My Writerly Achilles Heel

My Facebook friend, Al Boudreau, posts daily questions to writers on Facebook. His question this morning was:






Writers/Authors: We all have strengths and weaknesses in our writing. What are you most deft at, in terms of winning readers over to make them fans? What are you striving to improve about your mad skills? 


Several authors have given their interesting, often self-deprecating answers. Reading them, it's good to know I'm not the only one out there. Here was my answer:


I think "voice" is my writing strength. My weakness is getting that shitty first draft on paper without being compulsive about getting every blasted sentence perfect. Most writers talk about over-editing their manuscripts. I over-edit my sentences.

I thought it was interesting that I had to think A LOT longer about my strengths than I did my weaknesses. Maybe that's because I'm experiencing one particular weakness full-on in the last few days. For over a week now, I have been stuck in the thick sludge of re-writing sentences over and over as I try to move forward with a story. I don't know if I should blame it on my obsessiveness with trying to get each sentence just right, or if I should blame it on my character's stubborn refusal to tell me her story.

In my Monday Mashup, I posted a link to an article by Jhumpa Lahiri called "My Life's Sentences." In the article, she states, "Constructing a sentence is the equivalent of taking a Polaroid snapshot: pressing the button, and watching something emerge." It is the same for me. I see mini stories within each sentence. Perhaps that's why I like to write haiku. (Click here to go to my haiku blog.)


I felt a little better after reading Ms. Lahiri's essay on her own struggle with sentences. She says:

My work accrues sentence by sentence. After an initial phase of sitting patiently, not so patiently, struggling to locate them, to pin them down, they begin arriving, fully formed in my brain. 

Still, it hasn't helped me to get more sentences down on paper. I suppose it's just one more aspect of waiting that tries the patience of a writer. Waiting for replies on queries. Waiting for a publisher or agent to call. Waiting for a character to tell her story. Waiting for a sentence to come.


So . . . back to Mr. Boudreau's question: What are your writerly strengths and weaknesses?