2.25.16 - Imposter This

Long ago, when I was but a wee, ignorant lass, I worked for a boss who was, to put it politely, a complete and total arse.

He was a yeller, something I’d never experienced, and his bite was, sadly, as bad as his bark. He liked to make points, and when he did, inevitably with an audience, I always felt humiliated and embarrassed. As a grown up, I look back now and realize he was a deeply, deeply unhappy person who had zero communications skills (strange, considering the profession).

And he made himself, and everyone around him, miserable. 

This has always been a dark time for me to think about. I wanted that job so badly, and when I landed it, I was so proud. It was a coveted, enviable position, and at the time, I was on a pretty big tear, career-wise. My future looked bright. 

I realized I was in over my head pretty quickly.

After only a few months, unable to handle the constantly shifting sands, unreasonable hours, slightly shady things going on, and my total inability to do the job to his satisfaction, I left in a blaze of burnt bridge glory (go, me!). He did a great job of making sure I couldn’t find another position, too. Lovely, right?

No, it wasn’t fair. But it was a GREAT lesson.

It wasn’t my first big challenge in a job, but it was the first that I couldn’t find any way to resolve. And I tried. I consulted my mentors. I talked to other people in the field. Randy and I were dating at the time; I spent night after night complaining to him. It was a disastrous, unhappy few months, and I ended up getting out of the industry entirely because of it.

And truthfully: statistics? Dear God in heaven, what was I thinking?
 

Also, I now completely and totally understand the job, and know it is NOT FOR ME! So technically, by being a jerk, he saved me. Cue irony.

So you can understand the panoply of emotions that bombarded me when I ran into said former boss on a recent flight.

He was ahead of me in line, and, of course, seated in the window to my aisle. He’s somewhat well-known, so I’ve seen him from time to time on television, but it had been twenty-some odd years since I saw him in person. As I eavesdropped on his last minute phone call, I realized he was still up to his old tricks. 

I couldn’t help myself. I waited for the call to finish, and as I was stashing my carryon in the overhead, I greeted him, by full name. The conversation went a bit like this:
 

Me: “Hi. I used to work for you, for a few months, twenty-odd years ago.”

Him, somewhat taken aback: “Where was my office?”

Me, panicking slightly because I don’t remember the damn street and my defiant greeting is about to fail: “Northwest D.C.” 

Him, still confused: “I had a few offices up there.”

Me: “You probably don’t remember me. I’m [[First Name, Last Name]]”

Him, a slight delay, then complete, 100% abject horror crosses his face: . . .  (he is speechless)

(I didn’t leave well, remember.)

Me, quite saucily now, with a wide grin: “Save my seat, I’m going to the loo.”
 

I trotted off and when I got back, he was feigning sleep. He stayed that way through the whole flight (missing the drink service, which I’m sure, knowing what he’d just been dealing with, he needed), the landing, and disembarking. 

And I was on top of the world. Which pretty much makes me as big of a jerk as he was.

I didn’t tell him what I do now. I didn’t tell him anything. I didn’t have to, I know what I’ve accomplished since I left his employ. He treated me horribly, blackballed me so I couldn’t get another job in the field, and his petty nonsense used to have me in tears daily. Leaving was the smartest thing I could have done. Clearly, I managed to rise above that position. I succeeded in following my dreams. I succeeded despite him. 

But over the years, I’ve sometimes wondered if I succeeded to spite him.
 

That brief moment on the plane, being able to remind him of a moment in time when he was a jerk to a kid starting out felt like absolutely fucking vindication, twenty years in the making.

And then, of course, I felt obnoxious for even having that thought. It is NOT how I approach my life. Ever. I am a big believer in everything happens for a reason. I value negative experiences because they teach me how I don’t want to live my life. It’s too short to be caught up in stupid stuff that happened in the past.  

I’m weird. I admit this freely. 

And thank you for hanging in, because all of this is an elaborate prelude to my real point. I tell you the story so you can understand where I’m coming from. 
 

I think everyone has had that jerk of a boss, that person who treated you unfairly. For many people, it is the impetus to leave an unhappy situation, and for some, to strike out into an artistic field. It didn’t work that way for me, not immediately. It took marriage, a few more jobs, a new city, and a sick cat for me to finally allow myself to become a writer, though I’d known all along that’s the dream I wanted to follow. 

Writing, for me, was like falling into cool water on a hot, steamy day. It saved me, in more ways than one. It gave me the identity I’d long been searching for. It gave me hope. I found new friends, new freedoms, and basically started my life over again. I was 37 when my first book came out. Happily, I got to find my bliss earlier than some.

There’s a buzzphrase on everyone’s lips, a concept that’s being passed around, called Imposter Syndrome.
 

And I want to call bullshit on it.
 

This is not going to be a popular concept. I know a lot of people are fully convinced that their strange feeling of dislocation when it comes to having success in a creative field is due to this label. I’m willing to bet most creatives have these thoughts in their head (like I do):

I’m so lucky. I’m doing something fun, creative, exciting, getting to work in my pajamas and make my own hours and make money at it. People read my books and blog and say nice things and ask me to do more, and hurry up already . . . but someone’s going to figure out I’m a total fraud, and then I’ll be exposed, homeless, left to eat out of trashcans and wander aimlessly, talking to the squirrels.

This, according to the definition, is rather classic Imposter Syndrome.

So here’s where I call BS. 

We ALL feel that way.

Everyone feels that way. You are not alone, special, or any sort of martyr because you feel like a fraud at what you do, and that you don’t deserve your success.

WORSE, by buying into this, you’re letting yourself be treated like I let myself be treated by my horrible boss. Only it’s your OWN BRAIN doing it.
 

Here’s the official Wikipedia explanation of Imposter Syndrome:

Impostor syndrome (also spelled imposter syndrome, also known as impostor phenomenon or fraud syndrome) is a term coined in 1978 by clinical psychologists Dr. Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes referring to high-achieving individuals marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as "fraud". Despite external evidence of their competence, those exhibiting the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be. Some studies suggest that impostor syndrome is particularly common among high-achieving women, while others indicate that men and women are equally affected.

So basically, a bunch of women’s brains got together without proper invitations and RSVPs and decided, “Hey, you super suave, spectacularly smart chick — we’re going to pull the rug out from under you and make you feel like you’re not worth anything because there’s a SYNDROME that explains why you feel a sense of dislocation at being rewarded for following your heart, your dreams and succeeding at what you love.”

We are such masochists.
 

Please don’t fall into this trap.

The whole idea of Imposter Syndrome is flawed, and it sucks. No one thinks they're excellent at their jobs except brain surgeons and heart surgeons, who can’t afford to be anything but cocky and arrogant because they are playing with the very organs that makes you human. Okay, maybe fighter pilots. But the rest of us are left out here trying to feel like we've done the best we can, and no one can live up to their own expectations of themselves.

No one is perfect. No one is always awesome. Everyone has doubts. Everyone feels like they don’t deserve the accolades, the compliments, the money. Everyone gets a 1-star review. IT DOES NOT MAKE YOU AN IMPOSTER. 

This idea that we need to be cuddled and soothed every time we take a chance is silly. We try. Some times we succeed, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we fall down and people have to pick us up. Sometimes we don’t succeed, and we have to start over. Sometimes, we get our dreams. 

Humility is great up to a point. The idea of humility so blown out of proportion that we’ve convinced ourselves we are frauds who don’t deserve the respect we have earned by working our asses off is unhealthy, to say the least.

I know our brains are weird places. Dear God, I of all people know this. (Hellooo OCD, anxiety, fear of public speaking, etcetera.) 

But please, I beg you, please stop this Imposter Syndrome crap. You are gorgeous. You are smart. You work so hard for what you have. You are an artist, a mother, a wife, a sister. A husband, a brother, a creator. You deserve all the good things in this world. Don’t hold yourself back from them because it’s cool to be humble.

There’s a difference between humility and deciding you have a pathological disorder, and using it to hide from your gifts.

Rant over. 

Oh, and old boss?
 

I forgive you for being a jack off. Cause look what running into you all these years later did for me. I am NOT an imposter, thank you very much. I am a writer, and I love my job.

And that’s good enough for me.  

2.11.16 - On A Social Media Sabbatical

Lent is upon us, and as I do every year, I am taking a social media sabbatical.

As I write this, it hasn’t begun quite yet, and I’ve been cruising through Facebook and Twitter, having wee panic attacks at the thought of 6 weeks without either. Plus, of course, I have a book launching toward the end of Lent (which is from February 10 to March 24 this year.). This is an accurate portrayal of my inner struggles. 

Thankfully, I have the Divine Amy, who will be running the show while I’m away. 

In this day and age, it really is hard to simply disappear, especially when, like on my Facebook page, we have a community going. The cool thing is, said community can function without me. These people know each other. They talk, they share book recommendations, they tell each other jokes and lift each other up. It’s just that I’ll miss stopping by, chatting, being a part of everyone’s lives. 

So if this Lenten fast causes me concern, why am I doing it?

That’s a good question. 2016 is my Year of Lent. I’m working so hard loosen my hold on things that aren’t in my control. For someone who keeps about 6 calendars for fear of screwing up and forgetting something important, you can imagine how difficult this is for me. 

Lent is about giving up things that are precious to you. My online community is VERY precious to me. And, as happens, I’m spending too much time on social media and not enough time on writing. 

But that’s the cop out answer, too. The truth is, I need to find some quiet space. There have been a lot of changes this year, a lot of cacophony at home, with construction and sick cats and leaks and family issues, and I need to slow down, turn inward, find some space for my creativity to flourish. I’ve been running away from a few stories that are begging to get out. I have new deadlines on everything, a massive shift in content creation, and I need to make excellent use of my time to get ahead of the game, so to speak.

I am a natural multi-tasker, which isn’t a good thing. Proof positive right here. I’ve been feeling the strain of trying to juggle too many things, so I am looking forward to mono-tasking, and really accomplishing a ton.  

Because normally during Lent, I get a LOT of work done. One year I wrote 60,000 words in 6 weeks. Another I drafted two short stories and revised a full manuscript. I have great hopes for getting the new Nicholas Drummond book done, then getting a big jump start on the new Sam novel. And I have a short story that wants to come out and play. The blog needs tending. Amy and I are working on a secret project.

Plenty to do.

Lent, for me, is a time of great creativity, of quiet reflection, of focusing on what’s in front of me. There will be some travel, a lot of reading, and, I hope, a bit of peace for me to fill my well with.

 I will be blogging, and Amy will be running all the usual exciting staples. You might not even miss me. But if you do, feel free to shout anytime through email, or through Amy.

Have a blessed Lent, chickens! See you on the other side!

12.17.15 - On The Two Words You Need to Cope with Fear, Negativity, and Creative Career Challenges

As we close out 2015, which has been a challenging creative year for me, I wanted to give you some inspiration, some food for thought. This essay was first written as a keynote speech for the Heart of Dixie annual luncheon, and I’ve given it a few times since. There might even be audio of it floating around out there. I’ve been asked several times to share the text, which I’ve never done. So I decided to publish it here today, with light edits to make it more universal. I think the message is an important one, especially if you’re struggling with your creativity, and I hope it gives you what you need to go forth and create great things. 

_____ 

I want to talk to you today about the creative journey.

Honestly, if there’s only one concept you take away from this talk, one little thing that makes a difference to your writing, your life, your world,  it’s this:

Reckless Abandon.

We’re all here because we love books. And by love, I mean loooove. They’re our drug of choice. We live for them. We would do anything for a good story, transportation to a different time, for a sexy hero to sweep us off our feet, to find true love, to stop a madman, to revel in a villain.

We read them, we write them, we obsess about them.

Story is in our blood.

It used to be that story was enough. Writers would pen a story, publishers would publish it. It’s all changed. We live in dangerous times. Ebooks and digital presses and Facebook and Twitter. We can’t just write a story and send it out to the world; we must promote it, and endure public reviews, and scathing criticism from people who don’t know what their biting words do to us. We can no longer stay cocooned in story.

How do we navigate this world? How do we juggle our careers and our lives? How do we roll with the challenge of hate and derision and its Janus twin, love and adoration? How do we make decisions, good decisions, when there’s a Greek chorus singing on our shoulders all day, second guessing everything we do?

Reckless Abandon.

When you sit down to write, open your work in progress and face that blank page . . . what are you thinking?

Are you calm and focused, ready to tackle the day’s work?

Are you nervous and edgy, uncertain and afraid?

Or are you cocky and confident, anxious to get the words down because they’re flying out of your head and through your fingers onto the page so fast you’re misspelling everything in your haste?

I am all three of these writers. We all are. Every day is different. Every time you sit down to the computer, you’re a different person. You’ve changed, be it from something your husband or wife said to you at dinner the night before, or something your kid shared before you took him or her to school, or that dream you had, you know the one I mean, where Benedict Cumberbatch calls and wants to option your book, and work with Spielberg on it.

Because you change from moment to moment, you need to recognize that each day you come to the page will be different. Some days, the words flow and the story clicks, and all is right in the world. And some days, everything sucks. It’s trash. It’s the worst tripe in the history of mankind, and no one will want to read it.

And that’s okay.

Reckless abandon are the two words every writer needs to remember, whether the day is going well or badly. They should be tattooed on the inside of your arm, a place you can hide with a sleeve if you need to. Someplace just for you, so when things get rough, or you forget why you’re on this road, you can look at them and remind yourself.

You want permission to follow your heart? Need to trash that chapter you wrote yesterday? Murder your darlings? Fire your agent?

Permission granted.

There. It’s just that easy.

Reckless abandon gives you permission to do whatever you need to make your story work. If that’s taking the afternoon off to read something juicy and fun, or having lunch with your friends, or going shopping, do it. If that’s editing the previous day’s work, do it. If that’s acknowledging you need to make a huge career move so you can write what you love, do it.

Do what you need to make your world work.

And then, you return to the page the next day, refreshed and ready.

Too many of us torture ourselves into a finished manuscript. That’s crazy. We’re writers. We have the best job in the world. And that has nothing to do with being able to work in your pajamas.

OK, maybe it has a little to do with that.

In all seriousness, I see too many writers who are holding their hands in the flames, cringing and crying and hurting themselves to get their work done. There are ways to have a career in this industry that don't include self-flagellation.

When I start a manuscript, it’s hell. Though I’ve done it (eighteen) times now, each time it’s the same. I forget how to write a book. The first ten thousand words are like digging fossils from rocks. They’re clunky, and shallow, and purple, and the metaphors stink. They sound like a third grader with her mommy’s thesaurus, stringing together consonants into nonsense.

But I grit my teeth and know that if I come to the page every day, day in and day out, by some miracle, I will have a finished draft in X number of days. And once there’s a draft, and words to edit, I can do anything.

You can’t edit what doesn’t exist. I can’t tell you how many writers fall into the trap of trying to make that first draft perfect. I fall into this trap myself, all the time. Then I remind myself how much I love revising and push on.

Take the pressure off yourself. Nothing will be perfect your first time through. It might be close, but I only know of two or three writers who actually turn in their work when they type The End. The vast majority edit.

You can edit your work into brilliance. You can’t edit a blank page.

Something else I’ve been noticing lately that upsets me is the self-deprecation of our writerly selves. We need to be humble, right? We need to be likable. It’s an artist thing, partially, but it’s also a lot easier to have 1000 or 10,000 or 50,000 friends now than it ever was before.

And pride’s a sin . . . 

It’s a conundrum. We want to be writers, capital W. We want to share with people that we’re writers. We want to sell a gazillion copies of our books and be lauded for our efforts. But we can’t sell ourselves, or brag about our good reviews, or tell people when we’re having a crappy writing day, without worrying about how it makes us look.

All that must go away. It’s about you, and the words. You and your story. That’s it.

We are our own worst enemies when it comes to taking ourselves seriously. We’re so good at finding ways to talk ourselves OUT of success.

The truth of the matter is this: no one will take you seriously if you don’t take yourself seriously.

Take yourself seriously, and your passion for your work will bleed through.

Reckless Abandon. It’s another term for boundless passion, isn’t it?

We talk around it, like our passion for writing is a bad thing. Or makes us a little unbalanced. But without passion, what else do we have? Passion — equals drive — equals success.

And some people don’t have it. I think the difference between the one-offs and the glory seekers and real writers is our unique brand of passion. For literature. For books and bookstores and readers. For creativity. For living on the soul-sucking edge of the pit of despair and dancing with fairies on the tips of the Himalayas — which is basically how we spend all of our days, teetering between the two. For the words, man. The words.

I’ve been on a Hemingway kick lately, and one thing you can NEVER accuse that man of is lacking passion. He lived for his words. They made his life bearable. Even through the alcohol and the women and wars and the eventual pain that chased him into the grave, the words were what made him complete, and tore him apart.

And he had a habit, a schedule. Done by twelve, drunk by three.

It might not be healthy, but it’s a schedule. Find a schedule, and stick to it, no matter what. Schedules become habits. Habits create consistent output. And consistent output allows you to have a successful career. No one can buy your brilliant novel if you don’t sit down and write the thing.

But passion and output aren’t enough. Another habit you must cultivate is confidence. Believing in your work, and believing in yourself. Not allowing the brown noise that oozes through the Internet to leak into your delicate ears. Tune it out. Tune out the naysayers, and the shouters and the chest-beaters. Don’t let them influence you. Write for you, not for the market. Write what you’re passionate about. Do it well, and your work will find a home. Do it well, again and again, and you’ll have a career.

The next time you catch that urge to demean your writing, or your writing life, or distract yourself because you’re scared, stop. Remember the passion that drove you to write in the first place. Embrace it. Give thanks for it. Take it out for dinner. Maybe even buy it a new pair of shoes. Never, ever, EVER, put yourself and your writing down. And persevere. This isn’t an easy path. Only the strong survive.

I was twenty when I presented my senior thesis to a room full of English majors and professors. It was the culmination of three years of creative writing: a group of twenty poems, the best I could glean from those years of work, and my first attempt at a short story. I was, like now, in a Hemingway phase. The short story, “The Lighthouse,” was a murder mystery set in England, overlaid with a gothic, penetrating fog that whisked away souls. Hands shaking, gorge rising, I stood in front of the room and tried to read without passing out — public speaking wasn’t exactly my thing.

When it was over, my peers clapped, but their applause was outstripped by the dour expressions of the faculty. They’d already read my thesis, already formed their opinions. The chair of the department pronounced the short story “too informed by B-grade detective fiction.” Yes, the voice was dark; yes, it was a clumsy first attempt at fiction. But my voice was there already. And I thought I wanted to be a writer.

So I asked my thesis advisor for a recommendation to an M.F.A. program, and she shook her head sadly and sighed. “This isn’t the path for you. Your work isn’t good enough to be published.”

Stupidly, I listened. Instead of spending the next several years writing fresh material, honing my craft, finding my voice, I believed her. And I quit writing.

I went to graduate school in Politics instead, met my future husband the first night of class, worked in the White House, the Department of Commerce, Lockheed Martin.

There was a common theme to each position. I struggled. I chafed. I was good at what I did, but I despised doing it. Time and again I found myself in meetings with superiors who asked what the problem was. I had no answers. The problem was not them. The problem was the voice in the back of my head that screamed at me all day and all night, This isn’t you. This isn’t right. This isn’t who you want to be.

It can take only one person, and one sentence, to crush the creative flame entirely. If my professor had just said, “You need more time to find your voice; keep writing, and try again in a few years,” I would have done that. If she’d given even the tiniest bit of encouragement, perhaps I would have written a drawer full of manuscripts. But I didn’t. Eight long years went by without writing.

The farcical means by which I returned to a life as a writer — adopting a stray cat, going to work for the vet who saved her life, mopping up dog urine and assisting in castrations, and then, on day three of this unique torture, herniating a disc and needing back surgery — is fit for fiction itself. During the recovery, I discovered a writer named John Sandford, and something clicked. My magnetic poles shifted, and I had one, simple, arrogant thought.

If he can do it, so can I.

Ah, hubris. My professor was right, of course. I wasn’t good enough to be published. Not then, and not when I started writing again. I dabbled for a couple of years, but in 2003 I began in earnest, deconstructing crime novels to see how the structure worked, laying down words, joining a critique group.

And I wrote a book.

Or what I thought was a book.

I made every rookie mistake in the industry: submitting a half-baked novella directly to New York editors (who rejected me), calling up local writers at home to ask advice, and being an all-around idiot. I didn’t know about writers’ organizations, or awards, or — let’s be honest here — anything.

But I learned. I joined Sisters in Crime; began to write for a group blog, Murderati; tossed the half-baked novella in the trash; and wrote a proper book. An agent saw my work online and, as fate would have it, asked to read my book just as I was crafting a query letter to him. Serendipity.

But he couldn’t sell my first book, and I was immediately plunged back into the abyss I’d spent eight years trying to crawl out of. That voice came back. You aren’t good enough. You simply are not good enough.

This negativity lurks every minute of every day for us creatives. We allow others to make judgments for us. We allow reviews and acceptances and complete strangers who hate our work, or love our work, to define us.

To be a writer, to come daily to the page, to slough off the voices of the naysayers, takes more than just a talent for stringing words together and machinating stories. It takes a determination to ignore the critics, the pettiness of your own muse, the collective voice of the chorus singing your daily demise. It is a process of natural selection, and only the adaptive survive. It takes courage, and a wee bit of denial, and a roaring ego. We have to believe the story we’re telling is interesting enough to capture the attention of the reader. With any luck, hundreds of thousands of readers.

So, when I finished wallowing in self-pity, I got back to it. I wrote my agent a new book, and he sold it. I was 37 when ALL THE PRETTY GIRLS released. It has been published in 24 countries and 12 languages so far.

The past 13 years have been a ride, with ups and downs like every writing career. But a career it is. Right now, I’m working on my 18th novel. Twelve are out in the world, with 13, 14, and 15 all coming in the next few months. My  first standalone   will be out in March 2016, and that first book, the one that didn’t sell? Comes out in June 2016. (I nearly passed out when I wrote this paragraph, mind you. I don’t know how the hell that happened.)

In case you’re not familiar with my work, I write three series — one with Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson, one with Dr. Samantha Owens, medical examiner extraordinaire, and the third, big international thrillers featuring Nicholas Drummond — a Brit in the FBI — with Catherine Coulter. And as I mentioned, now I’m delving into the standalone market with a domestic thriller called NO ONE KNOWS. I write for four publishers, one of which is my own house, Two Tales Press; do short stories for anthologies whenever I’m able; and generally drive myself batty trying to meet all my deadlines.

But I come to the page daily with hope, and with a whopping dose of humility, because I recognize how very lucky I am. I’m doing what I love. That haunting voice, the one who screamed at me for eight years, who knew I shouldn’t have given up, is gone, replaced by the purring of my muse.

I wake each day with gratitude and excitement, knowing I am, at last, doing what I was put on this earth to do. I don’t have eight years of work in a drawer, and that is a shame. But I have the future, and I refuse to let someone else decide my life for me again.

Teddy Roosevelt said, “Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failures, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”

Perhaps a better way of saying this is my most favorite quote in all the world. Master Yoda, that great mystic, said, “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

Do. Or do not. There is no try.

Listen, you want this to work, you have to take chances. You must give in to your impulses every once in a while, trust your gut, know your own soul. You need to ignore the fact that the drop off the cliff is mighty, and jump anyway.

Fear can inhibit your growth, not only as a writer, but as a person, as a lover and friend, as a parent.

Fear is the most dangerous part of life.

Allow me one of my earnest moments. I do my level best to make sure fear doesn’t get in my way. I would so much rather fail, put it all out there and fall flat on my face, than never try at all. Better to have loved and lost, right?

If you’re failing, or being rejected, it means you’re trying. The more you do, the more those failures will turn into successes. You have to believe in yourself, believe you’ll make it, that you’ll break through and have what you want.

One of my biggest fears was working on more than one project at a time. I was working on the first Taylor novel, and the head of my critique group kept pestering me to try writing a short story. I had a total deer-in-the-headlights reaction — I can’t.

I can’t deviate from my novel to try something else. I’ll get pulled off track. I’ll fall into the abyss and never return. I’ll never finish anything. The men will come and find me quivering in a corner, a trail of half-eaten sandwiches strewn throughout the house.

But all that is simply resistance rearing its ugly head. Of course you can work on more than one thing at a time. And if you want to be a successful author, you’ll have to master that skill. The more you output, the more money you make, the greater your reputation grows, the more you’ll have to juggle.

Is it easy?

No.

It’s a constant struggle. Writing one book, editing another, promoting a third — that’s the standard for anyone on a one-a-year schedule — is hard. Multiply that by two for two-a-years, etc. And you’ll not only be expected to write your books, but do shorts and anthologies. Add in touring and blogging and Facebooking and Tweeting and newslettering. Not to mention, for many of you, work and family. All of this takes time, and a concerted effort to stay on track.

But if you respect your muse, she will respect you.

You can do this. I promise. If you come to the page every day, she will reward you.

I want you to take a moment and envision what you want from this life. What kind of writer, what kind of person, do you want to be? What sort of career do you want? What is your dream? What is your goal? What is your perfect day?

Close your eyes. Go on, close them. Dream for a moment. Give yourself permission to embrace reckless abandon with your writing, and with your life.

Think of these things, and realize the universe wants to give you what you want. It’s out there for the taking. The glorious person you just envisioned? The one who’s content and happy, who writes every day and works hard, who learns how to prioritize and juggle and stay sane? Who has a successful career writing books you love?

That’s you.

Right now. You’re already that person, that writer.

Revel in this truth.

Like I said — there are two words every writer needs. Reckless Abandon. And it’s easy to achieve. Live for your story. Respect your writing time. Sit down every day and pound out those words. Let everything else go. Let the universe give you what you want.

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If you like what you read today, please consider leaving a tip on the way out. No pressure. But unicorns wearing roses might show up if you do! 

​12.4.15 - On the Universe and Resistance and the Pony Express

Earlier today, suffering from a supreme lack of focus, I wrote a short journal entry about how current events can derail a writer. Imagine my surprise when I closed out the program and saw this quote on my screen:

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” —Maya Angelou

I am always shocked when the universe gives me exactly what I'm looking for. This is what I was trying to say, exactly.

I know I’m not the only person who’s been pulled away from their normal work schedule in the past few weeks. We’ve had two terrible terror attacks, a mass shooting, plus several other local events, large and small, that have altered all of us. Whether it’s being directly affected, incidentally affected, or simply sitting with your jaw dropped at the online reactions, it’s hard as hell to work.

How do you put aside the fear and horror and sadness and write? Fiction, especially. How can our words possibly be any kind of buffer, have any kind of meaning, in the face of evil?

This is the worst kind of resistance — external events out of our control. It’s so hard to turn off the television, to step away from social media, to stop reading headlines, and put your focus back on your work. 

But the only thing to do is keep writing. You keep writing.

Novelists are the postmen of the literary world — as they pledge: 

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

Which leads me to a fascinating bit of arcane history I wasn’t aware of — this quote is supposedly, according to Wikipedia, based on Herodotus referring to the "courier service" of the ancient Persian Empire:

"It is said that as many days as there are in the whole journey, so many are the men and horses that stand along the road, each horse and man at the interval of a day’s journey; and these are stayed neither by snow nor rain nor heat nor darkness from accomplishing their appointed course with all speed.

— Herodotus, Histories (8.98) (trans. A.D. Godley, 1924)"

Which reminded me... You know, in Colorado I grew up right down the dirt road from a old Pony Express stop, the Pony Express being the best form of communication across the Wild West prior to the invention of the telegraph. Note those cool stamps from Pikes Peak below. 

Ah... the thought process of a writer, in all its banal glory.

And just like that I am reminded why I write, why I fight against the resistance, why I try so hard in the face of unspeakable horror and loss. There is always something to be learned. In these few minutes of looking outward, my frustrations have turned to fascination of the way the universe works, which in turn leads me to the single, powerful thought: All will be well. 

As long as we are free, all will be well.

And you know what else? In the fiction world, we get to see the evil-doers thwarted by heroic people, and victims receive justice. 

So there.

12.3.15 - On Self-Care and the Writer

As I write this, instead of happily crashing on the second week of NaNoWriMo, I am sitting in a hospital room in Florida.

My mum had a knee replacement/revision originally scheduled a month from now, but the doctor had an opening and things were suddenly moved up four weeks. I had to drop everything and rush down for the surgery and the first week of post-op. Hey, my mum needed me. That’s what we daughters and sons do when our parents need us. 

I’m trying to work, which isn’t going as well as it could be. We’re taking the hospital in shifts, so someone is with mum most of the time, so I’ve had some quiet time, but I can’t concentrate. I’m worried about her, worried about my dad, worried about my husband at home, worried about my brother, who isn’t as well-versed with this process as I am. (Thank you, pre-med and years of Web MD and multiple surgeries, for giving me the vocabulary to actually speak with doctors and nurses.) There have been 50,000 conferences with 10,000 doctors and nurses and CPAs and students and anesthesiologists and speech therapists and rehab facility case managers and care workers and chaplains, and I’ve been present for them all.

We’ve been eating hospital cafeteria food, doing laps down hospital corridors, dodging men with IV poles and milky-white bottoms peeking through their open gowns, and spending too much time sitting in uncomfortable chairs watching Mum hurt. 

What I haven’t been doing is taking decent care of myself.

There has been no yoga, no walks outside, no vegetables outside of a few salads. Sleep is preciously guarded, but it’s been cut short, too, by late nights and early mornings. There’s been too much caffeine, too much sitting, and way too much guilt about not getting the work done that I desperately need to do. My to-do list is growing and growing and growing, and my stress levels are going through the roof.

Moments ago, it struck me that outside of my mother and myself, no one actually expects me to write this week.

Who can write in these situations? Maybe if you had a chance to prepare yourself for the pain and indignity and general annoyances that crop up every ten seconds when you’re trying to be a caregiver, you’d be able to stay in a creative flow. Maybe if I was a Wonder Woman who really could ignore the sighs and squeaks and knocks and beeps and groans, then I could work. Maybe if I scheduled more than an hour of writing time in the morning, or could stay awake for more than five minutes at night, I’d be hitting my 1666 words a day. (I think there’s a reason NaNoWriMo has a 666 in the daily word count. Just sayin’.)

I had planned to do this post a couple of weeks ago, with warm, nurturing advice about how writers in particular need to practice self-care. One of my favorite yogis, Tara Stiles, founder of Strala Yoga, recently released a cookbook filled with delicious, healthy, easy recipes. Because I pre-ordered the cookbook, I received a complimentary yoga video entitled "Chilling Out." How perfect, I thought. I will share her cookbook, make suggestions for writers to do yoga and get plenty of sleep, water and vegetables, and all will be well in the land. We will all chill out. Chilling out is how the writer can truly exercise self-care. 

Yeah. Like that works.

Maybe what I need to be talking about right now isn’t what I originally planned. Self-care isn’t necessarily about eating healthy and getting enough exercise, though they do go a long way in helping you cope when things do get out of balance.

Maybe self-care is more about finding the right balance.

Maybe it's about forgiveness. About not beating yourself up when you can’t make words flow under difficult circumstances. About accepting life with a little grace, and not trying to force everything into doing exactly what you want it to do.

I got upset with my brother yesterday when he interrupted my “writing time”. I’d stayed home to get some words down, and he came back unexpectedly, turned on the TV, and proceeded to be very distracting. I told him I was trying to work, and he said, “Just do it later.”

Of course, that pissed me off. “I didn’t write 18 book in 10 years by just doing it later,” I retorted, huffing off to the hospital because I had a better chance of working there than at home. I mean, Mum does sleep sometimes. 

I didn’t get anything done there, either.

So here I sit, writing my weekly blog instead of creating, telling myself that exact thing – I’ll just do it later (tomorrow, this weekend, next week) - and I’m trying to find some grace in that.

The world won’t end if I don't make my word count this week.

I will have to double up on work next week to stick to my goals, but that’s okay. I’m needed in a different way this week than normal, and the work can wait.

And maybe that’s okay. Just this once.

_________

I’ve been blogging weekly for eleven years now. I often get requests to advertise on this site. Because I don’t particularly want to clutter up the blog with lots of endorsements and buttons, I’ve always declined. The thing is, writing these blogs takes time away from my creative writing. The second thing is, I love doing it. That’s why I’ve always done it for free. The third thing is, many, many bloggers I greatly respect and admire either allow advertising, or have instituted Tip Jars. I am a writer, which means I’m a copycat, so I’m going to institute this solution as well. Eventually, if I get enough tips, I might just make a book of non-fiction and other cool stuff from the past several years of my writing journey, just for you!

If you like what you read today, please consider leaving a tip on the way out. No pressure. But unicorns wearing roses might show up if you do!