How Flannery O'Connor Helped Me Feel Better About My "Failed" Novel

So that novel that I mentioned I'd be starting?  It's certainly not going as planned - on several different counts.  The story hasn't turned out quite how I anticipated (which is part of the writing process), and my ability to keep up with the required word count has also not quite gone how I envisioned.  Life and all of its chaos and complications have gotten in the way, and that seems to be frowned upon in the NaNoWriMo universe.  I keep receiving pep talk after pep talk via email encouraging me to let laundry and self-care fall by the wayside in favor of churning out words.  Once I realized that I actually felt better when the laundry was done, I decided to let go of the expectations placed upon me (or that I submitted to when I signed up for the project)...

My novel also kind of freaked me out.  In an attempt to write with an authentic voice in a limited amount of time (read: can't do extensive research, or any research at all, really), I drew heavily from my own experience.  The narrator's voice became difficult to separate from my own, and I got uncomfortable.  When she did things that I do on a regular basis, I analyzed them too closely.  When I wanted to make her do something I wouldn't do or haven't done, I felt like I was betraying... someone?  myself? the character?  Writing became draining instead of enlivening, exhausting on a deeply personal level - not just tired from cranking out words.

And so I have decided to put the novel aside.  November is a crazy month, and this November particularly is perhaps too crazy for me to embark on this endeavor.  Retaining whatever semblance of sanity I have is more important to me right now.  So maybe I will go back to this novel at a different time.  Maybe January or April will be a time for me to start a novel with a different angle - one that allows me to have enough distance from the narrator that I will be able to really appreciate the process of creating a unique voice. 

Plus, I have really missed getting to write here, in this space.  And somehow, whoever is next on that list of authors that I scribbled down so long ago seems to pop up with unbelievable timeliness.  This time is no exception: Flannery O'Connor holds the #9 position.  The connection between O'Connor and my own novel-writing-angst is so peripheral: my own inability to extract myself from the pages of my story stands in stark contrast to O'Connor's insistence that her work not be interpreted in light of her own biography.  As much as I see writing as an artistic extension of self that requires vulnerability,  O'Connor reminds me that the art also stands on its own.  I don't have to force myself to write about those things that are most personal to me, but I do have to be brave enough to stand up to those themes if they do come up in the story.  Writing requires vulnerability, but it doesn't have to be self-flagellating to be art.

O'Connor also was my first real introduction to Southern literature (because I for sure don't count the cursory reading of Faulkner in my sophomore year of high school), which actually happened in the South from a Southern professor - absolutely fantastic! - and the first author who showed me the depth and expansiveness possible in short stories.  And she - not unlike Kingsolver and Lamott - found the sacred in the gritty and sometimes gruesome moments that punctuate human life.  Every word in her stories holds meaning, and her stories demand returning to them again and again.

I've spent the last ten minutes trying to figure out how to connect O'Connor back to my novel writing disaster (because blog posts are supposed to be somewhat cohesive, right?).  It's funny how even writing the smallest piece brings you to places you didn't necessarily anticipate going.  I didn't see this month ending without a finished novel, and I hadn't planned on re-reading the stories in A Good Man is Hard to Find before Thanksgiving - but I think I'm pretty glad about how plans have changed.