may be easier said than done, coming from the black and white legal background I do, but I will try. 

I would like to give a shout out to the people who generously gave advice last week; @sirra_girl, @JustinBog, @DionneLister, @CharityParkerso, @RachelintheOC, @amberrisme, @wxmouse, and Erin, my friend since 1994 at school. 

And a special shoutout to @LydiaAswolf for helping me to hear my voice. Because of you, I won’t be making wholesale changes to a short story I wrote.

Thank you all and apologies to anyone I might have missed.

 

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