a perfectionist's struggle
after many rewrites, how I discovered that the writing wasn't the problem. it went much deeper than that.
Two years and five months. Four complete re-writes. 5 am wakeups. 106k words (about 20k too many for my genre). And then there are the things I can’t quantify like the infinite thoughts about people who don’t exist, and the time spent stretching my mind like a rubber band to find different ways to convey meaningful looks without dialogue. The story went left. Then right. Went to Europe. Then to Benedict Canyon. Back to the Eastside. Some ideas stayed. Many were saved for a rainy day.
But I did it.
I hit send. And off went my most confident rewrite of my latest novel (along with a metaphorical pint of blood) to my editor, which means it’s officially in production. It also means I get about a two-month break from it as I emotionally replenish from these last 2+ years. As I look back, this entire process reminds me of the idiom for the month of March: in like a lion, out like a lamb (a weathered, ratty, tired little lamb, but still…a lamb. Bah.)
I started it in July 2021 (a little before the publication of Slanted and Disenchanted) thinking I had a shoo-in with the sequel. I had written most of it, knew the characters like close family members and had a precise vision of the story, so what could go wrong? I had all of the ingredients to complete a novel.
Then I began writing.
And oh, mon dieu.
Something just wasn’t working and instead of taking a step back to assess, I rang out the rag even tighter to force myself to continue while name-calling that I was a (insert self-hatred adjective here). Because to me, virtue was pummeling through the self-chatter without asking why it was there in the first place. I took false pride in jumping over the blinking cursor hurdles and filling the blank pages with words, as I validated my self-worth with a climbing word count. I paid no mind to my alcohol-related sleep deprivation and my dangerous dehydration levels (despite all the water I was drinking) because it “had to be done.”
And I did it.
In December of 2021, I had a completed draft in my hand that I prematurely toasted to with a glass of champagne, social media posts and an embarrassing TikTok video that I’m just too fucking old for. But I remember even then, as my brain softened from the boozy bubbles that I hadn’t written the story. And my characters knew it too, which was why they gave me such a dull and hesitant performance. And the side characters weren’t revealing themselves, so they remained one dimensional and a mystery to me. No one knew what I wanted from them, and it came out in the awkward way they moved across the page and interacted with each other. So, if they were confused, what does this say about the writer?
Well, the writer was a mess.
Turns out medicating perfectionism, disordered eating and anxiety with alcohol had finally caught up with me. What I got away with in my 20s and 30s, was morphing into an internal meltdown in my 40s. Internal because not one person in my life knew what was happening because I had gotten so good at disguising the dysfunction. But the cracks, I think, were starting to show. However, that didn’t change how calcified my denial was so it was going to take something big to make a change. My subconscious knows that after my family, the most important thing to me is writing. It’s what keeps me sane and feeling safe (and I don’t toss this out lightly - it’s true) and so this was how it got me to wake the fuck up. Like a medium uses a body to communicate with the afterworld, my brain, the smart little cookie she is, used my own words as a vehicle to say, ‘Hey lady, we have a problem here’.
Real quick: I used to blame L.A. for my dysfunction with food and quest for perfection but I see now that I may have chosen L.A. because it enabled this kind of thinking (it did back in those days, at least) and the accessibility of hard drugs helped, too. I also blamed my neurosis on growing up in New York City. But, of course, it’s much deeper than that and goes back to childhood as these stories usually do. Growing up around addiction I felt like I lived in an uncontrolled environment so to compensate for the uncertainty I turned to perfectionism as a self-defense. Perfectionism reveals itself in many shapes and isn’t always the buttoned-up, straight-A student we imagine. Perfectionists can be punk rock, too (hi.) Mine came in body weight obsession (control), exaggerated self-preservation (fear), people-pleasing (approval) to the undeserving and while I’m here, Joan Crawford-style clean floors and toilets (more control). When any of these criteria for perceived peace of mind (perfectionism) felt threatened, I would get stressed (anxiety) and to relieve that as an adult, I would drink (alcoholism). Drink not to think, which would then result in overthinking and even more anxiety, which we now call hangxiety. I would then blame myself (anxiety) by withholding food consumption (control) all while smiling (perfection) and grinding out a tableside guac in a mortar and pestle while nipping at the bottle of tequila (alcoholism) under the counter.
The cycle was vicious. The cycle was real. The cycle as time wore on made for some chaotic writing.
It had been decades that I’d operated like this, so I didn’t see the problem until it came back to me in my own writing. I remember watching an interview with Courtney Love back in the ‘90s when she told Kurt Loder that she wasn’t psychic but her lyrics were. At the time, it seemed so abstract, not because I didn’t understand the sentence but because I was 13. What the fuck did I know? As a 42-year-old who relies on writing as my creative medium of choice, and has experienced a version of this now, it makes perfect sense. I realized the words on the pages were no longer using my life as inspiration for storytelling, but rather a cry for help. But I resisted. I grew exhausted arguing with myself and angry because the story wasn’t perfect so I would drink to reward numb myself after a long writing day even if I wasn’t proud of the work.
So, with all of this in mind, how in the hell did I write the first novel?
I’ll tell you: I was sober when I wrote it.
The simplest answer is usually the least convenient.
After three months, I assumed I was “cured” and can drink like a “normal person”. I let the bad habits creep back in as I tried to fix everything but the actual problem. It wasn’t until I decided to sit down with the messy first drafts to force myself to learn something. As I read through the hundreds of pages, I could feel my face twisting and wincing in the discomfort of reading the words of a mind beginning to unravel. It’s uncomfortable when it’s someone else, so you can imagine how awesome it feels when it’s you.
At the start of 2023, I took a one-day-at-a-time approach and focused on hydration and sleep, which are the physical foundations of sobriety, while meditation and journaling are the emotional. I reintroduced a two and then three-meal daily eating structure and walks in the forest. When these crucial life necessities I had been neglecting felt more tended to and the days began to stack up, I opened up a word doc to try again.
And the experience was completely different, which was no surprise even for us folks up in the cheap seats. What I was surprised about was the decades of denial I’d been in because I really did think I was fine. But that’s addiction. It wants to hear everything but the truth.
It was only a matter of time before that destruction tricked down to my family and I live in gratitude every day that it didn’t and I resist the guilt of the what-ifs. I also live in gratitude that my writing served as a call for help because I don’t know what kind of state of mind (or worse) I would be in today if I didn’t change. While the shame of the past 20 years is still a work in progress, it lifts just a little with each day I take care of myself. As for those first drafts, they remain unpublishable, but I’m grateful to have tangible evidence of personal growth.
As for the draft I just sent to my editor. It’s far from perfect. But I guess, that’s sort of the point.
Thanks for reading. I know the topic is a bit heavy for a Friday in mid-December, so to end on George Constanza high note, I present you with our pink Christmas tree who incidentally we call Courtney. (I can’t believe my 8-year-old hasn’t protested this yet.)
Happy holidays and bon week-end, friends.
With warmth and pom-pom angel tree-toppers,
LCM
