I don't know what I'm doing but I can walk through walls

Finding the silver lining with beginner's mind

I’m having heavy imposter syndrome. This last week or so I’ve worked hard to quiet the voice telling me I’m not creating anything beautiful or impactful (and that I never will).

Yesterday, however, a bit of creativity wisdom from one of my favorite fantasy authors floated up from my subconscious memory and I share it with you all below. It’s been helping me stay the course and keep putting words on the page.

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It’s true, I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’ve written 45,776 words of my science fiction novel, and I’m pretty sure 80% of it is unreadable.

I’ve never written a novel. And I’m learning that the thousands of essays, legal briefs, poems, short stories, and text messages I’ve written throughout my life have not been good practice for novel-writing. When it comes to storytelling, I’m worse than amateur—I’m basic.

I’m still figuring out how to make a scene fill with tension. And how to make characters feel like real people; how to hook readers with the first sentence, first paragraph, and first page of a story. I don’t know if readers will see themselves in my protagonists, or care if they succeed. I don’t know if the world I’m building will be as fascinating to potential readers as it is to me.

But maybe there is something valuable in not knowing all the “rules” of storytelling. Maybe my lack of formal training will allow my writing to be expansive and unpredictable—outside of the mold.  

There are many disadvantages of starting novel-writing late in life. But the attitude I’m clinging to is: there is value in the beginner’s mind.

Fantasy author Patrick Rothfuss put it best. His character Kvothe is an experienced musician in The Wise Man’s Fear. Kvothe said the following about another character Denna, who is a beginner in music composition:

And though Denna was new to this study, in some ways that worked to her advantage. I’d learned about music since before I could talk. I knew ten thousand rules of melody and verse better than I knew the backs of my own hands.

Denna didn’t. In some ways this hampered her, but in other ways it made her music strange and marvelous....

I’m doing a poor job of explaining this. Think of music as being a great snarl of a city like Tarbean. In the years I spent living there, I came to know its streets. Not just the main streets. Not just the alleys. I knew shortcuts and rooftops and parts of the sewers. Because of this, I could move through the city like a rabbit in a bramble. I was quick and cunning and clever.

Denna, on the other hand, had never been trained. She knew nothing of shortcuts. You’d think she’d be forced to wander the city, lost and helpless, trapped in a twisting maze of mortared stone.

But instead, she simply walked through the walls. She didn’t know any better. Nobody had ever told her she couldn’t. Because of this, she moved through the city like some faerie creature. She walked roads no one else could see, and it made her music wild and strange and free.

That’s what I’m hoping is true about my writing right now: wild and strange and free.

Write on,

Noor

PS: If you’re struggling to get words on the page, the below post might help.