When I was a teacher (I used to be a teacher), the beginning of the year was always stressful to me.  It wasn’t the planning, because I loved the planning.  It wasn’t setting up the room, because I loved setting up the room.  It was when the kids came that first day and I didn’t love them.

The problem was I was still in love with my class from the previous year.  I knew everything about them, their birthdays, what they enjoyed thinking about and playing, who they fought with and what made them scared.  I was enthralled by their ideas and loved class discussions in all subjects.  I woke up happy to be seeing them.  And then they were gone.  And now there were these perfectly fine children in front of me, for whom I harbored kind thoughts, but who I didn’t know enough to love yet.  Not really love, not with meaning.

I found that two weeks was what it took.  Every year I was worried and miserable that it wouldn’t happen and every year at the two week mark I was besotted again, besotted with this new group of kids and excited to figure out who they were and what they needed.   And every year the relief was enormous, but that never made me less worried come September.

Well, it turns out that writing is the same way for me.  I start a new book and I don’t love it or anybody in it yet.  Or maybe I sort of do, but it feels like a theoretical love for someone who I’ve been told about, who I like the sound of— a friend of a friend maybe—but not someone who is yet in relationship with me, who lives in my heart.  And it stresses me out enormously.  Am I ever going to love this book, I fret?  Am I ever going to feel it?  Weirdly, the classroom love experience does helps me realize that of course I will. Right?  I mean, I hope so.  Ugh.

Anyway, do you know what I mean?  How long does it take you to feel like a book has you by the heart?  What do you do to foster that?  Spill it in the comments!

Not like this is happening to me right now or anything.

GULP.

Procrastination is not really my good buddy. Mostly it is a terrible buddy. As I’ve written before, I am an anxious writer, and the best way to avoid that anxiety is to procrastinate. Of course that’s an awful solution, because delay makes me anxious, too. And when you in the fact that I am a slow, slow writer (for non-cheerful things, that is; cheerful ones cook along much more quickly. Imagine that!), it makes for a perfect stew of self-recrimination. Especially during this month of Nanithingyboo (a wonderful thing! I applaud and salute you all!), during which it seems like all of my friends are writing THOUSANDS of words a day. Thousands! You all, I am lucky if I get in the hundreds, for Pete’s sake. Sometimes I try to comfort myself by remembering that part in Annie Dillard’s memoir where she says she might take all day to write a sentence, but then I remember I am no Annie Dillard and maybe ought to get on the stick a little. At any rate, I am kind of the worst, is the point.

But there is one way in which procrastination has served me well. There is a novel I’ve had in mind for years now. It’s tough and complex in every way, and every time I try to work on it, I wind up thinking of all the other ideas I have for books and wishing I could work on them instead. Indeed, I sit down to work on That Book and characters for new books flop about in my brain like tempting fish. And it seems like the worst thing in the world to be trying to write a novel so far beyond my skill set when I could be working on writing down the stories of these fish-flopping people. And then I think, you know what? I hate this stupid hard book! I hate it. Writing is hard enough without hating it! And I just refuse, that’s all. I just won’t. I am going to daydream about these other characters instead.

And then I do. In fact, I have invented six whole books I want to write while avoiding the writing of That Book.

And you know what? It really works! That procrastination has made me very productive. No, no, not in ultimately writing That Book—I still haven’t done that yet. Don’t be ridiculous. But I have written two of books I dreamed up in order to put off writing That Book. Two! I am beginning to think I can have quite a career Not Writing That Book. Why does it work? Maybe because I feel like I am getting out of something, even though the books I’ve written have been plenty hard to write, too. Or maybe it gives my brain something to rail against, functioning much like the college snack bar did for me way back. I did all my work there because blocking out its wall of talk and noise took the edge of my mind chatter and allowed me to focus. Or maybe I am just cussed. At any rate, it works. It keeps me in a state of ideas-having for all those books, all the time, so I feel very ready to write them when I do finally sit down to write. You know, after I decide yet again that I’m not writing That Book and no one can make me.

In fact, I’m working on a book as we speak. No, no, silly—of course not That Book. But since I still don’t know enough to write That Book, it is fine by me to put it off some more. Because it turns out the answer to “Where Do I Get My Ideas?” is “By Procrastinating the Writing of That Book”. Although I am starting to think that the only way it will get written is from beyond the grave, through the willing arm of an automatic writer. Hmm.

How about you? Any other slow, rail-against-things writers out there? Better yet, any reformed ones who have tips to share? I’d love to hear from you!

My sister is currently on a diet and I am currently on the opposite of that, so a lot of our conversations recently have focused on Foods She Misses Having the Way She Likes Them and Foods I Like and Can Now Have Again Because Enough of You People Are Going Gluten-Free That Those of Us That Don’t Have the Choice Profit from Your Plumping up the Market.  The intersection of these topics is often sandwiches.  Sandwiches are hands-down my sister’s favorite food, and hands-up one of the foods I never thought I would really eat again, given that gluten-free breads, for a long time, tasted like little decks of playing cards.  But even given the improved gluten-free developments referenced above, it is still the middles of sandwiches I like the best.   My sister and I were discussing this the other day.

Sandwich-Loving Sister:  How can you love the filling more than the sandwich as a whole?  The entire point of a sandwich is the way the texture of the bread works with the texture of the filling!

Me:  The entire point of a sandwich is having a lot of mayonnaise. (pause)  Or melted cheese.

SWL:  Are you insane?    The bread is what gives mayonnaise and cheese a reason for being!

 Me:   Nope.  The bread is just the delivery vehicle for the yummy part.  THE INSIDES.

 SWL:  (horrible sound of hair being torn) Are we even sisters?!

Me:  Yup.

In the tumultuous aftermath of this conversation, I realized my position towards editorial letters and the like is exactly the same as my view of sandwiches.    And that makes sense because editorial letters are so often constructed just like sandwiches.  Criticism sandwiches.

I’m sure you all have heard of this.  When one delivers criticism, the theory goes, one is meant to lead with a compliment, touch upon a point that could use improving, and then end with more compliments.  As in, “You look so pretty today!  Did you know you have a  popsicle stick stuck in your hair?   Your shoes are heaven!”  Compliment, criticism, compliment.     Bread, filling, bread.

I get the thinking behind this for sure.  But for me, the minute I receive an editorial letter or an email from a friend who has offered a critical eyeball on a draft of something I have written, all I can do is skim until I hit the meat.

Me reading editorial notes:  Blah, blah, blah you love me YES I AGREE THAT WHOLE PART STINKS LIKE THE BUSINESS END OF A FARM ANIMAL, kind things, whatever, blah.

All I care about is the farm animal, people.  If I am honest, I don’t even believe the bread.  I appreciate the gesture of the bread.  But the filling feels like the truth to me, confirming as it does my own belief that everything I write is kind of terrible.

I didn’t say I was rational.

But that’s the way it is, and I have to admit I like the symmetry of my reactions to criticism sandwiches and actual ones.  I know other people are different. For example, I have a friend who always prefaces conversations about her work with careful coaching.  “I need my compliment sandwiches with a lot of bread,” she tells us, and indeed, I am a total bread-giver as a reader.  My comments are practically encased in a whole peasant loaf.  And I mean every word!  So why do I only believe in a full-on Scooby Doo sandwich minus the endpieces for myself?   Maybe I am just wary of bread, even when metaphorical.  Or maybe I am a little bats.   Probably both.

How about you?  How do you like your feedback sandwiches?  I’d love to hear what you think!