375. The Only Thing to Fear Is a Blank Page . . . with Ginny Kubitz Moyer

Hello, I'm Jennia Dilema, welcome to Writing and Editing, the author-focused podcast that

takes a whole-person approach to everything related to writing and editing.

We might have an idea for a piece of writing, but then be held back by a number of fears,

and these can include the fear of not being good enough, of not knowing how to reach

our audience, or of being judged or maybe having our work criticized.

So how do we find the courage to push these fears aside and start writing?

Did I answer that question as author, Jennie Cubitz-Meier?

Thank you for being here today, Jennie.

Oh, it's my pleasure, thank you for having me.

Did you have to face any of your own fears before you started writing?

I did, and it's funny, I don't know if I would use fear so much as, well, it made me

feel, maybe it's the same thing, fear is uncertain to your insecurity.

I started writing fiction in 2016, and that was a surprise.

I started writing in my 40s, and I never had thought that I could actually write fiction.

I had always thought that I couldn't come up with a novel because I didn't know how

to plot.

I didn't know how to come up with a story in advance.

So when I started writing my first novel, which was called The Seeing Garden, I was kind

of doing it just as a lark, I guess, just sort of for fun, and just see what could happen,

what's the worst that can happen, and it turns out you don't need to know a plot in advance.

You can figure it out as you go.

There's such a thing as editing at the end.

You can go back and look at this whole thing and go, okay, well, I'll change this and

this and this and all of that, but I think maybe the fear for me comes more in putting the

work out there, I guess, and that's a piece that I think was a little something that you

as an author maybe have to just recognize that you're, once you've published something

and you're putting it on the world and people read it, you know, people may not love it.

They may actively dislike it, and that's okay.

Not every book is for everybody, but in terms of the actual writing itself, I think it was

more a question of maybe I had a misperception about what fiction writing was and how it happened,

and I think I just needed to face that down.

And did you immediately recognize or realize that these were uncertainties, or was it something

where you maybe sat at the blank page for a while and wondered why am I unable to start

writing?

Yeah, that's a great question.

I actually always loved reading, probably as most of your listeners have to, you know,

avid readers.

And I had always written, I have in my garage somewhere a box of, you know, volumes of

a journal that I started keeping in middle school and kept kind of into my 20s.

And in my 20s, I started writing articles and I had a blog.

And then I had written in my 30s some works of spiritual nonfiction, but I'd always loved

fiction.

I'd always loved novels.

I'd loved losing myself in a good story, right?

Like there's nothing better than sitting down with a book and just being completely

insected into this other world.

But I had always thought I can't write a novel because I don't know how to plot.

You know, I would try to think of, oh, you know, what could I write a novel about?

And, you know, nothing that I thought of came to life.

And I never got very far because I just couldn't out of the air come up with people who

didn't exist and things to happen to them.

So it was actually, again, for years, I didn't even really try because I thought, no, I can't.

I can't write a whole novel.

I can't plot in advance.

And then in 2016, something just sort of changed and I just felt urgent, I guess, to try.

And I was looking for an idea for my next sort of nonfiction book and nothing was coming

to mind.

So I thought, well, what the heck, I'll try writing a novel.

And I was approaching it just as, hey, this will be fun and see what happens.

I jokingly call that first book by midlife crisis book because I was in my 40s.

I was like, I want to try something different.

I'll try writing fiction.

I kind of had an idea in mind for that first book.

I was inspired by this estate near me.

I live in the San Francisco Bay area.

And there's a very beautiful estate and garden called the Filolia State that was built

early 1900s.

And it's kind of like doubt now be in Northern California.

And I always loved visiting there and I was so inspired by the setting.

I thought, you know, I'm just going to try writing a book about people living in a

place like this.

And I just started writing scenes and seeing what came and more scenes started to come

and characters started to take shape.

So it was kind of a, I guess it was a fear that I had or an uncertainty I had before

I'd ever really sat down to try it.

Uh, yeah.

I just needed to know that there was another way to approach writing a novel.

Oh, was that something you figured out before you started writing or was that something

you figured out after?

I remember in that summer of 2016 when I was first starting to work on the scene garden.

I remember thinking, okay, well, I should get books about plot.

I mean, I literally bought books about how to write plot and how to do character development

and then I read them and they were useful to some extent.

I still couldn't kind of sit there and figure it all out in advance.

So I thought, well, I'm just going to start writing.

And I started writing little scenes, they ended up being wildly out of order and everything.

But in the process of doing that, I figured out who the characters were and what the conflicts

were.

And the more I wrote, the more it kind of took shape.

And it was really exciting to see that happen.

In the writing community, a lot of your listeners are probably familiar with the plot versus

Panzer dynamic that people who plot everything in advance or do you fly by the seat of your

pants?

Although, I prefer the term discovery writer.

I think that's a more elegant, so I think I just need to figure out that there is such

a thing as discovery writing and that that was, I guess, my way of doing it.

Yeah.

Do you ever think that maybe someone was writing and I'm using quote marks here and

other people because you rules are what sometimes hold people back?

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

As with anything that you do that you care about, you can kind of fall into a guilt trap,

I guess, around it.

And I don't think this was so much what I felt at the beginning.

I think as I've gone a little further into my fiction writing career, even I've written

three novels I've got a fourth that I'm working on and every now and then I still sort

of have this, oh, maybe I should be doing it this way or that way.

But I think that in the final analysis, if you get the writing done, it doesn't really matter

what the process was like.

Yeah, there are people who will say, oh, you have to write every single day and I don't.

I take days off where I don't write every day and I can feel when I'm losing the momentum

and when I need to start doing more.

But I think whatever practice works for you, that's the one to do.

Do you think that those rules might be more hindering if we're looking at it from this

standpoint for beginning writers more than they are for established writers?

I think probably so because I think when you're beginning, I mean, at least I can only

speak from my own experience of course, but I do think that I did really have fixed

in my mind, oh, I can't write fiction because I can't come up with a whole plot beginning

middle and end before I start and it turns out I didn't need to know that.

I could figure that out as I went.

So I do think that at least for me, those were messages probably that were more powerful

and that maybe got me, you know, sideline to me a little bit more earlier on than they

do now.

Yeah, I can see that too.

Well, then you talked about this a little bit, but seeing those fears dissipate once you

began writing, did that happen with all of those uncertainties or just some of them?

I remember with the first book when I when I wrote it and finished it and I mean, I wrote

this book and it the first draft of it was like 104,000 words, it was too long, but nobody

had seen it.

I'd been working on it for 18 months and my family knew I was writing and everything,

but nobody had seen any part of it at all, not a single word except me.

And then I had this book and by that point, I thought, okay, I wonder if this is something

other people might enjoy reading.

So I gave it to a friend of mine who's a wonderful writer and a creative writing teacher.

I remember with great trepidation sort of giving it to her because if she said it was

absolutely terrible, that would be hard.

Again, maybe that sort of where that fear, the courage kind of comes in a little bit.

But I also think a lesson there too is to choose your first readers wisely because she's

an excellent writer and as a very good critical eye, but she's also very kind.

So I knew that if it was terrible, she would tell me kindly.

So I would say find somebody who's a very good editor, but also kind.

And that was helpful.

And then early on when I was working with an agent on that first book, I remember she

read it and she said, it's going to need some edits.

And I remember being petrified of the editing process.

And I realized looking back, it was because I kind of didn't know how I had written at

the first time in some sense that I was still sort of amazed that I'd managed to produce

this novel.

Yeah, I can see that now.

And then I didn't know how I'd done it the first time.

So I kind of didn't know how I was going to go ahead and change it if that makes sense.

Yes, yes.

Yes.

It's almost sort of like going back to the question about craft where you think I need

a formula for how to do this because I don't know what steps I followed.

And if I only had some sort of spreadsheet or rulebook or whatever to refer to, I could

just copy those steps and it would all be fine.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I was sort of wishing that that existed, right?

Yeah.

Because I feel like there would there would have been a comfort in, you know, I followed

this process and therefore it's all very easy and I've got guidelines.

Instead, it kind of felt like this wild unpredictable inspiration comes and I write

it and I stitch it all together and how did this even happen in the first place?

And oh, no, now I need to change it.

It's going to fall apart like a souffle.

So I think I just needed to to realize that revision is not scary.

I mean, it still is.

I've got a couple novels and it still sort of is, but what's the worst that can happen,

right?

You revise it and it's worse than it was the first time.

Well, you know, you have a file of the first draft.

So you go back to that and it's, but I, but you know, I think I needed to learn all of

that along the way.

But you just said revision is still scary.

Are there any other fears or similar that you think never really go away?

I think and I know people's writing processes are very different.

So I do know there are some authors who talk a lot about their books as they're writing

them and they run them by people as they're writing them or people read the first couple

chapters and give them feedback.

And maybe it's because I'm a discovery writer, but I feel like I can't let anybody into

the writing process until I have the whole first draft finished.

So I never show any part of a book to anybody until the whole thing is done.

And I think that works for me, but that is also scary because once you've finished it

and put a year and a half and, and so much love and heart and soul and everything into

this story.

And then if you give it to somebody and they say, oh, it's terrible.

You know, fundamentally flawed or there's this terrible weakness at the heart of this

and it, you know, it all collapses at the beginning.

And I just couldn't see it.

I think there's always that fear.

And luckily, I mean, gosh, can I knock on what?

Luckily, it hasn't happened that I've given a book to a beta reader and they've said,

oh, this is just unsalvaldable.

That has not happened.

So, and, you know, and if it did happen, honestly, so what, you go back and you fix it.

Again, I think as writers, it can be very easy to get ourselves in that fear and we just

need to kind of remind ourselves, what's the worst that can happen, right?

The worst that can happen is we go back and refix it.

Do you ever remind yourself of some of these things when you are writing or maybe those

fears do pop up again?

Like, when I'm writing a new, a new book, I think the fears, they're always there.

I do think they've gotten a little bit less with each book just because I feel that I'm,

that I'm, that I feel that I'm more kind of comfortable in the process or trusting the

process.

But again, I do think when you're a discovery writer, maybe there is, and I can only say

this because I am a discovery writer, I don't know, maybe plotters have fear too, but for

discovery writers, the big fear is, oh, what if it doesn't all end up hanging together?

Right.

But if at one point all these wildly disparate things don't go here and it's too much

to try to edit.

So I think that's, that's kind of always the challenge.

But on the flip side, it's, it's really exciting to just feel that the characters are, are

there and you're just uncovering them, which is sort of what discovery writing has always

felt like to me.

So you mentioned comfort and then trusting the process, but do you think that confidence

is also a part of what maybe diminishes some of these fears?

I think so.

I think for sure.

And I think there's, there's nothing like getting feedback from people when they say,

I loved your book.

I was so invested in it.

I got an email just the other day from a woman who reached out through my website and she

had just read the world at home, which is my most recent book and she said, I finished

it in two days.

And when people say, like, I was so invested, I couldn't put it down.

That's honestly that, that's just the best feeling because those are the kind of books

that I love to read and, and to realize that I'm putting that out on the world for other

people to enjoy just, I mean, it's just amazing.

It makes my day.

Do you think that each of these has come from external responses and validation or some

of it internal as well or internal growth?

It's a funny thing writing because we can write for ourselves and I've done that a bunch

throughout my life, you know, with all those journals, right?

Nobody was seeing them and probably nobody ever will see them or even now when I'm just

free writing and playing around, I'm writing things that I have no intention of ever showing

anybody.

And that's important and that's valuable, even if it's only seen by me.

So I do think there's that piece of it.

I think when you're writing for an audience, it's tough because you people say, don't write

for an audience.

You need to write the book that only you can tell, which is certainly true.

On the other hand, if nobody wants to read it and nobody responds to it and nobody gives

you any positive feedback, that could be kind of soul crushing.

So I think there is a blend.

But I think the good news is that the more you write and the more you kind of care about

your craft and improving and reading other good writers and learning from them, I think

you just naturally keep getting better.

And what are some other ways then that you learned from other writers?

Oh my goodness.

You know, every now and then people talk about, oh, I'm a writer, but I don't like to

read and I feel like that's always really hard for me to route my head around because

I came to writing because I love reading so much and I love stories and I've been so shaped

by them that I feel honored to be kind of part of that whole magical endeavor.

And I taught high school English for 26 years and it was a great career.

And one of the best things about it and I kind of didn't realize this in the middle of

it.

But looking back now, especially now that I'm writing, what you do when you're a high school

teacher is you're reading the same books over and over again.

I mean, the number of times I read Romeo and Juliet.

The number of times I go to the flies, I know that books so well with me.

But what was wonderful about that is you just absorb the technique of really wonderful

writers.

You get a feel for how they pace a story, how they structure a story, their symbolism,

the character arcs, the poetry of Shakespeare's language.

I mean, all of that just it sinks into you when you keep going back to it.

So I really do feel that that's had a profound influence, I think, on my storytelling, because

I've had the opportunity and it really has been a privilege to go back to these books.

But also, you know, not only am I reading them again, but I was always reading them and

then other people were reading them for the first time.

So I was always getting to see how the stories were affecting other people and what were

the parts that moved other people or what were the parts that infuriated other people

or what were the parts that had questions.

So I really do think they're reading and rereading.

It gives you writer tools that you that you don't even know you have, but that come out

when you need them.

And talking about fiction versus nonfiction, and not just for yourself, but maybe for your

students and the essay you wrote, what sorts of concerns did you see with that kind of

writing versus a novel?

You know, I think one thing that can be easy to forget as an adult is how terrifying it

is to learn how to write.

And you know, so many students when it was time for essays and I mean, to be honest, you

know, the kind of essays you normally write in English class are usually not the kind

of people are really excited about creating a writing or, you know, maybe you're doing

an autobiographical piece, that's fun.

But, you know, if you're analyzing symbolism in Lord of the Flies, you know, most people

aren't really excited about doing that.

But yeah, that fear of the blank page, I think as a teacher, you, you really see that.

And I think I had sort of forgotten as a teacher in the first several years what it was like

to have that fear because, you know, I gone to college in major in English and I gone

to grad school and I kind of learned how to stare down that fear of the blank page.

But it is very much there and I think whenever you start writing seriously, it can also

be there.

So, you know, for adults who are sitting there beginning a project, again, that blinking

cursor can be really difficult.

So, I mean, I used to just tell students, hey, just write, you can always go back and fix

it.

Or, you know, don't start writing with the introduction paragraph.

You kind of know what you, what your thesis is and you know what your main body parts are.

You can just start somewhere else and then go back and fix it later.

But yeah, I think the fact of any writing, whether you're doing it for a high school class

or you're doing it for publication is that you can always revise.

You don't have to get it right the first time and in fact, very few people do.

Yeah, it's like I heard a panel once someone said you have to give yourself permission

to suck and it's just, yes, that really is probably some of the best advice out there

is simplistic as it sounds.

It is so true.

It is so true.

And I, somebody and I wish I could give this person credit but talked about how, you

know, you can always reshape the clay but you need to have the clay and the writing

the first draft, that's the clay, right?

And it's not hardened.

You can go back and you can rework it but until you get the words down, you don't have

the clay to play around with.

Well, and for other writers out there, what are some of the clues that they can look

for to see if fear is what is holding them back and not some other reason?

Oh, that's a good question.

I don't know if this is exactly an answer to the question but, I mean, I used to have

students often write in longhand in journals and I think there's something about, this

is kind of a sideways way of answering your question, I think, but I think there can be

something about the perfection of type on a screen that makes us feel that we have to

get it right the first time.

And even, you know, as much as I've been doing this now, there are times with certain projects

or certain scenes where I'll just write it longhand first because when it doesn't have

to look perfect, then I feel that it doesn't have to be perfect.

If that blank page on the word document or whatever is feeling too daunting, I think

writing by hand can be a way to get past that if, in fact, it is fear that's pulling you

back.

It's a good strategy.

I've heard some some word advice before from various sources, but even just that you're

almost more connected to the actual act of writing when you're holding a pen on paper

versus at a keyboard, you have less distractions around you as well.

You can't open another browser in your notebook.

I think that's so true and sometimes when I'm working, I will honestly like just turn

off the Wi-Fi on my laptop because it can be really easy sometimes, especially when

you're writing and you kind of get stuck or you hit a place where you're not sure you're

adding yourself or whatever to just be, oh, I'm going to go look at something else.

I'll go check my email or I'll go look at whatever and something about just hanging

in there and keeping going even though it's hard is a bustle that I think you develop.

Again, you can always revise it.

It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be there.

And what are some other small adjustments that you believe writers can make to increase

their confidence or even feel more comfortable in the whole process?

It's going to be different for everybody, but I do think sometimes that telling people

that you're a writer can help build that confidence.

And I was a teacher for 26 years and then I was teaching and writing for part of that.

And I always led with teaching, you know, if I would meet somebody and they would say,

oh, you know, what do you do?

I would say I'm a teacher and I often wouldn't bring out the writing part.

Even when I had published books and published articles, I still, for some reason, it felt

to, I don't know, if I was in posture syndrome or I don't know, now that I'm not teaching

anymore, I have to lead with writer.

And that's actually great because I think it does help you own it a little bit.

So if you're comfortable with it and sometimes it can take a while to get there, but I think

just, yeah, owning your writer identity is really helpful, naming yourself.

I'm a writer, right?

Yeah.

I write, I put words on a page, I care about that, I care about storytelling, I care about

language, I care about poetry, whatever your genre is.

And I think just reminding yourself that there's an element of it that is not linear.

I've learned, especially now that I'm writing as my sole focus professionally, that measuring

productivity is a writer, if you measure it in terms of, at least again, this is true

for me, it might be different for other people, but for me, if I measure in terms of word

amount or number of pages I wrote, that's not always the best gauge of what I've been

doing, because I think a lot of writing is staring off into space, a lot of writing is

just being quiet and doing other things like I have a little backyard and a garden and

I love to garden.

And I swear weeding, pulling weeds, I get some of my best ideas that way, because I'm

doing something that doesn't really take any mental effort, but it kind of creates the

space for ideas to come.

And so I think we can get agitated about productivity, I need to write a certain number of pages

per day or whatever, but you need the space too, and giving yourself that space to let

the ideas come, not measuring productivity for writing in the way that we do a lot of

other things in life.

Yeah, very well said, and thank you again for being here, so if you have any last messages

you'd like to leave listeners with?

Oh my goodness, I think the great thing about writing is that you realize how much you

go through life absorbing things and they come out in your writing when you need them.

Maybe I see this because I came to fiction writing sort of in midlife, but it's funny

because I can look back now and I can just see how different things from different points

of my life have come out in my fiction, and I'm not saying my fiction is autobiographical

even, but like the being an English teacher and the reviewing all those books so many times

and how that's helped me as a writer or certain little stories I've heard or little anecdotes

I've heard or places I've been and you drawn that later on, and they're going to predict

how that's going to happen, but it is kind of a reminder that maybe in some ways the best

preparation for writing is just to fully live.

That is so good.

Yeah, just get out in the world and be present, and it's tough because we do live in a world

with so much content coming at us all the time.

Yeah, that's true too, just knowing what to filter in and filter out also maybe.

Yeah, absolutely like going for a walk and not having anything in your ears, right?

Just going for a walk and not listening to something else, but listening to what is happening

in the world around you and just being fully present and just taking all of that in.

And Julia Cameron in her book The Artist's Way talks about artist dates, right?

Oh, right.

Take your inner artist on a date to a museum or a garden or just do something and I really

think it is about living and filling that well and just being present in the world and

all of that absorbing it all and it's going to come out when you need it.

Mm-hmm.

Oh, Marley.

Are you writing a chapter in your stuff?

Yes, yes.

Now those are such wonderful insights and I'll thank you again.

Oh, absolutely.

By pleasure.

Thank you for having me.

It was a joy.

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