Writers in the Storm

Piper Bayard

First, I will speak as a writer . . .

I know I’m not alone when I say I’ve done it. I started out thinking, “I’ll just pop onto Facebook for a few minutes before I hit the WIP.” Then one post leads to another, which leads to an article, which leads to another, and before I know it, I’m locked in an ideological battle with a troll, gnashing away at each other’s perceptions of reality, while anxiety savages me like a rag doll in the mouth of a pit bull. Half my day is gone, and I’m on the phone the other half saying, “You won’t believe what this idiot said! . . .” . . . Anxiety 10, Me and WIP 0.

 

 

As writers, we are anxiety-driven on the best of days.

Even if we aren’t in the throes of our own internal angst, we are seeking to provoke anxiety in others. We do everything we can to infuse our works with conflict and tension. Why? Because we all want to write that story that has people screaming at the characters and staying up all night turning pages. We know the power of anxiety.

If our readers are anxious, they are ours.

Now, I will speak as a writer who has worked daily for a decade with a forty-year combat and intelligence veteran who is a senior member of the intelligence community . . .

Writers aren’t the only people who know the great, pervasive psychological power of anxiety. Anxiety opens the door to subversion. Anxiety opens the door to control.

Journalists know the power of anxiety. Businessmen know the power of anxiety. Politicians know the power of anxiety. Big Media is Big Business, and Big Business is inextricably intertwined with Big Politics. Put it all together in the big picture, and we see Big Media, Big Business, and Big Politics wed to each other in their motives to keep us anxious and, therefore, keep us coming back.

It’s no secret that the days of Walter Cronkite are over.

Virtually extinct is the journalist who puts out dry facts, devoid of their own voice, and leaves it to others to spin, comment, and opine. In fact, journalists are now celebrities, with their voices and opinions being the spearhead of their drive to build audiences. Like all good writers and storytellers, they hold their audiences with tension and conflict. They create and maintain anxiety to keep people coming back for more. We can't look away.

 

 

But who are the players behind the journalists? Surely they just want to make money by bringing us the truth, right?

Well . . . Umm . . . No.

Many of us think of media in terms of “American” media or “Western” media. That may have been true at one time, but now “American” and “Western” media outlets have international owners, many of whom are not American or even Western.

For example, the primary shareholder of Class A stock in The New York Times Company is Mexican billionaire tycoon Carlos Slim. Saudi Prince Alwaleed was a co-owner of 21^st Century Fox until he sold his stake to an unidentified buyer last month. Foreign billionaire felon George Soros has his fingers in over thirty mainstream media pies. And CNN? It’s founder, Ted Turner, also founded Russia’s Channel 6. Media is a global enterprise with no loyalty or interest in any single country. This global enterprise generates revenue by generating anxiety in our society to serve the goals and objectives of players both domestic and foreign.

Social media, with no obligation or pretense of being unbiased, is also rife with foreign influence.

Saudi’s Alwaleed holds a 35% interest in Twitter. Teams of professional trolls from Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, and countless other countries daily work the internet, manipulating information fed to the West for their own agendas. And proving nationality is no indicator of loyalties, we also have the recent confessions of Mark Zuckerberg that he sold ad space on Facebook to Russia for the purpose of influencing last year’s American election. Social media is a mosh pit, where we who enter are slammed with anxieties, both real and invented, for ultimate purposes that we are not in a position to know.

What does all of this add up to?

Media is a battleground. Messages are the weapons. Our anxiety is the prize.

He who holds our anxieties, holds us.

 

 

How do we protect ourselves from psychologically aggressive media?

As writers, we can’t avoid the need for a platform any more than we can avoid the need for coffee. So how do we win the Anxiety War and protect ourselves from those who would manipulate us through our fears?

When it comes to wars, I ask a warrior. According to my writing partner, warrior Jay Holmes, the best mental defense is compartmentalization. That is the art of leaving the battle on the battlefield.

Three Elements of Compartmentalization

1. Decision

We must decide and commit up front to leaving the battle on the battlefield. This decision happens before we ever enter the arena.

For an author, this can be a moment to pause and think before we open our computers.

• Why are we going online?

Remember the writer’s goals of an online platform—to build audience, to network, and to sell books. If we are on social media for other purposes, we can generally find better uses for our time.

• What will we post, and where?

Have a plan for a tweet, a Facebook status, an Instagram, or a blog post before logging onto the platform. Stick to that plan.

• How long do we have to post and interact with others?

Set a timer and/or state our time limit to a friend who will check us if we stray behind anxiety lines. Honor that limit religiously.

 

 

• How can we avoid Anxiety Bombs while we are online?
  • Unfriend trolls. --- We owe trolls nothing.
  • Discreetly unfollow friends who batter us with their ideals. --- It’s a positive thing when people disagree with us for thoughtful reasons, but when people club us over the head with their own anxieties in the form of post after post of their opinions and beliefs, it creates anxiety for us. We have no obligation to subject ourselves to that, and there is no productive reason to do so.
  • Either avoid headlines, or commit to digging past the headlines. --- Headlines are the Hellfire Missiles of the Media Battleground. They explode their Anxiety Bombs across social media, going viral because people react without ever understanding the essence of the stories. To avoid this, commit to reading before retweeting and giving equal, open-minded time to opposing opinions.

2. Have a Transition Ritual

Warriors have rituals that help them transition from the battlefield back to home. For example, when Holmes travels home from an overseas mission, he schedules in a few hours in a city with a first class art museum, where he immerses himself in high concepts and beauty. It anchors him to the home world and helps wash away the anxieties of the battlefield.

For a writer leaving the battleground of media behind, this ritual can take almost any form as long as it helps transition the mind from the anxieties of media to the business of the day.

• Log off and read a good book for fifteen minutes.

Reading focuses our minds away from media anxieties so that when we put down our books, we can choose what we will think about next.

• Meditate.

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” ~ Blaise Pascal

Sit in a room alone, and focus on breathing, banishing all other thoughts for a few minutes. Let the mind relax and refocus.

• Do a few yoga poses.

As writers, this has the dual benefit of stretching our bodies while focusing our minds so that we don’t get sore sitting at our desks.

• Walk the dog.

Hard to beat the power of a walk outside for refocusing our energy. Our dogs will thank us, too.

• Wash your hands.

This was a ritual I used myself when I was a hospice volunteer. After I visited my patients, I washed my hands as my symbolic way of saying to my mind and soul that I had done all I could do that day, and I needed to focus on my own life again.

Which brings us to . . .

 

 

3. Have a Life

It’s impossible to transition from battlefield mode to normal life mode if we have no life outside of social media. Social media friends and colleagues are priceless, but nothing replaces face time. No matter what our platform, we still need our work, our families, our pets, our IRL friends, and our homes if we are to derive any deep satisfaction from life and give us a refuge from those who would battle for our anxieties.

Sometimes, compartmentalization is not enough to tame our anxieties and allow us to make each day productive. One reason for that is because anxiety is an addiction. Like drugs or alcohol, immersion in our anxieties can take over our lives and leave us craving for more.

For those of us who find ourselves in an addictive relationship with anxiety, there are numerous apps and programs that allow us to schedule tweets, statuses, blog posts, etc., in advance so that we don’t have to log on every day. We can also hire others to handle our social media platforms altogether. Many authors find these tools to be an effective way to minimize the power of anxiety to eat away at their time and their sanity.

 

 

We do not need to be cannon fodder in the Anxiety War to accomplish our own goals as writers building platforms. If we armor ourselves and use our weapons, we can protect ourselves from the unseen enemies who would use our anxieties against us for their own purposes. We will be able to keep manufactured anxiety where it belongs . . . On the pages of our books.

What are your weapons in the war to dominate your anxieties? What tools do you use to keep your anxieties in check?

Related Articles

Analyzing News: Considering the Source

Is Anxiety an Addiction?

Addiction to Anxiety: Steps to Recovery

 

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Jay Holmes is a veteran field operative and a senior member of the intelligence community. His writing partner, Piper Bayard, is the public face of their partnership.

To follow Bayard & Holmes, sign up for the Bayard & Holmes Covert Briefing, or find them at their site, Bayard & Holmes. You may contact them in blog comments at their site, on Twitter at @piperbayard, on Facebook at Bayard & Holmes, or by email at BH@bayardandholmes.com.

The blank page doesn’t scare me. I’m one of those writers who has dozens of story ideas, plenty of partially written projects, and fully drafted manuscripts in various stages of editing.

However, the daunting task of getting a book all the way to “done!” is more frightening than a weekend marathon of Wes Craven movies.

Maybe you can relate.

Unfortunately, my fear doesn't motivate me to finish.

In Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done, author Jon Acuff speaks about how those of us who are great at starting projects can actually manage to complete what we start. As I listened to the book (yes, listened), one particular point struck me: that we are primarily motivated either by fear or reward. Knowing which category appeals to you, and then figuring a specific incentive within that category, can spur you forward—all the way to the finish line.

Now we might all think that reward sounds much better than fear. But fear is a very useful tool for many. Here are some ways that fear could be a worthwhile motivator for writers.

• You finish writing the chapter before critique group, because you fear the disappointment or judgment of your fellow critique partners.
• You push yourself to meet your novel deadline with your editor, because you fear that poor performance will affect future contract opportunities.
• You finally finish and publish your book, because you fear not having anything to report in your annual What's Up with Us holiday letter.

Fear here doesn't mean you're cowering under your office desk or making the Edvard Munch scream face. Rather, you're motivated to avoid a negative consequence.

I'm sure you can think of times in your life that fear has proved to be a very effective motivator—whether it was studying like crazy for a final exam so you wouldn't fail a class or rehearsing what you'd say before asking someone on a date so you wouldn't come across like an idiot. If the end result was a good one, the fear worked. It did its job in motivating you.

But as I said, while fear motivates me in other areas of life, it doesn't get me to finish novels. If that's you, then maybe you're more inclined toward reward. How does reward work for writers?

• You finish writing the chapter through a series of group writing sprints, where word counts are rewarded with encouragement and congratulations.
• You push yourself to turn in your novel to your editor, and reward yourself with a night out to celebrate meeting your deadline.
• You finally finish and publish your book, and experience the reward of sending your family and friends copies as holiday gifts.

Most of us are probably motivated by a combination of fear and reward.

Once you set up incentives that work for you, you can break those down even further into smaller goals and smaller incentives.

It can be something as small as not allowing yourself to watch a TV show tonight unless and until you finish the chapter (fear). Or keeping candy bars in your desk to enjoy each time you complete writing a scene (reward).

Maybe you're like me and just happen to have a Wonder Woman cape in your closet, and you reward yourself by putting it on after every finished scene.

The point is to think about your personal history of when you've finished tasks. What motivated you to finish? Was it a fear? Was it a reward? Was it a combination? What kind of fear or reward?

And then re-create that approach with your writing.

But since a lot of what I'm talking about here comes from Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done, let me add another important point from the book: You won't finish unless there's a fun factor in there somewhere.

Yeah, we're all supposed to say that writing is the fun part. But while writing can certainly be fun (or we wouldn't do it), it can also be grueling.

I don't know why. Perhaps once it's the task you should be doing, it loses a little of its spit-shined gloss.

But I do know that wearing a Wonder Woman cape while writing makes it a little more fun. (Seriously, am I the only one?)

What's your fun factor? It could be connecting with other writers and getting to share your story with them. It could be writing a few random scenes that will never show up in your final book but are a blast to pen. It could be reading your current chapter aloud to yourself in a foreign accent. It could be getting a cover designed before you finish the book, so you can imagine what it will look like when you're done.

Be intentional in contemplating what incentives you can apply that will prod you toward completion and success.

As for me, I just finished this whole post, and I feel a reward coming on. Excuse me while I go locate my Wonder Woman cape.

What motivates you to finish? Fear? Reward? And what's your fun factor?

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About Julie

Julie Glover writes cozy mysteries and young adult fiction. Her YA contemporary novel, SHARING HUNTER, finaled in the 2015 RWA® Golden Heart®. When not writing, she collects boots, practices rampant sarcasm, and advocates for good grammar and the addition of the interrobang as a much-needed punctuation mark.

Julie is represented by Louise Fury of The Bent Agency. You can visit her website here and also follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Little did I suspect that texting a non-writing work friend of mine the first pictures of P.R.I.S.M. arriving on my doorstep would start a wonderful
cascade of events.

She was at a birthday party for one of our colleagues when she looked at the text. She started squealing and people wanted to know what was going on. She was one of only two people "on the job" who knew I wrote books (other than math textbooks) and was getting ready to publish one of them.  She shared the pictures and everyone wanted to congratulate me-and see the book. She decided to have a "Congratulations, you published a book" party for me. 

We set a date—a month out—so I could order books and she could give lots of notice for people to attend. It seemed like a long time...until the week before. We talked and firmed up the details. We agreed on appetizers and wine, and split the cooking prep. She wanted to give me a champagne toast and have me read something from the book. She also wanted me to talk about writing the book. I wanted to give everyone one of the cards that I make and have books to sell, if my self-professed non-reading co-workers wanted to buy a book. I wanted to show my book trailer. But I didn't want to read to my friends. 

Instead, I choose a short part from four different scenes starting at page 6 through page 258. I printed up a six-page, 1.5 spaced handout for everyone. I thought it would be fun to ask questions about what they read and give prizes, so I came up with eight questions and eight prizes. I asked my friend who has been helping me with my social media to come be in charge of selling the books and taking pictures (thanks Aleida!) so I could just enjoy the party and send people her way to pick out their "party favor" card and buy books.

Twelve colleagues-and two spouses-attended. After the champagne toast (I brought my favorite bubbly) we watched the trailer. They were very impressed with it. (I'm lucky, a friend made it for me for free!)Then they read (and read and read) the handout. I almost felt guilty at the length. But the prizes were very well received: two free e-books, a free paperback book, a small stuffed animal representing the only animal on Prism, a packet of ten handmade cards and the favorites: supply the first name of a female character in P.R.I.S.M. 2, the first name of a male character, and the last name of a character. Because there is a Convict Town on Prism, prizes could be stolen. After having her prize stolen twice, the third time one of the young teachers won a prize, she refused to say what it was because she wanted to keep what turned out to be one of the free e-books.

After the party, I'd sold four books, which was a bonus, because I hadn't thought of it as a signing party. Turns out, although everyone of the guests has my signature on something work-related, they still wanted a book signed to them by the author.  One even bought an extra book for a Christmas present for a friend. I felt honored. I'd hidden my secret well. No one had known I wrote novels. I have no idea about the conversations that took place in the work pods on Friday. But one of the English teachers came up to me at the party and said that the book was surprisingly well written. High fives to the math teacher! I told her I'd had a lot of help from critique partners and my editor.

Someone asked if I would speak at her Rotary Club meeting next month. Of course I can talk about writing the book. Who knows what that meeting will bring?

Thank you, Debbie, for a great pre-Christmas present!

 

What fun ways have you promoted your debut? Do you have tips for successful author interactions with readers?

 

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.

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 blogs at YA Outside the Lines on the fifth of every month.