Writers in the Storm

by Jenny Hansen

The future belongs to those who believe
in the beauty and the power of their dreams.
~Eleanor Roosevelt

Dreams are a funny thing. Nightly dreams usually fade in the morning rush, except for the periodic nightmares that scorch our consciousness. Then there’s the waking dreams. Those elusive wishes we keep tucked deep inside our hearts as we go about our daily journey.

We writers chase our dreams every day we put our fingers to the keyboard. Waking dreams are a constant in our creative psyches -- so real we can see them, so fragile we worry they’ll break.

I watched Tangled the other day with my toddler. She loves the music and the movement and will sit with me, almost through the whole film, completely mesmerized by each character. This particular Disney movie rivets me too, and do you know why?

Tangled is about dreams.

Chasing them, achieving them. . .and the wistfulness of letting old dreams die. If you read my post about focusing on your story’s DNA, you’d know “dreams” are the theme that weaves through Tangled. From the beginning of the movie, when the dreaming baby is stolen, through songs like "When Will My Life Begin" and "I Have A Dream,” Disney is punching this dream theme home.

There’s a scene just before the end of Act 2 that perfectly describes the funny, capricious nature of dreams:

[In the boat, Rapunzel sighs, suddenly feeling afraid]
Flynn Rider: [noticing the look on Rapunzel's face] You OK?
Rapunzel: [whispers] I'm terrified.
Flynn Rider: [softly] Why?
Rapunzel: I've been looking out a window for eighteen years, dreaming about what it might feel like when those lights rise in the sky. What if it's not everything that I dreamed it would be?
Flynn Rider: It will be.
Rapunzel: And what if it is? What do I do then?
Flynn Rider: Well that's the good part, I guess. You get to go find a new dream.

This scene sums up why so many writers trip over their dreams: Reaching for your dreams is scary.

It takes some serious nerve to lay your heart open and shout to the world, “THIS is what I want more than anything.” To throw your “all” into the fray and reach for a dream takes guts and, something I struggle with, patience. Because dreams don't happen all at once. They take baby steps forward and twists and turns to achieve.

Dreams take time.

We’ve been talking about fear for the last week or so, here at Writers In The Storm. There was Laura Drake’s post – Fear of NOT Succeeding – that started the Fear Throwdown last week. Laura worries constantly about running out of time.

Fae Rowen answered the challenge with a beautiful post called, “Fear of Success” where she shared that she fears not meeting expectations and submitting work that is less than perfect.

D.A. Watt balanced both sides this last Monday with “Are You A Head Case? Fear No More!” Deb worries about dropping the ball in her personal list of responsibilities and spreading herself too thin trying to be "Super Me."

As I read these lovely posts from my fellow bloggers, I thought about the source of all this fear (remember, I’m the ultimate Big Picture girl here at WITS). It’s all stems from our waking dreams.

Dreams are important and scary and real – for a writer, chasing them is the hardest game in town.

Why is it scary? How does our traitorous psyche manage to kick our butts so soundly? Because we worry. We creative types worry about the darndest things! And we often allow that worry to defeat us. Chuck Wendig wrote a post over on TerribleMinds last week where he discussed how “Writers Must Kill Self-Doubt Before Self-Doubt Kills Them.” (It's wonderful!)

So what do writers worry about the most? I've narrowed it down to some version of the following five items:

1. What if I write the book andnobody buys it?
2. What if I write the book and everybody buys it…can I be that brilliant again?
3. What if I can’t meet the deadlines of a publishing contract?
4. Who would want to read what I have to say?
5. When I say what I have to say, they’ll know who I am.

Every time an artist creates, they’re shouting to the world: “this is who I am.” What a heady, frightening, mind-blowing thing! For most artists, if our work is found wanting, it feels like WE are being rejected too.

How is the worried artist supposed to cope?

Laura and I are HUGE fans of titanium panties. We just strap on the Big Girl Titanium Underpants and do the next thing. For myself, if I stop and think about the fear, I’ll hyperventilate. I have to keep going, even if I work on something different then the thing that’s scaring the crap out of me.

What have I observed other writers doing when things are in the crapper? When rejections roll in and plots stall, when blog posts bomb and the WIP rises up like a scary beast?

• Friends and family are great when the going is rough.
• Some days wine is a requirement.
• A supportive critique group is amazing.
• A writing network is priceless. This could be your local writing chapter, or online groups like www.SheWrites.com or Twitter communities like #myWANA,  #ROW80,  #writecampaign or The #LifeListClub.

How do you deal with the fearful part of dreams? What do you do when it’s time to make a new dream? We’d love to hear about it!

Jenny

About Jenny:
Jenny fills her nights with humor: writing memoir, women’s fiction, chick lit, short stories (and chasing after the newly walking Baby Girl). By day, she provides training and social media marketing for an accounting firm. After 15 years as a corporate software trainer, she’s digging this sit down and write thing. In addition to being a founding member here at Writers In The Storm, Jenny also hangs out on Twitter at jhansenwrites and at her other blog, More Cowbell.

We're just in time for Halloween, and I'm baaack! by D.A. WATT

 This past week, I found myself scurrying along the side yard fence to enter my back door. I didn’t want to chance another run in with an enormous, icky spider’s web hosted by a giant cross orb weaver, that was commandeering my entire front entry.

That’s when I realized something: I’m tired of being a wimp.

So I sat down on my couch with a gallon of pistachio walnut ice cream (nonfat) and did some deep, heavy thinking, just like FDR, the US President who said this.

That's when I decided: FEAR NO MORE. I wrote it on a Post-It note, along with:

1. Rise above my fear of disappointing others. 
2. Say, “No, I can’t,” at least once this week.
3. Be bold: Emergency Response Team training tomorrow, great time to act fearlessly.
4. Don’t allow any webs, real or imagined, to get in your way.
5. Failure is not an option. Don’t give up, especially on your writing.
6. To be successful as a writer you must give up your alter-ego, "Super Me."  

I stuck the note on my bathroom mirror and exhaled. Losing my fear was like tossing a hundred pound weight off my back. And once you do the initial thrust, gravity takes over. I was floating on my new found courage. Until the next night, when I was chosen to lead a mock triage situation for my Emergency Response Team.

I had 30 seconds or less to assess if someone was dead, needed immediate attention, or if they had non-life threatening injuries. Apparently, they’d brought in an Emmy award winning make-up crew. My first victim looked like he’d been tossed off a five story building; gashes three inches deep, right foot twisted backwards, blood oozing from his nostrils. How does someone fake all that? I mean, what did he do, shove a bottle of ketchup up his nose? And that backwards foot?

Anyway, I felt the old familiar fear jellying my insides, so I remembered my FEAR NO MORE list. Just then, the guy in charge jammed a stopwatch in my face. Twenty-two seconds and I still hadn’t made an assessment.

By now, the zombie in front of me was laying on the ground, convulsing. I was freaked out by all the blood and that darn, twisted foot. The head honcho demanded action, so I acted. I pushed out my chest, clenched invisible balls of courage and said, “Yes, I can.” The floodgates opened and I felt fearless. I was so proud of myself, and I think he was too, because he told me to go home early.

I smiled the entire drive home, pleased that I could cross a few things off my list. But I wasn’t done yet.

Don’t allow any webs to get in your way.  It was night by the time I arrived home. As I approached the darkened entryway, I thought of number 3 on my list. I braced myself and bolted through a giant cross orb weaver’s web. Thin, spidery threads stuck to my cheeks over my lips.

No turning back, I was almost through. I blew out a breath and leaned into it. But the spider wasn’t about to let me cross enemy lines without a fight. She plopped on the back of my neck, completed a few push ups at the base of my skull, and scurried overhead. I threw open the front door, dropped, rolled, and gagged.  But I’d made it! Unharmed and unbitten. Valiant, I quickly crossed number 3 from my list, but I still needed to tackle 4 and 5.

In her blog last week about fear, Laura wrote that she fears her time is running out on becoming published (even though she's at the tipping point) while Fae wrote about battling perfection (her near-perfect world building skills are stellar).

I, on the other hand, own both sides of the same coin. Either way, I lose. My critique group is writing while I’m jamming my scribe light under a laundry basket, moonlighting as Super Me. I've been allowing urgent demands and pressing needs to wring me so dry there’s no juice left. No V8 to create. We all have promises to keep and responsibilities outside of our craft. That won’t change, so what can I do differently?

I can drool and read Laird Hamilton’s book, Force of Nature, Mind, Body, Soul, and, of Course Surfing.

Concerning family matters, he says, “I brought my kids into the world—they didn’t ask to be born—but it seems to me to be wrong if I stop being myself because of them. It’d almost be cheating them.” 

Cheating them, huh? Something to ponder: is Laird courageous or selfish, a little of both?

Maybe that’s what’s needed for anyone to be awesome in something.

I’ve a hunch my success as writer won’t happen until Super Me dies off and Especially Ordinary Me takes over. That is, as long as my other alter ego, Not Good Enough, doesn’t crawl out of the gutter to brag about how she can’t write; not because she’s saving the world,  but because she stinks.

You see, Not Good Enough is the other side of this coin called fear, failure. Seems to me, if Especially Ordinary Me wants to write, she’s going to have to perform triage, and tag Super Me and Not Good Enough as dead.

Does anyone else have these sort of characters populating their heads?

The first step to change is to admit you have a problem.

Ok, I have a writing problem based on both types of fear. It’s the little things that empower, like creating a daily writing ritual of preparation to begin, like taking a walk, as Beethoven did.

• George Washington rode his horse before sunrise.
• Laird Hamilton plays the same song over and over a hundred times or so before he surfs a big monster wave. The song plays in his head, slowing things down as he tackles nature.
• The famous dancer and choreographer, Twyla Tharp, still creating and touring in her seventies, wrote Creative Habit, Learn It and Use it For Life.  For her, it’s taking a cab in Manhattan at 5:30 am to hit the gym. Regardless of lousy weather or how tired she feels, once inside the cab, she’s committed.  A short clip of Twyla’s skills; listen and enjoy a United Nations of beautiful bodies! Here.
• Since I’m an outdoorsy type, I’m going to try writing outside.

Maybe a slow burning fear motivates you, like it does Laura. Fae’s perfection does create amazing worlds. She just needs to know when to stop being perfect. As for you, it’s your call, adjust the recommended dosage of fear needed to keep your writing going.

I get a kick out of Merlin Man’s blog. He talks about fear and creativity, even a posting titled Scared Shitless, but I really like his link from the podcast of Steve Jobs speech at Stanford’s 2005 commencement. A toast to your awesomeness. Read it Here. Or watch it Here.

If you still want my two cents worth, I have a coin for you. And if you want to amp up your writing, check out Laird Hamilton surfing Jaws. Go on, ride your own wave of awesomeness.

How are you going to triage fear?

Name the excuses, the roles you play, the distractions you keep. Assess your situation and be truthful. What’s really going on to keep you from writing your opus?

The Guinea Pig Diaries: Novel Edition
by Piper Bayard

I wrote a novel. For five and a half years, I wrote a novel. I didn’t just write it, I rewrote it, rewrote it, and rewrote it again. I ate it, slept it, drank it, and then I found some betareaders, and I rewrote it again.

Now, you would think that, during this time, I would have learned to write a novel. . . . You know. . . . Taken classes, read a few books, talked to some writers. . . . Oh, no! I mean, I was a born novelist, right? I had a technical writing degree already so why would I need to box in my creativity by learning about . . . *gasp* . . . novel structure?

I hope you’re laughing at me right now. I certainly am.

To my credit, I did hire a writing coach to help me with my query letters and my pitch before I went to the 2010 DFW Writers Conference to shop my “masterpiece,” my post-apocalyptic science fiction novel, Seeds, that would be the second coming of The Hunger Games.

That’s where I met Kristen Lamb. Always one to prefer a small group over a large one, I sought out the back patio, where I found her expounding on log lines. My first thought was, “What’s a log line?” . . . Oh, yes. I had pitched to an agent just that morning. *crosses agent off list*

To make a long story short, Kristen adopted me from the Writers Shelter to become her guinea pig. Why she chose me, all shivering and soaking wet with my matted fur pasted across my eyes . . . I’m a sheltie guinea pig–the kind with long hair . . . Well, it’s a mystery to me.

Kristen first used me to test her social media theories. She had to drag me squealing from my nutrilog at the beginning, but with much bweeping and honeytreating, she finally got me blogging. Then, she recruited me to her first online Warrior Writers Boot Camp program. I, in turn, recruited Holmes, and we began a spy novel while I still shopped around Seeds.

After a couple of lukewarm responses from agents . . . How could this be? My baby! . . . I reluctantly decided to show my work to a real editor who had helped bestselling novelists before. I hired Kristen to take a look at my first 100 pages.

When I first talked to her about the job, she said, “Oh. I know what’s wrong with it already from what you’ve said. . . .” I didn’t know how that could possibly be, but I was learning so much through WWBC that I sent it on and waited to hear how brilliant I was and how I just needed to tweak a couple of things. *cracks up laughing* . . . . Right.

To condense a five hour conversation . . . Yes, five hours. . . . I had the Cecile B. DeMille Cast of Thousands Syndrome, and I was missing a little thing commonly known as conflict. And tension? Hey. I’ve worked all my life to eliminate that. Why would I want it in my book?

 

I was ready to shelve Seeds and move on when I got a nibble from an editor at a publishing house who wants my full manuscript. Great! Just when I don’t have one any more. . . . So Holmes and I put our spy novel on a back burner, and I started from scratch to rewrite Seeds. (Now titled Godfire.)

The great thing about Kristen is that she didn’t just give me her Death Star blast, she backed up her WWBC program with me and started me over with my rewrite. It involved extensive character profiles and an outline that constitutes a first draft with everything but dialogue. . . .

I know all of you pantzers out there are throwing up steel walls at the mere thought of an outline. . . . I feel your pain. . . . But I was actually able to pantz to my delight and get it out of my system to find the real story in all of it.

So why am I telling you this now? I’m happy to say that, after months of adjustments, Kristen passed my draft with praise and only a few suggestions. Now, I'm close to the end of the full manuscript. All 115,000 words of it. Not only that, I no longer hide in my nutrilog when I hear words like “antagonist” and “character arc,” and my hair is clean and dry and lightly fluffed.

So the point of all this? There’s what we know, and what we think we know. What we know is always subject to change, and what we think we know only gets in the way of learning what we need to know.

I thought I knew how to write a book, and for five and a half years, it kept me from learning how to write a book. My eternal thanks to Kristen Lamb for adopting me and smacking me on the head with a rock to knock loose what I thought I knew.

You can check out Kristen Lamb at her blog, where she will teach you the things she’s taught me about writing and social media for authors. She will get even the shyest guinea pig going on a platform.

When has what you think you know kept you from learning? How have you been humbled by it? Have you ever had a mentor who genuinely changed your course in life?

All the best to all of you for finding awesome-dipped-in-glitter mentors.

Piper Bayard–The Pale Writer of the Apocalypse

Piper Bayard was once a happy and normal aspiring writer. She spent her days cleaning guns and belly dancing in between shuttling her children to and from school and crafting stories of spies and sci-fi adventure. But she felt there was more. Then, out of nowhere, White Sands beckoned with shocking visions of mushroom clouds and annihilation. Something called to Piper day and night, whispering, “The end is near.”

Piper left suburban safety and trekked through the New Mexico wilderness in search of that apocalyptic explosion. But, alas, she stood too close. Armed only with a ball cap, sunscreen, and her Maui Jim shades, Piper wandered through the desert for 40 days and 40 nights, wondering, “What the hell am I doing?”

By day, Piper followed mirages, leaving sand angels instead of footprints. By night, her nightmares returned. Mad Max and the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, until one night, the voices finally gave her the answer she sought . . . the key to the identity foreshadowed in her visions of the annihilating blast. “...and there came a Pale Writer....”

The next day townsfolk found her, tube of sunscreen in one hand and a dried rib of saguaro cactus in the other, Piper scribbling madly in the sand. “Who are you?” they asked in wonder. “And why aren’t you sunburned?”

To which Piper replied, “I am the Pale Writer of the Apocalypse.”