Sakina Leduc-Akbar
You take a seat at your desk, a cup of tea on one side, and a Moleskine notebook on the other. Outside, rain patters softly against the window, and before you is a blank page on your laptop, staring expectantly in your direction. Everything is set up perfectly, and yet the words you write pale in comparison to the vision you had in your mind. The dialogue is stilted, the descriptions fall flat, the voice of the protagonist feels off. Your project feels like a hopeless disarray of words, but you’re lacking the skills to fix it. You shut your computer and swear off writing for the day, letting your self-doubt prevail.
We all have bad writing days, and sometimes taking a day off from the keyboard is the solution to this blockage. However, a prolonged inability to commit yourself to writing might be a symptom of a more complex problem, like the dilemma of the blank page. For many writers, the blank page is a space of endless possibilities, a slate where an outline steadily takes the shape of a narrative, where the first strokes of character begin to emerge. While this infinite freedom to create can be exciting, there’s also a daunting element to this process. This is because the blank page is a host for an entirely different character; not the kind you daydream about, but the twisted narrator that never fails to point out where you fall short in your craft—the critic, a harsh creature hell-bent on destroying a story as it first begins to sprout.
My half-hearted attempts at writing a great epic tale proved to be unsuccessful
My stories began as mere scribbles on sheets of paper stapled together. I wrote in hopes of recreating the enthralling adventures I loved reading about, and had never conceptualized how insecurity could prevent me from creating. I started writing prolifically at eleven, and took to Google Docs to recreate the stories that had been circling in my mind, from renditions of my own life, to great fantastical adventures at mythical academies. I wrote in every genre and put to paper anything that came to mind. And though I always toyed around with the idea of writing a novel, it appeared to me an intimidating feat, and one which I knew would require high commitment to a single project. My half-hearted attempts at writing a great epic tale proved to be unsuccessful. I struggled to get past the introduction. My first few chapters would sputter on for dozens of pages, but never found anything close to a resolution. Character conversations were halted mid-sentence when I lost motivation. I wrote voluminous descriptions of great sweeping forests, only to leave the next paragraph blank. By the time I made progress, I had moved onto other projects.
But at fourteen, my mindset shifted. I felt called to truly commit to writing something lengthier and more ambitious than nondescript beginnings. I had recently finished my first novella, and with the COVID lockdown, there seemed no better time than now to launch my literary project. I had no intention of bringing my writing anywhere in particular, or of having any serious readers besides family members—I only wanted to be able to write The End. The quality of my writing wasn’t a concern, I was creating stories for my own amusement. So, I wrote ravenously, cycling through thousands of words each night, fueled by the desire to know what happened next to my protagonist. It was in these moments of pure creative immersion that I fell in love with writing novels, and would write nothing else for years.
I began to label myself as a writer. To my friends (and also to my college application), I was known as a passionate creator of stories. This became clear to me when classmates asked to read my novels, to which I responded that they weren’t finished yet. It was expected that I would bring my words out into the public eye to be feasted on by strangers, but, though intriguing, the idea of having others inspect the words I had so mindlessly pumped out in the middle of the night for my own entertainment was unfounded and strange. By the spring of my junior year, I finished my fourth novel. It was my favorite story of all, and the only one for which I felt compelled to take on the tumultuous task of revision. And so the summer before my senior year, I enrolled in a high school’s creative writing workshop, where I would get the opportunity to write a short story and receive feedback.
The critic had sunk its claws into my skin.
The criticism I got at the end of the program was not what I had anticipated. From my nonexistent author’s voice, to the muddled storyline, there seemed to be no shortage of deficiencies in my writing pointed out to me. Were my characters flat, lifeless little things? Did my writing have a voice at all? I always believed characterization was my strength, that it was impossible a piece of writing could be entirely devoid of a voice. Now I was not so sure. My awareness had shattered whatever impartiality had ever pervaded my writing process, and slowly I became aware of each little inadequacy in my work. I reread my story, hyperaware of my word choice, questioning every sentence for its quality, unable to see past its failures. This attitude transferred back to my other work. When I returned to my novel, I wrote chapters only to reread them in revulsion the next morning. My attempts at rewriting resulted in a draft more abhorred than the pages that had existed beneath it. I could not move forward without a deep shame following me, infecting the sentences and threading themselves in the intrinsic material of my story. The critic had sunk its claws into my skin and artfully nestled itself in my brain—it was here to stay.
I told myself that upon entering college, I would put aside my writing for the time being to focus solely on school. This came after a long summer of tinkering around with rewriting the same scenes over and over again, hoping that I would eventually power through this sense of paralysis and reach an “aha” moment where everything clicked. I struggled to feel satisfied by my characters’ development, and constantly questioned my ability to craft their narratives, and as a result, was unable to move past the first few chapters. I even went so far as to start other novels, but found their development even more disheartening than my main project. I didn’t want to face the truth that it was not the story, or some deeply engrained logistical problem I was having trouble seeing which was giving me trouble, but my own feelings towards the work. Though I never would have admitted to this at the time, I was convinced there was something intrinsically unfixable with my writing that no amount of rewrites could solve. My patience had worn thin during those three disappointing months spent at my desk; I grew to hate my characters, and began to lose sight of why I had written them. Drowning my self-doubt, all I could think to do was set the entire practice of writing aside, and wait for that nonexistent stroke of inspiration to get me unstuck. I told myself taking a step back from writing as a good thing, that something as futile as my silly stories couldn’t possibly take precedence over the transformative academic journey I was preparing to embark on. Really, what I was trying to persuade myself was that I wasn’t cut out to write my book, and I would be doing myself a disservice by wasting any more time with my own stories rather than devote myself to scrutinizing other texts. And it worked. I do not think I wrote one word of my story during freshman year.
The sensation writing fiction once brought me was unparalleled.
At the time, I did not understand that it is normal for a writer of my age to still be in search of their voice, that I was still defining my own literary tastes, and that I should not let this deter me from the story. During my sophomore year of college, I returned to my novel not because of any renewed outlook on my writing, but to quell a feeling of incompleteness that only writing could fill. In all my close-reading papers I wrote over my freshman year, and over nights spent scrutinizing Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales to Shakespeare’s Othello, I found that the sensation writing fiction once brought me was unparalleled.
Haphazardly, I enrolled in a creative writing class at UC Berkeley, which would allow me to continue writing and sharing my novel. I wanted to give my book one last shot; believing fully it was damned in some essential way, but knowing that there was something about this story which kept tugging at me, and which kept me from shuffling it aside. It wasn’t until I received positive feedback for the very thing which had crumbled my perception of my writing—my writer’s voice—that I came to realize my perception of my own writing had been severely distorted. The criticism I had received years ago wasn’t a permanent decree of my writing weaknesses, nor a stain on my pride which could never be removed, but a temporary point from which I could work to improve.
I still have a long way to go with rewriting my novel, but I no longer believe that being vulnerable with writing has to be a degrading activity. Choose what feedback to take and leave, and remind yourself that criticisms are there to point out areas of potential. I wish I could have told myself to think about what my novel could be, rather than mull over seemingly unfixable problems with my own skills. For one, the voice of my writing took years to develop. I was able to find my unique style through reading books in genres I never would have picked up when I was sixteen. The same goes for characterization; I hadn’t understood that the solution to many plot holes lay in the process of merely looking within your protagonist and solidifying their motivations. Good characters are built from asking yourself questions, considering their journey from all angles, and accepting that the most memorable, beloved fictional beings are never produced instantaneously. I always remind myself that no matter what you’re writing, you are growing. Chances are, being aware of areas that are weaker in your craft will help you improve them rapidly. To craft a story with the critical monster hovering over your shoulder is a form of literary torture in itself, but the worst thing you can do in the face of self-doubt is remain idle.
Although I have been steadily making progress on my novel this year, I am still not immune from doubt. I am weary and critical; I question my artistic decisions constantly, and scrutinize my work sharply. I write slowly, at the speed of a tortoise, lingering on every word and wondering at its placement, its perception, its purpose. The age when I wrote purely for myself is gone. But I have come to accept that the creative process is not always a glorious experience. Rather, it is an uphill battle, a constant questioning of one’s choices. You have to be alright with feeling uncomfortable with your story, because in between those moments of despair, when the critic tries to gnaw away at the flesh of a novel nowhere close to done, some little glimpses of brilliance will occur in between, and it’s those moments that keep me going. So, even with the noise of the self-doubt monster, I like to imagine my novel in its completion. And I run straight towards that vision.
Berkeley Fiction Review 
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