Discipline

I've been giving this word some thought. One because I'm reading The Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy. Two because I need some in my life.

Really, it's mostly because I need some. That title just gave me the word I've been looking for to describe my life right now. Have you ever noticed how you'll make excuses for yourself? Or better, have you noticed how I make excuses for myself? Because I do. I do notice it. And I do make excuses for myself.

Like today I was writing. I was trying to think of ideas, and one sort of came to me. Sort of. And so I wrote a scene with something I pictured happening in my head. It was okay. I think most of what I have written for any of the books I've started is okay. Some things are down right good. But good doesn't describe my abilities in the fictional area.

I think this because I've also noticed a little habit forming when I write fiction. I fall back on dialogue a lot. I know need to learn to write more than that. But dialogue is easier than the other stuff, the exposition of the plot and the development of the characters. The action. The drama. The conflict...especially the conflict. And although dialogue is important, part of what makes up a story has to be straight prose.

It's humbling because I don't know how to write a book. I've never done it.

And then. Oh and then, the point. I find myself thinking this thought: "I can't be a writer because I can't do this." Wow. That is a defeatist attitude. I am a good writer. I know I am. But then I have a second thought: "You write non-fiction better than you write fiction." Maybe. But then I've written a lot of non-fiction over the years. I've written hundreds of papers, totaling thousands of pages, including literary critiques, letters, essays, personal memoirs, journal entries, briefs, research papers. On the flip side? I've written a minuscule amount of fiction in comparison - only hundreds of pages.

This is where the discipline of writing comes in, and the challenge, really, at least for me. Fiction writing might not come as naturally for me. But can I really say that I've given something a fair shot when I don't practice it? And it isn't as if my non-fiction always comes out squeaky clean. This blog is proof. Some entries are good, really good. And some are meh. Some are "really, who cares" sorts of entries. But I'm generally good at this sort of writing simply because I've done so much of it over the years. I've kept journals since I was eight, so that is a pretty long career in writing.

BUT...what is discipline really, especially for learning to do something you've never done? Discipline is Markus Zusak writing the first eighty pages of his book over and over again. Two hundred times over again. Discipline is being willing to accept that this will take time and effort. And perhaps that is why this is the best challenge for me. I can grow as a writer if I really give myself over to the rewriting of a first chapter, and then rewriting it over a hundred times to get it right. And so really, it isn't about excuses or feeling defeated because it doesn't come out right the first time. It really is a matter of whether or not I'm willing to give myself over to the discipline of writing fiction.