I always feel that it’s a big mistake to tell people what you’re working on. In part, if you talk too much about it there’s a greater chance that you won’t do it. There’s also the feeling that if you give too much away, you leech the project of its essential oils. I’m never paranoid that anyone is going to “steal” my ideas; I don’t think people really can steal your ideas, or execute them the way that you would. Still, blabbing too soon is like an artist showing his subject the portrait when it is half done. You leave yourself wide open.
Also, I always feel like an ass when I talk about a work in progress. Last week at a memorial services, someone asked me what I was working on and I described an intricate plot for a screenplay I haven’t written a word of. Call me superstitious, but I’m pretty sure I jinxed it and never will write a word of it. Whereas if I kept my big fat fucking mouth closed, the idea would continue to blossom in my head rather than be dispelled. Maybe I will, but I think it’s a point well taken. Don’t go on about the most important work in your life at a cocktail party, spinning class, at the dry cleaner or the mikvah. Protect it, keep it under wraps, let it marinate and percolate before it takes its first breath of air. Is yakking every beneficial to your project? Or best to keep it corked?
Filed under: Writers |
Betsy Lerner 
Wow, I’m exactly the same way! Sometimes people make me feel stupid for not telling, as if I’m only doing it because I think they’ll steal my ideas, but the reasons you gave are the same of my own. It’s more of a superstition than anything else.
I have gotten really, really good and dodging the “what is it about?” question, though!
It’s really not a superstition, it has to do with the subconscious. There’s a lot of inner creative power in “remaining silent,” one of the hardest things for me to do too. I told a lot of people that I was going to Florida today, and see? My flight was cancelled. I’m joking, but it’s the same principle. It seems like every time I open my big mouth, the thing I talk about doesn’t happen. It’s when I shut up that the miracle happens. If only I could shut up more often. (But you always post ideas that make me want to comment, Betsy!)
Another reason to stay mum is that people often don’t understand that the proper reaction to hearing what someone is working on is to jump up and down while clapping their hands and exclaiming, “Oh, boy!” repeatedly.
If they don’t, it’s a buzz kill.
Yep. I’m with you on the advisability to keep mum about a project I’m working on. I’ve made the mistake of discussing bits and pieces of my finished work which I am extentsively revising per suggestions from my agent. And I’ve found that I’m loathe to get with the project. I’ve always been highly close-mouthed regarding my writing as I’ve felt that until my project is published it must be kept under wraps. I suspect because I feel to expose it too soon might kill it. And here I went and let friends and relatives read opening portions of the book and now I’m regretting it.
I find it beneficial to talk a bit about my projects. It’s like trying to lose weight or quit smoking–it makes me accountable for my actions (or lack thereof) if everyone has expectations of me.
I try to keep such talk to a minimum though, because the reality is, aside from my mother and other writers, most people truly don’t give a shit.
There are psychoanalysts who instruct analysands not to describe their dreams to anyone else, not even to write them down, just to bring them into the analysis and describe them there, because otherwise the act of describing the dream in those other contexts sets it in amber prematurely.
I don’t talk about work in progress, but because some people do seem interested when they ask, I’ll talk about something they can understand (in theory) — clients, editing, etc. That way they seem me as accountable to others, not just myself — which doesn’t carry as much weight with non-writers. A friend once asked about my book and when I said I wasn’t finished yet, she said, “Well that’s no one’s fault but your own, get busy.” While that has an element of truth, it’s also clear most people have no idea what it takes to write an essay, let alone a book. I also keep my mouth shut because plans change.
I’m with Sherry. I like to talk about what I’m working on. I even blog about my progress. It makes me feel accountable for the goals I have set.
However, I don’t go on and on about the actual story. The main course has to wait for publication.
I talk to friends who ask. Varying amounts of detail depending on their interest. But in most situations I just say something like, I’m re-writing a novel. Or I’m working on another book–a contemporary YA.
Do plumbers go on at parties about back-ups, break downs and false starts? Do surgeons, dentists, mechanics or air traffic controllers? Most likely with peers. And what writer if honest thinks they have a peer? We are all looking for fans and looking too early. I agree. Let’s shut up and work.
Nothing superstitious about it. Unfinsihed projects ahve a way of dying when exposed to the air. Never share until youa re nearly finsihed and even then it’s a risk.
I’m a corker. Like you, I feel like talking about something I haven’t written yet leeches all the air our of it. The project is never going to float.
I CAN talk about what I’ve already written and haven’t edited (though maybe I shouldn’t) because I feel like people have less patience with your verbal story, and you have to cut to the heart of the matter. That process in itself can help clarify what is meat, fat or bone in your story.
Cork.
Totally agree Betsy. Mum’s the word, silence is golden, and a few hundred other cliches I could throw out, but yes, I do not talk about a project that isn’t completed.
It’s not so much that I’m worried that I’ll throw some bad juju on it, or jinx it, but I’ve had a few situations where I’ve blabbed, and it has come back to haunt me. Usually the problem is that I haven’t completely thought the entire thing through, and the listener walks away scratching their head thinking I’m some kind of loon.
Or the worse one, I start spilling my guts, and come to a part where I haven’t thought it through yet, and the listener says “Oooooh, I think it should ….. blah, blah, blah”. Number one, it’s not where I want to take it. Number two, months later when I retell the story to them, they ask, “So why didn’t you use my great idea about …. blah, blah, blah?”
Now you have to say either the idea was stupid, or you were stupid for not using it, neither of which works out too well.
So unlike Nike.
Don’t do it.
For me, I’ve come to realize that people are really interested in this quasi career I have going as a writer and they want to hear about how I’m progressing in the world. It’s been a big challenge for me to let people in on that and not to suffer in silence when I fail and cheer in silence when I succeed. If that means that sometimes I have to say, “No, it got turned down and I’m rewriting,” well, too bad. When I isolate too much, things get ugly around here. This is a scary neighborhood to be in alone – that is, the one in my head.
I try to share ideas about only the things that can bear an airing.
I agree with you. It’s important to keep the unborn idea inside for a full gestation. Premature babies have a harder time than those who are carried to term.
Pardon the metaphor but it seems apt.
There are few things sadder than unpublished writers talking about their “work,” so I don’t.
There but for the grace of [whoever is in charge of dumb luck, celebrity memoirs, and vampires] go us all. Thanks, Bill.
I talk about my work in progress (sort of) by pointing out my stories as they’re published, as they are excerpts from my novel. It’s gratifying to have them read by friends and receive the buzz from that, but I don’t talk about the novel per se. For that, I am waiting.
As a professional storyteller, I compose mentally and try out scenes aloud on family and friends. The story does not consist of a series of words, but a series of scenes, which I commit to memory as if they were actual experiences. In performance, I adapt the way I describe those scenes (and sometimes rearrange or delete scenes) to fit the audience, the venue, and the allotted time.
For me, it is hazardous to write a story down first, because beginning with an “official” version gets in the way. In performance I keep trying to remember the way the story “should” be told, instead of telling it the way it needs to be told at that time in that place.
After I have told the story enough times, I can afford to write it down. Then I see the story on the page as another of many performances–one adapted for an idealized, unseen audience–but not the official way to tell the story.
I agree. No talking about it before it is close to finished. It’s hard enough coming up with a “log” line after it’s done — but getting a look of perplexed blankness when describing a gestating project can derail me for weeks.
Yikes. Maybe this is my problem — I can’t keep my BFM shut! Does this mean I’m not a real writer, or just that I’m “chatty” as my 1st (2nd, 3rd … ) grade teacher insisted?