Writers in the Storm

If you’ve been reading Writers in the Storm for any length of time, you know that I’m a proponent of using what you do—what happens to you, what you think and believe—in your writing. A year ago, I wrote about using your summer memories in your writing. Today I'm sharing one of my first summer experiences with you.

Last month I attended my first Book Club meeting. No, not that Book Club! I’d been invited for, literally, years, but after another invitation from my friend, I decided it was time. There was no time for me to read the book, since the meeting was the next day.

They discussed The Five Thieves of Happiness by John Izzo. Comments and questions zinged around the table. Even though I hadn’t read the book, I was invited to share my views on their takeaways on the message. Someone loaned me their book so I could read it.

About halfway through the book I thought These are great ideas to bring more conflict to my WIP. I went back to take some notes and finished the book, pad of paper beside me. Like many writers, I now intend to use an experience—the Book Club and the reading of the book—as a tool in my writing.

Today, and Friday, because there is such a wealth of information to be mined, I’m sharing five ways that your characters can allow their happiness to be stolen.

How can I “fix” the large and the small things in my life that make me unhappy? This is the grist of conflict. Why doesn’t my life go the way I want it to? How did I end up like this? What can I do to change? Here’s my book report, slanted for writers, along with ways to resolve your character’s arc.

1. The need for control

When a character believes s/he can control life, they do not accept that “things happen” that are out of our control. This craving for control can lead people—real or characters in your WIP—to do things that make them unhappy. Maybe they become overbearing because they know their way is the only right way to accomplish a task. Maybe they grab onto something and hang on for dear life, even though that something is unnecessary or bad for them.

We can control our actions and even our responses to external stimuli, but we cannot control the results of our actions. Someone takes what a character said the wrong way, another character is attached to the outcome of some action. How often have you been attached to an outcome, only to suffer because you can’t control it?

What if you allow your character to believe s/he is in control? Their plans and actions appear to be working toward some end. But when we believe we’re in control, we are probably looking at the future. Or the past. Let’s say your hero is trying to impress someone he’s picked as his future mate. He repeats the successful “moves” he made when he courted the love of his life, who was killed by a drunk driver before they got married. Instead of being in the present and enjoying the process of falling in love, he’s using his controlling intention for a specific outcome, not recognizing that his method isn’t going to work because his new love interest is a different person.

He may think that his feelings of regret, once he realizes—or is told—that his attention is unwanted, are the source of his unhappiness. In reality, he was trying to control his past as well as his future.

Resolution:

• Release the desire to control others. An apology can be an attempt to control someone’s reaction. If I want your forgiveness and you withhold it, I’m unhappy because I can’t control your reaction to my apology. Instead, your character should focus on making a sincere apology. Period.
• When in a relationship, your character can release the notion of controlling when and how the love interest acts. In other words, s/he gives up the need to make them be something they aren’t.

• 

• Surrender to what cannot be controlled. We may grouse about it, but we all know we can’t control the weather. Surrender does not mean inaction, though I must admit that when I first was introduced to the idea of surrender years ago, it felt more like give up to me. Surrender means releasing the desire to control the future. This is not about building a wall to keep future pain out. It is about actively living life without the need to control a situation based on a desired outcome. It isn’t easy. Great news for you, the author! Your character can struggle with this one for the entire book.
• Nonjudgment and mindfulness. Though a little control is useful in some circumstances, but if the desire for control rules us, we are miserable. Judgmental thinking brings more misery. My characters must learn to be nonjudgmental not only about others, but with themselves. Beating up yourself is never helpful. Non-judgmental self-talk or advice from a friend, on the other hand, can go far to releasing the need for close-fisted control.
• Izzo suggests three steps: notice, stop, replace. Simple to remember, but I can see the zillionaire heir character in my WIP taking the first third of the book to notice what he’s doing, the second third to stop doing it, and finally, in the final third of the book replacing his old ways with healthier, more “user friendly” ways of interacting with others. As a writer, I’ll know what I’m doing, but my readers won’t. They’ll just start seeing him as a better, more likeable person, one who fulfills his character arc to bring about a satisfying ending.

Here are the next “thieves”:

2. Conceit
3. Coveting
4. Consumption
5. Comfort

On Friday, July 6, I’ll continue this post. In the meantime, if you’d like to grab a copy of The Five Thieves of Happiness by John Izzo, here’s the link. It’s a quick read at only one hundred twenty-three pages.

How can you use a character’s desire for control to create conflict in your WIP? How will you use the “stop-notice-replace” strategy to show the change in your character’s motivational arc?

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ABOUT FAE

Fae Rowen discovered the romance genre after years as a science fiction freak. Writing futuristics and medieval paranormals, she jokes  that she can live anywhere but the present. As a mathematician, she knows life’s a lot more fun when you get to define your world and its rules.

Punished, oh-no, that’s published as a co-author of a math textbook, she yearns to hear personal stories about finding love from those who read her books, rather than the horrors of calculus lessons gone wrong.  She is grateful for good friends who remind her to do the practical things in life like grocery shop, show up at the airport for a flight and pay bills.

A “hard” scientist who avoided writing classes like the plague, she now shares her brain with characters who demand that their stories be told.  Amazing, gifted critique partners keep her on the straight and narrow. Feedback from readers keeps her fingers on the keyboard, putting the finishing touches on P.R.I.S.M. Book Two.

P.R.I.S.M., a young adult science fiction romance story of survival, betrayal, resolve, deceit, lies, and love.

When she’s not hanging out at Writers in the Storm, you can visit Fae at http://faerowen.com  or www.facebook.com/fae.rowen

Fae also shares personal stories at YA Outside the Lines on the fifth of every month.

I thought of the title for this Pimp & Promote, then wondered where the term came from. So I looked it up. Here you go:

The dog days or dog days of summer are the hot, sultry days of summer. They were historically the period following the heliacal rising of the star Sirius, which Greek and Roman astrology connected with heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms, lethargy, fever, mad dogs, and bad luck. They are now taken to be the hottest, most uncomfortable part of summer in the Northern Hemisphere.

I don't know about you, but it's HOT where I am!

How does this work?

To quote the genie in Aladdin, “There are a few provisos, a couple of quid-pro-quos…"

• Pimp out somebody else’s work – this can be a favorite author, blogger, post or book you’ve read, a wonderful teacher or just someone who had profound influence on you as a writer or a person. Please limit your comments to one work.
  AND
• Promote one of your projects that you’re excited about – a hobby, a blog, a book, or a new direction your writing is taking you. You decide. Just tell us about it in the comments! (Please restrain your enthusiasm to just one of your WIPs.) The rest of us will jump in and “ooooh and ahh” at you, and likely promote your project even further because we’re just so darn excited today.

We'll start things off by doing some P&P with the gals here at WITS...

Fae Rowen launched her amazing PRISM series into the world and she's hard at work readying her Keep Sphere series. Two words: Space Battles! Find out more at her website, http://faerowen.com.

Jenny Hansen just got her world rocked by Jennie Nash's class at CreativeLive: Write Your Book - Start Strong and Get It Done. If you watch the class, you'll see Jenny in the front row of the audience!  Currently, Jenny is hard at work on a memoir she describes as "Like WILD, but with pregnancy...and funny." You can enjoy her silly fun at her personal blog, More Cowbell, or read her latest post here at WITS, Top 10 Success Tips from Cheryl Strayed.

Julie Glover recently finished draft one of a novella co-written with award-winning author Christina Delay. She's also writing a cozy mystery, and although she doubts she'll finish 50k words in July, she's throwing in with Camp NaNoWriMo for inspiration, encouragement, and accountability.

Laura Drake wants everyone to know about a fantastic retreat and coaching by the incredible wordsmith, Susan Donovan. She has a sweet little Casitas in New Mexico, and amazing coaching to whip your WIP into shape!

Laura's next novel is due out in December, but available for preorder NOW!

See? Easy-peasy. Only one of us wrote this, but all of us are represented - that's the spirit of P&P.

Don't be shy -- tell your pals! 

We are open for as many entries as you want, and you're welcome to send anyone who reads great stuff our way. We want to hear about it! Be sure to peruse the comments. You might find a few things you like in the plethora of pimping that’s about to ensue.

Thanks again for making WITS one of the top writer’s blogs. We appreciate you!

~  Fae, Jenny, Julie and Laura

 

Over the last few months, I've shared "Top 10" lists from several authors on the topics of writing and success. This month I chose Cheryl Strayed, author of WILD (one of my favorite books),  because she has so much practical wisdom to share about life. For years before WILD gained popularity, Strayed moonlighted as Rumpus advice columnist, Dear Sugar, answering questions about life and love, sex and marriage, about dysfunctional families and the importance of healthy boundaries.

Here are ten of my favorites gems from Cheryl Strayed on success, in life and in art:

1. Every book is inherently full of possibilities.

In WILD, Strayed recounts her 94 day journey on the Pacific Crest Trail where she pushed her body in an effort to heal her spirit. The trail was the thread that ran through the book and she built off that. Your book could be about war or mermaids or housewives but you will decide what goes in it, based on the lesson you want to impart or the "why" of your particular story. Be open to the possibilities.

2. "Success" is a subjective term.

As Sugar, she wrote, "You don’t have to get a job that makes others feel comfortable about what they perceive as your success. You don’t have to explain what you plan to do with your life. You don’t have to justify your education by demonstrating its financial rewards. You don’t have to maintain an impeccable credit score. Anyone who expects you to do any of those things has no sense of history or economics or science or the arts. You have to pay your own electric bill. You have to be kind. You have to give it all you’ve got. You have to find people who love you truly and love them back with the same truth. But that’s all.”

3. The world owes you nothing.

One of Cheryl's most famous quotes is, "You don’t have a right to the cards you believe you should have been dealt. You have an obligation to play the hell out of the ones you’re holding. There is no why for which cards you get. They just are. Earning a living, even in ways you find unpleasant, will give you faith in your own abilities." [Amen, sister!]

4. You can find peace in the "obliterated place."

In her Rumpus column, Dear Sugar spoke with a father who had lost his son to an impaired driver.  She called that deep well of grief "the obliterated place."

"The obliterated place is equal parts destruction and creation. The obliterated place is pitch black and bright light. It is water and parched earth. It is mud and it is manna...The real work of deep grief is making a home there. That’s now your world, where everything you used to be is simultaneously erased and omnipresent." She said, "You go on by doing the best you can, you go on by being generous, you go on by being true, you go on by offering comfort to others who can’t go on, you go on by allowing the unbearable days to pass and allowing the pleasure in other days, you go on by finding a channel for your love and another for your rage."

5. Self-pity is a dead end road.

"Nobody's going to do your life for you. You have to do it yourself, whether you're rich or poor, out of money or raking it in, the beneficiary of ridiculous fortune or terrible injustice. And you have to do it no matter what is true. No matter what is hard. No matter what unjust, sad, sucky things have befallen you. Self-pity is a dead end road. You make the choice to drive down it. It's up to you to decide to stay parked there or to turn around and drive out."

6. How to get unstuck.

So many people, writers or not, feel stuck. Like they couldn't possibly move from the place they are now to where they want to be.

Strayed says, “This is how you get unstuck... You reach. Not so you can walk away from [what or who] you loved, but so you can live the life that is yours — the one that includes the loss...but is not arrested by it. The one that eventually leads you to a place in which you not only grieve, but also feel lucky to have had the privilege of loving. That place of true healing is a fierce place. It’s a giant place. It’s a place of monstrous beauty and endless dark and glimmering light. And you have to work really, really, really effing hard to get there, but you can do it.”

The person she gave that advice to had lost a child. Most losses are less than that - loss of hope, identity, dreams. We can move beyond them to the place where we don't feel stuck.

7. Be gentle with yourself.

Strayed believes, "You will not write well from a position of shame. You are creating something out of nothing. Be gentle with yourself while you create. Only when I'm gentle with myself can I actually let go and do the work." She must forgive herself for any lapses so she can get back to doing the work.

8. Write.

The only way to be a writer is simply to write, then write some more. Keep the faith that your work is meaningful and just WRITE. If you can only write one day a week, write your heart out that one day. Write as often as you can and never give up.

9. Writing teaches you resilience.

"You can only take each day as it comes," says Strayed. "Sometimes you fail and sometimes you succeed, and every day is different. Resilience means you come back to the page to chase the dream for one more day."

10. Embrace "Motherfuckitude."

In this interview, Strayed mentions "the Art of Motherfuckitude," and explains what that sentiment means to a writer. It all began with a Dear Sugar column, where so much of her wisdom first came to light.

She told a young twenty-six year old writer, "I thought a lot of the same things about myself that you do...That I was lazy and lame. That even though I had the story in me, I didn’t have it in me to see it to fruition, to actually get it out of my body and onto the page, to write, as you say, with 'intelligence and heart and lengthiness.' But I’d finally reached a point where the prospect of not writing a book was more awful than the one of writing a book that sucked."

Strayed sees the unifying theme of any writer's life is an intersection between resilience and faith.

"The unifying theme is being a warrior and a motherfucker. It is not fragility. It’s strength. It’s nerve. And “if your Nerve, deny you –,” as Emily Dickinson wrote, “go above your Nerve.” Writing is hard for every last one of us—straight white men included. Coal mining is harder. Do you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They do not. They simply dig. So write... Not like a girl. Not like a boy. Write like a motherfucker."

Bonus Ten: 10 Pieces Of Timeless Advice On Love And Life From Cheryl Strayed That Can Ail Almost Any Situation

 

Strayed's Dear Sugar advice column was both painful and uplifting in its naked honesty. How do you bring that naked honesty to your writing? Which of these ten bits of wisdom resonates the most for you? Which ones do you struggle with?

About Jenny Hansen

By day, Jenny provides training and social media marketing for an accounting firm. By night she writes humor, memoir, women’s fiction and short stories. After 18+ years as a corporate software trainer, she’s delighted to sit down while she works.

When she’s not at her personal blog, More Cowbell, Jenny can be found on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, or here at Writers In The Storm.