The Bad, The Beautiful, The Published
Posted by Andie Ryan Blog at 8/14/2009 1:39 PM 
Categories: Learning from the Movies, Writing Life
Tags: depression Lana Turner first time novelist writing Gloria Grahame The Bad and the Beautiful Kirk Douglas letdown finishing a novel
Categories: Learning from the Movies, Writing Life
Tags: depression Lana Turner first time novelist writing Gloria Grahame The Bad and the Beautiful Kirk Douglas letdown finishing a novel
So I'm home Thursday night watching a favorite they-don't-make-'em-like-this-anymore movie, "The Bad and the Beautiful," starring Kirk Douglas and Lana Turner in glorious black and white. TCM was airing a tribute to Gloria Grahame, who had a supporting Oscar-winning role as the wife of a screenwriter, played by Dick Powell. (You may remember her as the flirty townie in the Christmas classic "It's A Wonderful Life," or as the alibi-producing girlfriend of Humphrey Bogart in "In a Lonely Place," which was on earlier in the day and will be at the Film Forum in New York from August 21 - 29. These are both unforgettable classics if you haven't seen them, so dust off that NetFlix account.)
Anyway, in "The Bad and the Beautiful," Douglas' character, director Jonathan Shields, makes an observation about how he feels after finishing a film. He talks about "...the let-down, every time, every picture, the after-picture blues." I had the same feeling when I finished the book, and again, worse, just after I got home from the first leg of the book tour.
Is this empty feeling a common component of any artistic effort? Do composers and painters feel it? Or does it stem from any effort that gets 120% of our attention over an extended period of time, even things like negotiating a merger, performing a heart transplant, or competing in a major golf tournament? Is there some chemical reaction that keeps us forging ahead, and then temporarily depresses us when the effort is completed and the surplus chemical has to be, I don't know, neutralized?
It's what some people don't talk about, I suppose, something writers in particular may keep to themselves. Even if a book meets favorable winds, there is a sense of exhaustion, of wondering what to do next. It's like suddenly being in a room with no furniture -- you don't know where to sit. Writing a book takes a lot, and promoting it takes even more, a different set of skills. Almost before you're ready, those initial pushes are done and there's just you and TCM. It doesn't feel like you thought it would, and yet you're hard-pressed to define how you thought it would feel. You just expected it to feel...different.
I don't think many first-time novelists expect this temporary paralysis. I didn't. Maybe it's a fear that the joy and sense of accomplishment you felt with the first one won't be repeated, but we all know the danger of that kind of thinking. Temporary paralysis can grow worse than temporary. Besides, you need to have a few books under your belt to compare in order to know whether this is true.
The cure is a simple one. Get back to your writing. Remember what got you where you are, the reason you did what you did. You may not recognize your words on the page for a few days. The words may not materialize with the same smoothness as your now-published work, but the familiarity will return.
Get the pen and paper back into that empty room.
And wait a few years before disclosing which of your books was your personal favorite.
Anyway, in "The Bad and the Beautiful," Douglas' character, director Jonathan Shields, makes an observation about how he feels after finishing a film. He talks about "...the let-down, every time, every picture, the after-picture blues." I had the same feeling when I finished the book, and again, worse, just after I got home from the first leg of the book tour.
Is this empty feeling a common component of any artistic effort? Do composers and painters feel it? Or does it stem from any effort that gets 120% of our attention over an extended period of time, even things like negotiating a merger, performing a heart transplant, or competing in a major golf tournament? Is there some chemical reaction that keeps us forging ahead, and then temporarily depresses us when the effort is completed and the surplus chemical has to be, I don't know, neutralized?
It's what some people don't talk about, I suppose, something writers in particular may keep to themselves. Even if a book meets favorable winds, there is a sense of exhaustion, of wondering what to do next. It's like suddenly being in a room with no furniture -- you don't know where to sit. Writing a book takes a lot, and promoting it takes even more, a different set of skills. Almost before you're ready, those initial pushes are done and there's just you and TCM. It doesn't feel like you thought it would, and yet you're hard-pressed to define how you thought it would feel. You just expected it to feel...different.
I don't think many first-time novelists expect this temporary paralysis. I didn't. Maybe it's a fear that the joy and sense of accomplishment you felt with the first one won't be repeated, but we all know the danger of that kind of thinking. Temporary paralysis can grow worse than temporary. Besides, you need to have a few books under your belt to compare in order to know whether this is true.
The cure is a simple one. Get back to your writing. Remember what got you where you are, the reason you did what you did. You may not recognize your words on the page for a few days. The words may not materialize with the same smoothness as your now-published work, but the familiarity will return.
Get the pen and paper back into that empty room.
And wait a few years before disclosing which of your books was your personal favorite.
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