You know how it is when you love a book so much, you go to bed early just to have more time to read it? And how when you are reading it, you keep slowing down because you don’t want it to end?
That’s how I feel about ‘Damnation Spring,’ the debut novel by Ash Davidson, which former SF Chronicle Book editor, John McMurtrie called in his New York Times review, ‘a glorious book, an assured novel that’s gorgeously told.’
Still, for all that I love ‘Damnation Spring,’ I also kind of hate it. Because every time I sit down to read, some small, ungenerous portion of my brain starts asking, Why can’t you write like this?
In Buddhist psychology, this kind of thinking is called ‘comparing mind’ (for we writers, it’s just called Tuesday). And it comes in three flavors…
Superiority - deciding we’re better than everybody else.
Inferiority - deciding we’re not as good as everybody else.
Equality - deciding we’re on an equal footing with everybody else.
I’ve tried on every one of these versions of comparing mind, and not one has ever made me happy--or a better writer.
Thinking I’m better than other writers, makes me feel isolated. And thinking I’m worse, can stop me writing for days. Even when I decide I’m more or less as good as everybody else, I can’t relax. Because you never when the balance will shift.
About the time I got to the halfway point in ‘Damnation Spring,’ I put the book down and went looking for my copy of Jane Smiley’s, ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel.” I remembered she’d had something smart to say about what happens when we compare ourselves to other writers.
Admiration for the work of other novelists should remind you of the goal, but not make the goal seem unattainable, should open up your desire to write, not shut it down. Writing novels is essentially an amateur activity. Professional readers and literary types have to be able to dispense with their professional side in order to engage in the amateurism required in the rough draft of a first novel.
— Jane Smiley, ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel
Reading it again, I realized how much I like the idea of novel writing as an amateur activity. It gives me permission to put something truly awful on the page, in the hope it will eventually lead me to something truly fabulous. It also gives me permission to stop comparing myself to other writers, because as an amateur I’m still learning.
The day I finished ‘Damnation Spring’, I went out and bought the hardcover. (I usually read fiction on a Kindle, because otherwise my book habit would bankrupt me.) I wanted, as Jane Smiley says, to remind myself of the goal. And what better way than to use Ash Davidson’s novel as a text? A model for the book I’m writing now.
These days, before I begin writing, I open ‘Damnation Spring’ at random and read a few pages. Fixing the cadence of the prose in my head. Trying to absorb the knack of telling a story with so much immediacy.
When I do sit down to write, what ends up on the page isn’t ‘Damnation Spring,’ but what I hope I’m learning from it. My version of a ‘glorious book.
On another note, Esalen is now open for on-site guests, and I’m very excited to be going back there to teach my Writing and Mindfulness workshop. This is my very favorite place to teach this workshop, and Esalen is taking everyone’s health and safety seriously. No one who isn’t vaccinated will be allowed on property. If you’re ready to return to in-person workshops, come join me! You can find more details here
This was a surprise gift in my inbox today. 🙏
Exactly what I needed to read today. Thanks, Janis.