To Be Seen or Not To Be Seen?
an inner conflict and a novel writing update
I’ve been thinking a lot about being seen lately. Specifically online. Despite having this newsletter and running a business that is entirely dependent on the internet, I don’t really consider myself a very “online” person. I don’t have a TikTok account. When I make my Friday memes for Write or Die’s Instagram, I do it with care, but I also do it somewhat quickly, saving posts throughout the week so that I can spend as little time on the app as possible. And that’s only because Instagram makes me anxious if I’m on it too long. Therefore, I don’t post much on my personal Instagram or Twitter accounts either. But part of that is because I honestly don’t know what to say. I feel shy. How much of myself do I want to share? And then sometimes my pessimistic self thinks, “What's even the point? No one cares.”
But I feel conflicted about it as writers around me work on their author brands. This idea that your writer self needs to exist online and that if you do it well, it can wildly change your life. It can allow you to write full-time even, something I daydream about. (In this daydream, I’m living in a little house by the ocean, and I breathe in the sea air while I draft my little novels.)
By not being more online, I feel like I’m wasting an opportunity. That if I just put myself out there, more than better things would happen to me. It’s an anxiety I don’t quite know what to do with.
To be seen or not to be seen?
I’m working on reframing my thoughts around it.
It's not a coincidence I’m thinking about all of this now. I’m about halfway through the fourth draft of my novel, and my protagonist very much wants to be seen. She is twenty-one and constantly looking for validation from others. It’s a craving as real and governing as her appetite for desserts. She has no idea who she is, so she looks to find herself through the eyes of others.
As the creator of her little world, sometimes it gets tiring—this girl's constant need for attention.
“Relax, honey,” I wanted to say. “It's all so fleeting.”
But, of course, I don’t.
I make her life even harder.
And I could say the same thing to myself.
“Relax, honey, you are doing your best with this internet thing.”
Attention is great, praise is wonderful, but at the end of the day, how is my novel going?
Novel Update!
I’m stealing this format from Danielle Lazarin’s Talk Soon Revision Series for this little update. (I’ve done this before, and she said it was okay!)
What I’ve Done So Far
Rewrote Act One, or the first 60 odd pages. There was a lot of restructuring and tightening to be done. I’m happy to report that I did not have a breakdown while rewriting like I thought I would. I have finally found the voice of this novel. It was right there in the middle of draft 3 and I was ecstatic to find it. I was able to embrace a playfulness in the work when adding that voice to Act One and I feel okay with the beginning of this novel for…the first time ever?
Kind of outlined. My writer friend Kristin recommended The Plot Whisper by Martha Alderson right around the time I read through my 3rd draft. It was one of those right place, right time things—I needed this book at this moment in my process. Alderson has you outline your novel on butcher or easel paper, a big piece of it tapped to your wall so you can see it all the time. I got my pastel-colored post-it notes and fresh Sharpie markers and went to work. But I didn’t outline as detailed as the book suggests. Or haven’t yet anyway. Something that I found very helpful was her chapter on what she calls “energetic markers” of the story. Basically the end of the beginning, the halfway mark, a crisis and the climax. From my understanding of story and from reading Save the Cat, I thought I knew where those points were in the story. But Alderson’s definition clarified something for me.
“Every story has its own energy that operates within the universal pattern and contributes to the whole. The energetic markers guide you where and when to direct the flow of the scene and how to encourage the energy to crest and hall for the greatest impact.”
This triggered me to look at the second half of my novel differently and, I think, get a better hold on the chain of events that will lead to the ending. These markers are what I put on my wall, the map I will follow.
What I’ve Learned
I can write any time of day if I really want to. I had it in my head for years that I’m a morning writer, and that is the only time I can do my best work. And while I do prefer writing before my other daily tasks, I have learned that I can make myself write and still write well in the afternoon or the evening. This draft feels alive in ways that my other draft wasn’t, and its energy is propelling me to the page. That has been helpful. But there are many mornings I don’t have time to write because of meetings, urgent emails, and tasks. In the past, I might have been angry or frustrated and not even tried to write at all. But I have set a goal for myself to write every day if I can, no matter what, and sometimes that has looked like 7:00 PM and other times it's after lunch (which I’m honestly kind of preferring!). I feel victorious over this kind of obvious discovery. Sometimes it just takes a little thought process shift.
What’s Ahead
My goal is to give this finished draft to my writing partner by December 31. I work well with a timeline. My draft is just about to reach 40,000 words, which I think is about halfway. That means I have seven more weeks to edit and rewrite 40,000 more odd words.
The murky middle: So far, I’m having a blast. My protagonist is working in the restaurant now and about to get up to no good but in a fun, sexy way. The shit hasn’t hit the fan yet. But soon, I will reach the part of my draft littered with TK’s from where I didn’t know what to write or how I wanted the scene to unfold. I have some plotholes to fill. I’m savoring the chapters that feel more complete and just need some continuity edits or word changes because soon, I will be writing some brand new scenes and hacking what has already been written to bits.
What I’m afraid of
For once, I don’t have a lot of fear around this draft. I’m feeling confident I can make my deadline. I know there might be some pacing problems or, hell, even plot ones, but that is up to my writing partner, my first reader, to help point out. I've been in this draft on my own for three years, and I’m so excited to get someone else’s take on it. I need some fresh eyes. So, for right now, I’m feeling quite fearless, and that feels really good.
I’m working on an idea for this newsletter, and I’d love your help. Who are some published authors or Substack writers you know who have worked at some point in the service industry (waitress, bartender, any job in a restaurant)?