Beginnings are Hard

While these days I primarily use my veterinary degree to work as a medical editor, for 20 years I practiced clinical medicine – meaning I was in the clinic, seeing patients, anywhere from 2 to 5 days a week. At the end of 2019, however, I decided to take a step back and focus more on non-clinical work and also, oops, a global pandemic happened. What that means is, I went a loooong time without seeing patients. Even now, I only work in a clinic about once a month.

Fortunately (for me and my patients lol), practicing medicine is a “just like riding a bike” activity. I am perfectly comfortable slipping back into my role as veterinarian, even if it’s been a few months since I last did it.

So, yeah, creative work isn’t like that. Every time I start a new book, a new story, etc, I feel like a giant dum dum who has to learn how to write all over again.

Too bad “beginning” is the word of the month. I recently had a clear idea for a short story for the first time in a long time, and I wrote a page of it but then got busy with other stuff and now am not sure how to re-enter the story. I also recently got notes back on my latest novel from my agent (Hi, Hana!) so I’m in the process of formulating the revisions I need to do to make this book all that it can be. What that means is I’ll be starting a new novel soon. I sort of did already (I mentioned it last time) and I wrote the first chapter of that project to apply to some writing residencies. But it didn’t come out as the book I thought it was going to be, and now I’m not sure it’s the one I want to draft right now. (Or maybe I just don’t know what happens in the second chapter).

Maybe you’re like this, too. Even if you’re not a writer, you may have some creative project – painting, knitting, photography – tickling the back of your brain that you’re itching to work on, but can’t quite make yourself do it. Why are we like this? I mean, I want to write. I love writing! Or at least I love having written. But there sit my various documents, glaring at me and feeling neglected. And yes, day job and family obligations, and the dog who wants to be let out, and in, and out again. But those things are all the time. There is something particularly daunting about beginning.

Some of why it’s hard to start a writing project is easy to explain. I don’t “know” the characters yet, so their points of view don’t come as naturally as they do for characters I just spent several months with. I do a barebones outline at best (for the writers in the audience, I like to say I write pants of center) which means I often discover what’s happening next right along with my characters. Revisions can be a complex problem that affects the whole structure of the book. That can take some time to figure out.

But there’s a more “why do I do this to myself” reason. To put it simply: I know that the moment I start something I’ve already failed. Which sounds terrible (and feels terrible) but is also true. The words I commit to laptop will never fully evoke the emotion, beauty, and art of the ephemeral narrative that’s in my head. They can’t. That is the limits of words, and the limit of humans using words to convey emotions and ideas and relationships. (Computers are a fafillion times worse at it, before you get any ideas.)

Which raises the question of: Why bother? If I know I can never match what’s in my head, why even try? It’s a lot easier to read books, after all. (And even easier to buy them!)

I ask myself the “why bother” question A LOT. (So do most writers, in my experience). I am sorry to say that the answer is as cliched as it comes. So cliched I don’t even want to say it. (Hint: It is NOT about the destination.)

Look, what I’m saying is, there is nothing comparable to the feeling of unlocking a story, of discovering a character’s real motivation, of writing a sentence that makes you sit back in your chair with a long, low exhale that says: “Wow. I did that.”

(Note I did not say there is nothing better, our lives are rich when we let them be so, but there is nothing comparable.)

It’s nice, of course, to hear other people praise your work, or tell you that it made them feel validated or awestruck or devastated. Sometimes that’s the only thing that keeps you going. But even that has nothing on the satisfaction you feel when you know, that even if it’s surrounded by another 75K words of suck, you NAILED this one bit.

But, you can’t get to that place unless you start, and unless you fail a lot along the way. Sorry. Them’s the breaks. Time to get to work.

If you want a tl;dr version, here’s Joan Didion’s from a Paris Review interview:

“I start a book and I want to make it perfect, want it to turn every color, want it to be the world. Ten pages in, I’ve already blown it, limited it, made it less, marred it. That’s very discouraging. I hate the book at that point. After a while I arrive at an accommodation: Well, it’s not ideal, it’s not the perfect object I wanted to make, but maybe – if I go ahead and finish it anyway – I can get it right next time. Maybe I can have another chance.”

Something I’m reading/watching/listening to:

If you watched this year’s Emmy awards, you might have seen this guy you didn’t recognize, Jeff Hiller, win for best supporting actor in a comedy. If you haven’t seen the show he won for, Somebody, Somewhere, I am begging you to watch it. There are only 3 short seasons on HBO; you could probably watch the whole thing over a long, rainy weekend if you wanted to. It’s about platonic love, and found family (and finding connection with family you weren’t real close to before), and learning to love yourself and the people around you even though we’re all horribly imperfect. It’s a deeply human show, and one of my favorite things about it is that the tension is never from some dopey, contrived miscommunication, but instead is from people being unable to break out of their old, harmful patterns until the people around them help them do it.

But if THAT doesn’t appeal to you, maybe I can interest you in a celebrity memoir? The aforementioned Jeff Hiller also recently released a memoir called Actress of a Certain Age, about finally getting your “big break” 25 years into a career that you love even though it doesn’t love you back. It’s hilarious and touching and very relatable – at one point he says the book is about being a performer who’s not allowed to perform, and whew, do I get that. I am not an audiobook person, but I make an exception for celebrity memoirs b/c they read them themselves and he’s not a comedic actor for nothing. Read/listen just to find out how he meant to go to Ireland and went to Namibia instead.

What I’m working on:

As I said above, I just got notes back on my latest novel, which is about a by-the-book monster hunter for the US government who messes up big time and has to choose between saving her job and saving her relationship with her (literally) demonic ex. (Who is also a cat dad and a little bit of a himbo with a self-help book obsession.) This book was an absolute blast to work on, and let’s hope this continues to be true for this round of revisions. 

Random celebrity tales from my time as a hotel maid

As promised on Bluesky!

Starting at the age of 15, I worked every summer at Blantyre, a fancy hotel housed in a former Gilded Age cottage in the Berkshires in Massachusetts. We didn’t often get like, world-famous celebrities, but we did get some! We also got a lot of people famous in the classical music world because we were right near Tanglewood. So, in no particular order:

• Jane Fonda and Ted Turner stayed for a weekend while they were still married. Ted had a huge, booming voice. One time I was cleaning the hallway outside their room and heard Ted say: “YOU’RE MY GAL, AND I’M YOUR PAL!” I could not hear Jane’s response.

• John Williams, conductor and composer of many of your favorite movie soundtracks, was a regular. He always had to have a bottle of Stoli and some fresh squeezed OJ waiting for him. If his wife wasn’t with him, we were not allowed to use floral sheets.

• Toni Morrison! I was really excited about this one. I was working turndown one night (where you make the room look pretty and put chocolates on their pillows) and she came out of her room and I said, “Good evening, Ms. Morrison,” and she… totally ignored me.

• Mia Farrow stayed one night only and most of the staff didn’t see her. Literally 1-2 days after she checked out, Woody Allen announced that he was leaving her for Soon-yi Previn.

• You may not know these names if you aren’t an opera fan, but sopranos Jessye Norman (who was lovely and gracious) and Kathleen Battle (whom we were all afraid of) were regulars. One time I was cleaning Jessye Norman’s room and sucked the train of her gorgeous WHITE performance dress into the vacuum cleaner, leaving a small grease mark at the bottom. I folded it over and told no one – UNTIL NOW.

• I have a mildly horrifying story about the “Time to Make the Donuts” guy from the 80’s Dunkin Donuts commercial, but I only share that one in person.

Thank you for reading! If you’ve missed previous installments, you can find them here. You can always find links to my published work here on my website. If you have any questions/thoughts on what I’m writing/reading/watching or there are topics you’d like to see me cover, leave a comment or drop me a line here!

💕 Katie