Last month at Draft Busters Online our craft theme was writing dialogue.

We all agreed that it takes practice and it occured to me that a great technique is to dialogue with yourself.

So this was the exercise:

Start a dialogue on paper between your positive self and negative self on the topic of writing. Don’t think about it, just write a back and forth, whatever comes to mind.

And we did. you can see some of the results below.  I’m sure they probably resonate with you. Its a great little exercise to do any time the negative critic starts getting the upper hand. You can bring other voices in too, like the sabateur, the resister, the tyrant and so on.  And it’s a good way to get the dialogue enrgy flowing. You could do it at the start of every writing session, just to clear the air.  One voice says to the other…

How’s it going?

I’m just too old. I can’t do it anymore. A whole book.

You probably can, you know. Just slow it down, a bit at a time.

But that’s how I always write. In bits. It’s the next step – putting the bits together. It’ll explode my brain.

You can still think, for God’s sake!

Oh, fuck off, you pushy bugger. My writing is sliding out the door. I don’t have a plot and my characters are smashing about like a ring of dodgem cars so I lose track of who’s who and where they are and who’s trying to knock who out of the game altogether.

That sounds like an image worth exploring…

Why do you always have to sound so cheerful? And reasonable? You’re like a fucking kindergarten teacher.

Oh, thanks very much. Maybe you draw it out of me because you sound like a whiney fiver-year-old. How else am I to treat you?

You could just leave me alone? Let me give up on the whole thing?

Ha! I’m not making you write. You bring it on yourself. Self-flagellation. You’re a masochist.

Wow.

Yes, wow.

Maybe I could write about that….

***

How’s it going?

Oh, I don’t know. If I take it one step at a time it’s okay. But…

But what?

Well, if I start thinking about the whole bloody thing, it gets overwhelming.

So dont. What’s the problem?

Well, sometimes I get caught up in a scene and I write a whole lot and I think it’s great, but…

That’s wonderful!

Yeah, but sometimes I get carried away and it’s no good, I can’t use it.

Why not?

Cos I haven’t done the research, so I make mistakes. Or I haven’t figured out the sequence of events properly, so it isn’t going to work. I have to start all over again and rewrite whole chunks.

Oh I see. I guess that makes you feel pretty stupid when that happens.

Yeah. But even when it’s going well, I kinda think I’m wasting my time, wasting everyone’s time. Wasting my life.

Well yes. What use is a novel to anyone? Especially if you don’t finish it or it doesn’t get published. Which it probably won’t. What’s the use of that?

Right. Precisely. But then I think, well, the process is really good for me. It keeps me sane. And happy. I enjoy it. It’s like I’m crafting somethjing. And I don’t know, I’m giving order to something. Order and maybe even beauty. Putting a little bit of beauty into the world. Or I’m trying at least. And that’s what matters. It does to me at any rate.

So there’s your purpose, don’t you think? Isn’t that something worthwhile?

But it’s just for me. It’s just self-indulgent, isn’t it?

So what if it is just for you? If you can keep one person sane and happy, that isn’t such a small thing, is it? Even if it is just yourself. A least you’re not a burden on others.

***

How’s the writing going?

How do you think?

Well if I knew I wouldn’t ask.

Oh yes, that’d be right, why don’t you ask yourself?

I am

And

And I think it’s not going very well.

Really? Why’s that?

Well what have WE written in the last three months?

Well we wrote that synopsis, took us three weeks, thanks to you getting in the way.

Oh blaming me now are we?

Yes, I am blaming you. Your reliably consistent habit of undermining all our work is definitely the cause.

Oh really, and what were you doing all that time. I didn’t see you out there at the balustrades, fighting for writing time, fighting for the cause. Where were you? Absent!

That’s a bit rich coming from you.

Totally absent, just lying around with your pathetic excuses. Where’s your gumption? Where’s your get up and go? I’m here for you, I’ve been showing up every day, putting the case for the negative, and where are you? Now where to be seen, as if you were off on a bloody cruise!

Well I, I don’t know, you’re just so good at laying out all the reasons I shouldn’t show up, I guess you convinced me.

Oh my god, I can’t believe how pathetic you are. You can’t take my job, I’m the negative voice, not you. You are supposed to be spurred on by my protestations, not fall down in a heap. I want a sparring partner not a bloody doormat!

I’m sorry, you’re right. I know haven’t been keeping my side up, I haven’t been playing my ‘you can do it yes you can, everything’s coming up rainbows’ part.  I’ve lost my mojo.  I’ll get it back again, I promise I will.

You will? So we can have a good ding, dong battle, I’ll put up all the obstacles and you’ll slam them down? Get so angry and sick of me that you’ll just write! You promise?

I promise.

Ok, you’re on. When do you want to start? Now?

Oh, actually there’s this Netflix show I really want to watch. Have you seen it? About a woman who goes to the south of France to write her tragic novel, gets writer’s block, meets a younger man, you know…

Oh yes, right up my alley! You make the popcorn, I’ll pour the drinks, see you in ten.

***

How’s the writing going?
God, I hate that question. I’m not sure which is worse, that or ‘how’s the book going?’
That’s not an answer.
It is, just not the response you wanted.
Ok. So, how is the writing going?
I am writing and sometimes it’s even ok.
Well, that’s something. I suppose.
You didn’t have to add the ‘I suppose.’
Fair enough, ‘okay’ writing is better than not writing. You can work with okay writing, but you can’t work with no writing.
That depends on the okayness of the writing.
But why do you say it’s only ok?
Because it is only ok?
Compared to what?
Compared with books that are published. Books that I’m reading.
Really?
Yes really.
And what makes you say that?
Is this conversation going to cost me $200 an hour because you sound a lot like a therapist.
Oh, I can certainly bill you. But why are you going down the rabbit hole of comparison? You know that is a futile exercise. Why don’t you think your writing is good enough?
Short answer – because it isn’t. But the real answer will take far longer than the allotted 2 minutes left for this particular exercise. But I will say this, I want my writing to sing, I want my writing to dance off the page and instead it hums a a tuneless melody and falls flat.
Maybe you’re tone deaf and it just sounds tuneless to you. Keep writing.

***