Ways to Thrive as a Writer: Playing with the Shoulds
David had to stay in from recess one day because he wouldn’t show his work during math class. The other kids pitied him as they charged out into fresh air, bright sun, a wide-open playing field.
In that class of seven year olds, David was the odd one. His joy and ease with numbers, in calculating, devising, playing with theories and concepts that perplex high school kids, made others uneasy. Rather than admit that different kids approach math problems differently, the teacher insisted that he color in the apples and pears, draw petals on the flowers, and write a story about the fruit family.
He banged his head on his desk. That’s what got him into trouble. It was scary and bad and wrong and no one else did anything like that and he might hurt himself and then how would the freshly minted, newly-adopted, expensive mathematics program look?
Nine, he kept moaning. The answer is nine.
The answer was nine. David glanced at the page, wrote the answer, was happily anticipating doing an extra challenging worksheet from the basket in the back of the room. The episode erupted when he got up from his desk, handed the teacher the offending page, and headed for the back of the room as the kids were always encouraged to do when they finished their work early. His teacher took one look at the page with its uncolored fruit and unwritten story and the number 9 and told him that he’d done it wrong.
The Shoulds insist that you do it their way.
Fortunately for David, he was the youngest son in a family renowned for its mathematics prowess, with a fierce mother who fought for his right to be his own genius self. His family cherished his gift, nurtured him, and encouraged him to be his fullest, most brilliant self.
Adjustments were made to the program, alternatives were developed that saved other kids from the terrible fate of being stuck inside because you knew the answer and did it your own way.
The Shoulds are happy to wear you down, to add to their legions.
The Shoulds would rather you color in the fruit, draw flowers, and write the story the way that you’re supposed to write it, the way that they told you to. If that way doesn’t work for you at all and you go mute, stupid, and dull, so be it. They’d rather your silence than your finding your own path to do the work that only you can do.
The Shoulds single out genius, at any level and any discipline.
This is so easily done to writers. Already, we stand between conscious and unconscious, what we have to do to be thought a success and what we must do to know ourselves successful. We’re not like everyone else — a source of pride, identity, and confusion.
National Novel Writing Month is loose. There are no shoulds other than the goal of reaching 50,000 words between November 1 and midnight on November 30. The idea is that you write a novel in that time.
Novel is defined by the writer. One writer does a series of linked short stories. Another writes two novellas. Yet another does a fourth-wall breaking story where he inserts his own thoughts and reactions onto the page with the characters for everyone to play with — breaking every should of novel and having a rollicking time with it.
Arguing that there is a single, right way to win says more about the Should-er than it does the hapless person struggling to get it done. When you encounter a Should-er wielding their perfect approach with pants or plots or structured pants, take David’s approach, but put your own spin on it.
Should the Should-er into place.
Do you need a villain? Looks like a Should-er to me.
Does your second chapter call for a bumbling jerk? The Should-er fits the bill.
Do you want a character or a situation that propels itself onto the page and into full, lively story? Use the Should-er as an energy source.
My Should-er self has had a tumultuous time this past NaNoWriMo. Actually, now there is a robust, raucous squad of them, the ones who talk about how to structure, word count, number of this and timing of that, others who are concerned about pants and diagrams. They are so bossy!
This November, I locked my personal pack of Shoulds in a cold, miserable writer’s garret and got my work done. I tried a bunch of different approaches, assessed results by how it felt to write that day, never looked back, trusted my own process.
I’m grateful to my Should crowd for the great good gift of finding my own process, my own way and having a ball with my own story.
My advice is to do one should:
Lock up the Shoulds until you’re ready to laugh them into oblivion.
