In Today’s Journal
* Quotes of the Day
* I’m Stymied…
* But I’m Beginning to Understand One Thing
* In Memoriam
* Of Interest
Quotes of the Day
“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.” Sylvia Plath
“The second you don’t believe in yourself, your manuscript will stop believing in you.” Devon C. Ford
“Believe in yourself. You are braver than you think, more talented than you know, and capable of more than you imagine.” Roy T. Bennett
I’m Stymied…
Recently I’ve been harping on a young writer friend with “Believe In Yourself.”
Sometimes I even get frustrated and a little harsh. I don’t mean to, but I’ve always been flat stymied by fiction writers’ seeming inability to believe in themselves and defend their work against all comers.
After all, with few exceptions, most writers have been wildly successful at other endeavors.
- Some would-be fiction writers—through sheer guts, determination, and a desire to do so—have built a business from the ground up.
- Others, with the same discipline and belief in their own abilities, have earned a Master of Fine Arts degree or a masters degree or doctorate in some other field.
- Others have successfully negotiated an entire 20+ year career in the military. Or as a doctor or nurse or lawyer or cop or plumber.
- Or maybe even as a religious leader, writing and delivering one to three sermons every week, week in and week out, for years. Or they’ve been successful in whatever other field of endeavor.
To be successful at any of those things requires a set jaw, a stubborn belief in one’s own abilities, and the ability to parry thrusts from critics who allegedly ‘know better’.
Yet even would-be fiction writers who have been successful in previous (or even ongoing) endeavors seemingly have zero idea what to do when faced with a blank sheet of paper.
Even the prospect of doing something as ridiculously easy as writing a good short story frightens them to the point that beads of sweat break out across their forehead.
And even if they force themselves to write a story, they steadfastly refuse to believe anyone else will want to read it.
I’ve heard it all: It’s boring. It’s dull. It sucks. It’s horrible. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. All my pencils should have an eraser at both ends.
I know. When building a business or earning a degree or completing a career, you learn a little at a time, right? As you go? So you aren’t successful all at once, right?
I understand. Been there, done that.
But it’s the same with writing fiction. Exactly the same. Been there, done that too.
The only difference is that you doggedly believed in yourself while engaged in those other endeavors, but when faced with a blank page, that confidence and determination hold hands and evaporate.
So what gives?
After you’ve been confident enough to succeed in other endeavors, how can you suddenly and completely lack the confidence to write something as unimportant as a few minutes’ or hours’ entertainment?
Seriously, I’m asking. Help a brother out. Email me. Or leave a comment.
But I’m Beginning to Understand One Thing
A few months ago I finally began to understand why Dean Wesley Smith (my own unintentional mentor) has all but thrown in the towel on teaching fiction writing.
As you probably know, these days Dean mostly opts to use his once continually instructive blog to promote his and his wife’s work instead.
Teaching writing techniques—hooks and cliffhangers, pacing, dialogue, etc.—is an easy thing to do. It’s really only a matter of having experience and then being willing to lay out a series of best practices to others.
But trying to get others to believe in themselves? That’s practically impossible. They just haven’t yet turned on the little switch. I suspect Dean’s become jaded, and to be honest, so have I.
Becoming a successful fiction writer boils down to a simple equation:
- Believe in yourself and adhere to Heinlein’s Rules. (And for goodness’ sake, defend your work. Don’t allow anyone else to tell you how your characters’ story ‘should’ go. Only the characters and you could possibly know that. Duh.)
- Then continue to study and learn (conscious mind) new-to-you techniques, keeping what feels right and discarding what doesn’t.
- Then establish a regular practice during which you keep putting new words on the page one story or novel after another.
If you do that, you will succeed.
Now, studying and learning is by far the easier part of that equation.
Every would-be writer out there has several how-to writing books in his or her personal library. You might even have read a few of them, or parts of them.
In fact, your creative subconscious has been studying and learning storytelling techniques from stories and novels you’ve read and from TV sitcoms and movies your whole life.
Many writers also follow various blogs about writing and ‘writer boards’ and Facebook groups and all that.
Sitting down to actually practice isn’t all that difficult either, especially if you believe in yourself and actively want to accomplish something.
But the first factor in the equation is also the most important: If you’re unable to believe in yourself and your own abilities, all the studying and learning and practicing will come to absolutely nothing.
When he talks about writing into the dark, Dean is fond of saying, “It really is just that easy. And that hard.”
What he doesn’t say is that the only ‘hard’ part is believing in yourself.
In Memoriam
Three years ago today at just before 10 a.m., my beautiful little daughter cat took her last breath in my arms. She raised her little head, reached to knead my right elbow, then sighed as her spirit left her little body.
I learned more about Just Living from that little girl in the 11 years we had together than I’ve learned from humans in the rest of my years on this planet.
I still mourn her every day, and I miss her like a drowning man misses air.
Talk with you again on Monday.
Of Interest
One Reason You Should Believe in Yourself
See Artemis II’s jaw-dropping photo of the moon in shadow Story ideas?
The 1960s green ‘Utopia’ that tried to reinvent the world This is really cool. Again, story ideas?