Voluntary Incompetence
Why I’m Not Writing The Great American Novel
Every writer, according to stereotype, secretly aspires to write The Great American Novel.
The idea dates to 1868, when a writer named John William De Forest proposed that America needed a novel vast enough to capture the essence of the nation and distinguish itself from the dusty Old World. He even suggested that one of his own novels might qualify. Clearly, this writer did not suffer from a lack of confidence.
More than 150 years later, no one can agree on a perfect specimen, and it is doubtful that any single novel could represent a country so large, diverse, contradictory, and ever-changing.
And so, if most writers are not producing The Great American Novel, what exactly are they doing? What is this drive to write?
It’s easy to envision the lone writer in a cold room with bare shelves, subsisting on nothing but black coffee, cranking away in the wee hours during marathon bursts of creativity—an artistic genius suffering for his art. A less romantic vision is the single mother with a full-time job and full-time responsibilities, who wakes early to squeeze in what writing time she can, day after day. The common thread is that neither is waiting for permission to write.
Voluntary Incompetence
As a young person, it’s reasonable to expect not to know what you’re doing, but by retirement age, one has spent decades becoming competent.
Early in my adult life, I wanted to become educated, so I got a master’s degree. I wanted to be an opera singer, so I did that. I wanted a family, so I did (am doing!) that, too. Then I wanted to teach singing, become a wellness coach, and learn guitar. I am still doing those things.
Many of my former colleagues continue to drill down into aspects of singing and teaching, building on their experience and expertise. It makes sense for people to spend the second half of their lives becoming increasingly competent in what they know.
I confess that it is a bit destabilizing to become a beginner in a new creative form. Yet I am choosing now to enter a space where I have no credentials, no expertise, no reputation, and no guarantee of success. Once again I am uncertain, awkward, learning the vocabulary, studying structure, and making mistakes. I am voluntarily choosing incompetence.
At this stage of life, the challenge is no longer mastery. The challenge is curiosity. What would I do if I didn’t need permission, credentials, or a guarantee of success?
Fortunately, the pressure to write The Great American Novel has largely evaporated. I’m simply trying to write a novel.
An Act of Curiosity
I am making a thing which has no practical purpose whatsoever. Does the world need another novel? No student needs it. No client needs it. No one assigned this to me, and certainly no one requested it.
A novel serves no one—at first.
Women, especially, are often taught that productivity should serve someone other than ourselves. So, why write?
My only goals are these: to keep choosing this new creative space, and to proceed methodically toward a ‘shitty first draft’.
The fact that writing feels therapeutic—a way to process tragedies and victories alike, and to become endlessly absorbed in discoveries, is far more interesting than laboring under the strain of the mythical masterpiece.
When Does a Creative Journey Start?
Depending on how one looks at it, I am either early in my writing journey, or I’ve been preparing for decades.
I was always a reader, and also a listener. As a small child, my mother read to me every night: The Secret Garden, Heidi, Misty of Chincoteague, and Little Women. Later, I regularly got busted for reading after bedtime under the covers with a flashlight. I couldn’t get enough of well-told stories, especially if they included maps, like My Father’s Dragon.
For the last decade or so, however, I’ve focused primarily on reading non-fiction—mostly vocal pedagogy and psychology. And now I find myself craving stories, especially ones in which ordinary people bump continually against the assorted shifts and jolts that make up a life.
After dabbling in short-form writing for years, last fall I took a five-session “How to Write a Novel” class at an adult learning center. The volunteer teacher was a retired trial lawyer who had published six murder mysteries after leaving the courtroom for good. Our first assignment was to create a simple bullet-point outline with a beginning, middle, and end.
The day before it was due, my husband sent me an interesting news story that instantly became the inspiration for my outline.
Now I have a cast of characters, settings, scene sketches, a timeline, some actual history woven through the plot, and, of course, a map. What I did not anticipate was how much joy the process would bring.
And I wonder: Why is inventing people so absorbing? Why does creating a fictional world feel restorative? Why is it sometimes easier to tell emotional truths through invented characters than through autobiography?
I don’t know the answers, and there may not be any.
What I do know is that when I sit down to write, I can’t wait to see what happens next.
We Can Simply Begin
It turns out that most artists are not driven by dreams of writing The Great American Novel, nor even by hopes of publication and acclaim. More often writers are driven by curiosity, a desire to make meaning, to follow an idea, to discover what happens when they begin.
I am content to embrace the beginner’s mindset: openness, eagerness, humility. To chase and stumble, explore and excavate, and keep showing up to the page. It is thrilling.
The Great American Novel can take care of itself.
I am simply moving toward a shitty first draft.
May you live in ease and kindness, with a free heart.
Barbara Shirvis works with individuals seeking voice work — literally and metaphorically.
• Singing lessons: www.WAVS.info
• Well Coaching: www.BarbaraShirvisWellness.com