In every attempt ever made to write a novel I think the writer comes upon this last cliff. When do we stop? And when does the moment come when we’re trying to perfect it and we’re actually beginning to do our own form of damage? Let’s face it: to most writers the work is never truly finished. A completed book, done, on the shelf, etc. and that writer can still pick it up and want to make changes. Sometimes we need to force ourselves to stop. I’ve heard author’s say that when their book is done it tells them. I’ve never really been in this position, I’m a tinkerer, I would probably fiddle with something the rest of my life if I didn’t just get so sick of working on it and finally come upon the realization that I just can’t make it better: that I’m actually on the top of that ladder, about to topple, and do damage to my book.

So, when do we stop?

I find that the easiest way to determine if I’ve completed a book (or at least that its time for me to stop) is to take it a part. Dissect it chapter by chapter, word by word. Don’t read the whole thing, that’s not what I’m intending this point to be. Assess the book one judgment at a time. I start with plot, all sub plots as well, were they completed, did I leave it hanging and why, did I manage to get from beginning, to middle, to end with each and every one of them? Do any of them need better reinforcement, more hints earlier in the book? Make yourself a list and cross each plot off as you go. From here I narrow my focus to individual “chapters” and start focusing on the writing. Again, did I get my point across? Does the description lend itself to the event that’s taking place at the time? Are you missing something? Is it completed?

Getting organized in this way has always helped me find, if nothing else, some peace of mind. I can look down at my check list and at least know I did the best that I could without nagging thoughts of “did I miss something?” floating around for the rest of my life. And, though this type of action does not necessarily lend itself to the “creative mind” of an author, in the event that you ever wish to see your book in print at some point you’re going to have to attack this as a job.

Book Release Updates

I am still working on getting my book out there and have found many wonderful avenues and people who support new authors, as well as great folks who support self published authors. Far more good than bad if I will say the least I will be posting a list here as an acknowledgement of those who have been such great supporters. But it has been a tremendous amount of work, as anyone who has ever attempted a book release with momentum will know.

I have also come upon a few really impressive haters that I would even go so far as to say that they simply wait and prey on new authors every chance they get because it seems to be their way of having fun. I will also be making a list of places to avoid for authors that I will be posting here. It is beyond me why anyone would attack a complete stranger in an attempt to discredit them for no other reason than the fact that they can and they want to. But haters will be haters and, in this world, especially new authors, can’t really expect much better but to move on and let them hate. The only advice I can give, especially when it comes to forums, if you run in to people like this, there is nothing you can do, they own the forum and know how to play the game and its best for you to walk away no matter how cruelly they might treat you. Backlashing against people like this and you will receive the very typical bully reply of, “I done nothing wrong!” and you will likely get banned and told to learn your lesson. Which is, of course: enjoy getting shit on.

Walk away, let em hate.

So, I have finally finished and released my first book. Life is good accordingly… Wow, I have never spent so many hours on something in my entire life to be rewarded with so little. No, I’m not complaining, but I will warn all self published writers from here on out that just the process of trying to get out press releases will make them question their desire to ever release and/or write a book again in their entire lives. What do you truly get out of writing and self publishing a book? No, its not huge sales. No, its not glory nor is it fame. What you can expect to get is only one thing: the fact that you are now and finally a real published novelist. That is it.

So, what have I been going through?

It started with my looking for reviewers: yes, me practically begging other bloggers to let me send them my book (for free) that they may read it and write about it. I spent over forty hours searching and sending out requests. So far, I have had one rejection and two email boxes that no longer existed. After that I attacked the magazine market for my genre (fantasy) looking for reviewers and advertising and just that list alone was over ten hours online searching. At this point I can’t even see anymore. From there I stepped into the world of press releases and hit the most painful process so far in releasing my book. Most of these places won’t accept you unless you’re a company (fortunately I have my design company to use) and almost none of them will accept a free email address so you must own your own domain and have your own email. No real problem for me but wow, I’m thinking this whole time, what would other authors do that can’t afford to launch their own website? Good grief. Understandable though – these are the kinds of websites that get hit by literal avalanches of spam. Just the forms to get signed up for them are long tedious pieces of work and then getting your press release accepted is another tremendous chore. And then, every now and again, after all that work of getting signed up they tell you that they no longer offer free press releases. Wow.

Paying for Reviews

After all of that I am finally sobering to the realization that I am going to have to start paying for absolutely everything. Don’t get me wrong I have read countless times now from many an author that you should NEVER pay for a review. Well, tough titty, its looking like that has settled in to become my only hope. I’m gathering my meager money resources and have narrowed it down to a dozen or so places that I plan on either paying for reviews, sending books to (for no reason other than the hope that they MIGHT look at them) and buying advertising. If you would like to see my list I’ll gladly send it but all of the places are VERY genre focused. And I can’t stress that enough for any author trying to get their book out there, FOCUS on your audience!

In the meantime…

Oh yes and here it is, what I really need to be doing to make my book a success, what nothing else can even come close in providing exposure for my book. Its time to get back to writing. Not just the fact that a second book would give my twice the chance of interesting people, no, I’m talking about basic writing here. I need to start writing short stories (awesome short stories) and getting them into fantasy publications. I need to start writing guest posts and I need to start reviewing books myself for authors like me, not to mention giving interviews and the like. Now truly begins the arduous journey that is making my book (and therefore me) a success. Wish me luck!

I am proud to announce that, finally, since I was fourteen years old, the first book in the Embraced by Darkness series is complete and published! I did it through Createspace and it is now for sale as a paperback (Link – $15.00) and an ebook (Kindle Link – $1.99) and I kind of feel like dancing and throwing up all at the same time. I’m freaking out lol, easy enough to admit but this really is terrifying and it really is very hard. I have set myself up to expect no sales (or very few) because I am well aware that that is the most realistic outcome. I have been in the book industry for a decade and I have chosen not to buy the book from a thousand hopeful authors at a thousand different book fairs. Because I don’t care and I expect their books to not be my kind of books anyway and that is fair. But I also know that to them it means everything, just as this book means everything to me. But I am a very typical writer, I am not good at promoting myself, nor do I even want to, just pushing it and telling everyone I know on Facebook was hard for me. I’m very much the type to be, “Don’t worry about, just ignore the fact that this decade of work and my entire heart was just published. Please, I don’t mean to bother you, ignore this post.” Even though I am very well aware that that kind of attitude does not sell anything, let alone books.

Why I chose Createspace

So I picked Createspace entirely over Lulu. I’m just done with Lulu, their marketing has been spotty according to everything I read online but my biggest problem with them is that their books cost a fortune. I bought my first copy of this book through Lulu and it cost me over $14 the same book published through Createspace cost me just over $4. Its a no brainer for me. On top of all of that, my book (and ebook) were for sale on Amazon.com within just a couple of days. Sweet and very cool. Also, they automatically added the bar code to the back of my book after I entered in my ISBN for the paperback edition. Lulu does not do this, you have to buy and add your own bar code unless you want to use one of their awful free covers. I also published through Barnes and Noble on the Nook (Link – $1.99) and plan on working with Smashwords a little bit. And why haven’t I pushed through Smashwords yet? I hate their converter process, hate it, hate it, hate it. I use Open Office for all of my writing, Smashwords requires a .doc file (A Word file) so I’m already pissed. I can’t really make a perfect .doc file (even though Open Office does its best) so all of my files on Smashwords are just screwed up and I haven’t really come up with any way around this crappiness, but I’m working on it and do plan to publish there to some extent. And there is also the Apple store I’m going to be looking into.

Lots of ISBNs

The first horrible (and far larger expense than I expected) was the ISBN purchase. I had to buy 10 of them because I knew I needed a different ISBN for every version of my book that I was going to make available. I’ve used four so far, one for the kindle, one for the nook, one for the smashwords edition and one for the paperback edition. The cost for a package of ten ISBNs? $250! If you just purchase one it’s $150 per ISBN number. Crazy cost but I felt it necessary for at least the attempt of making my book look as “real” as possible.

So, What’s Next?

And here comes the hard part. Yes, I’ve done all I can to milk my Facebook account for a few book sales. Not much but, hey, at least everyone knows about it whether they give a rat’s ass or not. From here on out I’m begging strangers to buy my book. I only have so much money so where do I put it? Advertising? Local Newspapers? Press Releases? Google keywords? Facebook Ads? Local Advertising? Do I just suck it up and start buying Reviews? How do we know as Indy publishers of our own books how to get them to our target audience? You just can’t expect people to buy your book is they don’t know about it. Hence begins the arduous and expensive part of my journey, yes the “release” of my book was great fun but that is only the very very tip of the ice berg.

We’ve all been there and the silent (yet horrific noise) of that moment is absolutely deafening. Or maybe its just the sound of your heart pounding in your ears as you begin to panic out of sheer, utter, terrible frustration. Whatever the sound it makes, its a biggy, and its the epitome of the writer’s nightmare. We don’t think of these moments when we decide writing is the most awesomeness thing (by 1000% mind you) in the whole fricken world. No, when we finally realize we’re writers and decide to truly start taking this business seriously, that’s when we’re cruising along without a care in the world; when the story feels like it’s literally writing itself. Problem is, that’s not usually how writing works. Yes, that moment usually occurs at one point or another, but, most of the time, we’re just hacking away at it, and, even worse, every now and again, we get stuck in a wall. And it does seem to be we usually spend equal amounts of stuck as we do cruising with every book we will ever write. But maybe that’s the only real saving grace here: remember you will probably get an equal amount of fun cruising time too.

So, how do we deal with getting unstuck without ripping all of our hair out? Actually this is a moment that often reminds me of computer problems. It takes eight hours to figure out the fix that actually only takes about 8 minutes to apply. This is similar to writing. The problem is, unlike computer problems where the fix is absolute and something that could be figured out instantly, getting unstuck is often as much about your state of mind as it is an actual problem.

First thing is first: Get the hell away from it for a little while.

Second thing: Determine whether or not you’re not just stuck on trying to find that one perfect word idiocy. Its easy to do, sometimes you just need to skip the scene and move on to the next before you can perfect this one and figure out that one little word.

Third thing: Is it you? Seriously now, if your outline is solid, if you know where you’re going, it could just be you needing a break. I’ll say it again: get the hell away from it for a little while because this is not a legitimate stuck, you might just need some time to let your mind catch up to the story if you’ve been working on it a lot.

Fourth thing: You have a real problem. Your plot is going one way and its right the frick outta your outline and would cause drastic changes throughout the chapters you’ve already written. Sorry, Honey, no easy way around this. My recommendation? Keep writing, let the plot take you, don’t you dare stop inspiration by trying to force your story into your outline. Sometimes they run and, in my experience, that is always a good thing accept that it generally causes a huge amount of more work for you.

Fifth thing: You’re actually stuck on how to describe a scene. You’re even having trouble deciding who should be the main character in it. This is classic and this is a problem that has happened to a million writers before you. The only real solution I’ve found? Write them all and then decide which one works best, you may even have to have someone else read each version to help you decide (often your readers in this case will choose a version you never would have chosen, let alone written, it can be very eye opening). Do something wild to get your head opened up, write the scene from an inanimate objects point of view, I wonder what that plant thinks of your lead character prancing around drunk as can be?

The most important thing to remember is this: Have some confidence. Before you start any kind of large project (where stuckedness is very possible) get all of your ducks in a row, know your characters and know where you book is going to end and get that outline written!

Let’s face it, writing is a lonely calling. We don’t do it with someone looking over our shoulder. Even when we need help and look for answers to our own toughest plot questions, its still, in the end, our own lonely project that no one will understand as deeply as we do and, hence, we are the only people who can solve our most difficult writing problems.

So, why is this a good thing?

I’m going to start by initially saying that this can and should be a good thing. Your writing may end up being your most personal act with yourself (haha, yeah, that sentence could be used in other circumstances. . .) but this can be extremely daunting. Embracing the fact that your writing is yours, and yours alone, is the first step to beating just how utterly daunting writing can be. We don’t start as writers seeing or knowing this fact. Instead we start as writers inspired, typing away, giddy, excited, with the words flowing out of us like Niagara Falls. We don’t come face to face with how utterly alone we are, with this huge book project, until we run into problems. And it is in that moment when we realize that we are up against an enormous plot responsibility with no one to turn to.

What you shouldn’t do

Being a part of a writers’ group (Jackpine Writers) has left me some insight on the worst choice we can make in our own lonely desperation: Turning to others can be outrageously destructive. I also think turning to others is probably our first instinct when we face the abyss. So, why not turn to others, especially other writers, you ask? Because they don’t know your book, nor your plot, nor your initial hope for its future and editing. They can, and probably will, give you terrible advice. They won’t do this purposefully but they have no way of understanding your project like you do. No one does. Advice is a very dangerous thing for something that is so personal. And the worst advice you will ever receive will be, absolutely, from other writers. This is, once again, not at all intentional but a writers first instinct when approached with a writing project that has problems and is unfinished, is to simply apply to it the kind of changes they themselves would personally make as writers. That would be fine, except that it’s not their project, its yours.

How to go it alone

So, you’re going it alone, just like when you started writing in the beginning. Except now its not any fun, its difficult, it makes your head feel like its going to split down the middle. When I face this kind of situation in my own writing life I follow a check list to help me get out of it.

Take a deep breath and get away from it for a little while - Seems obvious doesn’t it? But often our most difficult problems will evaporate after a good nights sleep or a week entirely away from our own writing.

Get some perspective - I don’t personally really write in chapters, instead I deal in a more Stephen King-esque numbering sequence but, regardless, you might have a plot problem but getting back to the bones of your story and reminding yourself where the heck you’re going can be extremely helpful. Ask yourself, how is the book going to end? And then, how was this chapter going to end? How was this scene going to end? Don’t let a runaway plot keep your from the bones.

Separate your main characters - This is something I have found absolutely invaluable in the past. If you have multiple characters that move between each other throughout the book, pull those characters out and make separate books out of their own stories. This saved me when writing the first Embraced by Darkness book, I was able to focus on each of my main characters exclusively, making it a far less daunting book to work on.

The point is to put your book into a position where its not such a difficult piece of work, this can be done strictly by getting some perspective, or by physically pulling that book a part and working on separate plots individually. Oftentimes we just need to change how we look at things.

But can’t advice help at all?

Of course it can, don’t get me wrong about that one, I have been a part of a writers’ group and I have been given some really great advice. But it has never been about plot. Our writers group has one strict rule, no comments about subject. We critique the writing, the sentence structure, grammar choices, word choices etc. But we are aware, as writers, that our own personal choices about plot: are just that, our own. Sometimes though just talking it out can really help. In this case I have my awesome mom who would tell you she is not a writer, she’s a reader! I’ve found that her advice has been the most helpful and I believe its absolutely because she’s not a writer. So my advice would be to find your own nonwriters who love you, understand you (heh, to some extent anyway. . .) and will openly listen and try to help as best they can. Non-writers have one great thing going for them, they don’t know any of the rules about writing so they can’t apply them to you. I just love those folks who start with, “Well, I see how your book isn’t following the blah blah blah guide of writing a novel. Have you read that book?” Writers are great at advice that its too late to apply. Nonwriters/readers however, you need one of those on your side, someone to talk it through with. Find one.

We all make our own flavors

But, that’s ok. That’s the way it is. You wouldn’t like their writing either. Don’t think about them, don’t focus on them, let it go. Not everybody is going to get you at all. It may be unfair and even a good few of them (had they read your book on that “right” day) would have liked it. But that’s how most readers read and when people read (you and me included) we’re looking for immediate gratification and, if we don’t get exactly what we’re looking for, we toss it. And that doesn’t necessarily mean it was bad writing. Writers can make better or worse readers. I’ve known writers who don’t read much because nothing is up to their standards. I also know writers who are like me, who can’t read enough, who actually flat out revel in all literature, the good, the bad, and the ugly. To me words are a drug and almost every flavor out there does something for me.

We are all affected differently

But that is simply not the case for most people. You are producing a certain flavor, some flavors go over better with more audiences then others. Take example: a cook book versus a character-driven five hundred page sci-fi, which one are more people gonna buy? Accepting this fact right away and immediately is one of the first steps to becoming (what I consider) a “professional” writer. We’re all writers but a lot of us never leave the closet, seeming to think of our work as fine wine “ya never know, the longer it gathers dust, maybe it’ll somehow get better!” I consider Stephen King one of the greatest writers of all time. Many writers laugh at this. And I laugh back at them. I am sad they can’t enjoy the wonders of Stephen King, but I am elated that I get to. I have no problem having my own tastes and I can completely enjoy them without company. But, I am a writer, and writing is done mostly alone so I’m used to enjoying things alone. You are a writer and your writing will first be enjoyed by you and you cannot, ever, let anyone, take that away from you.

You wouldn’t like ‘em anyway…

We’re talking about your own personal flavor now and, because of that, it’s easier to take offense when people do not like what you write but that is entirely why you don’t have any reason to take offense. Let’s say you probably would like to hang out with one in twenty people you meet on the street. That one in twenty may or may not like you and may or may not like your writing too. But the other nineteen you couldn’t get along with them if your life depended on it, so why would it offend you if they didn’t like your writing? Of course they won’t, you wouldn’t like their writing either.

So we land in the same place all of the writers before us land. You can’t take it personal. How many times have you heard that one? Well, if you’ve been around writing for a while like I have, oh eight billion, and most of those from myself. The point is to understand how to take criticism and understand who its coming from. For example: My boyfriend is reading my fantasy novel. A novel written by a woman. About women. It’s character driven and literary to some extent. There is action, though not right away. So, I am not offended by the fact that he’s not devouring it, I expected that. He might be my target man but he is not my target reader.

So, lighten up, focus not on the people who would probably never like your writing (even on a good day) focus on YOUR reader. Imagine them, see them in your mind. Is it a gal or guy? What’s their general age? Do they need to be English teachers to enjoy your writing? Or Construction workers? Know who your audience is and focus, focus, focus, on them. After that you have the opportunity to broaden that focus and attempt to pull more people in.

The longer the writing project, the deeper and more debilitating the page fright … The mistake, I think, is to strive to banish doubt, to see it as the enemy. Just as courage has no meaning without fear, faith has no meaning without doubt. They’re the yin and yang of all aspiration. — Dennis Palumbo

I love this quote. It reminds me that doubt is natural and will never go away. Instead of attempting to demolish doubt one needs to learn how to write and live around it. Courage is the key. Courage is doing it anyway even though you are scared shitless. The courageous people are not the ones who are without fear, they are the ones that do it anyway. Simply put and amazing and very inspiring. Doubt is natural, so is fear, they will stand with me for the rest of my life and I hope that I have the courage to stand hand in hand with them and let them teach me how to be stronger.

Don’t say the old lady screamed – bring her on and let her scream. — Mark Twain

Love, love, love this quote! I can totally see this old woman, I can hear her heart pumping in terror and panic. Bring her on and let her scream! No kidding, show don’t tell because I want to be standing beside her with my ears ringing, I want to feel my own body panic and cringe.

Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re probably right. — Henry Ford

This is going back to the subject of fear and doubt. If you don’t think you can do it then how could you? And this is where I believe fear and doubt both have the power to make us stronger. Fighting them is futile, learning to live with them and accept them is where courage grows.

You think you want space and order, but sometimes pressure and disorder is more fruitful. — Nicci Gerrard

This is incredibly inspirational for me. As a writer how many times have you thought, “if I could just get some quiet time, turn the phone and the spouse and the kids and the pets off, then I could write well.” This is nothing but an excuse not to write because, quite frankly, that’s not ever gonna happen. And the truth is that in that pressure and noise, we do have a chance to become our most brilliant.

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language/And next year’s words await another voice. …/And to make an end is to make a beginning. — T.S. Eliot

So, let us allow the past to fall into an ended chapter in our own books, something published and over that can never be tinkered with again. No more editing, no more touching or adjusting, this is it, put the pen down, no point in going back to it like a tongue on a broken tooth. Our past is what made us, what should never be forgotten, but what can never be changed again and the best idea I’ve ever heard is to consider this ending as only another beginning, and may be this one might be the very best beginning we have ever had.

To be inspired is to laugh at doubt and fear, to be inspired is to let your heart lead you. To never let another person tell you that you are romanticized — Tarah L. Wolff

I would like to end this blog post with my very favorite quote of all time:

The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it’s not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

There are other differences too, however. Createspace is owned by Amazon, meaning that any book published in Createspace is listed almost instantly on amazon.com. I would have to pay extra for this feature with lulu and it would be a wait time of up to eight weeks, or, according to some accounts I read online: never. So I have gone over to the other side and, as soon as I have some experience with Createspace, I plan on doing a serious comparable right here.

Integrity

I have been thinking of that word a lot lately. Listen to it, say it out loud Integrity. What a good word.  What a lost word in today’s world. I have been thinking about it a lot lately because of my own odd actions toward the guy that I love. I can’t tell you how many times he has offered or “promised” to do something for me and I have absolutely told him no. “But I want to!” Yeah, I don’t care, no. You see, if he doesn’t promise me anything then I won’t be disappointed if he doesn’t get it done. The previous men in my life were not capable of accomplishing anything they told me that they would do, they all ended up liars (albeit, not always intentionally). Since I was a very little girl, I have always had very low expectations of people (especially men) and I find my life is quite without disappointment. On the other hand when someone tells me they’re going to do something, I expect it, isn’t that fair? And yet, I can’t tell you how often my expectations have been absolutely destroyed. Do our words mean nothing anymore?

What surprises me the most though is how often being undependable seems the norm in today’s society. I am more often now impressed by the depth some people will go to hurt others than I am impressed by the integrity of a friend. Are their good people in my life? I have amazing people in my life who would fight with absolutely no hesitation for me. But those other folks that I have been stupid enough to trust, to allow near, I no longer speak nor communicate with any one of them. And, quite frankly, how could you deal with people like that in any other way? If I cannot trust your word or you have literally thrown out your own integrity just to attack mine, then I’m done with you.

I have found in my life the more I have done for some people the more the deeper their bitterness and hatred for me runs. I can’t tell you how often in the past year I have wanted to ask, “Seriously? Why are you even here, why aren’t you talking to your family? Focusing on your future? Is attempting to get my goat still that important to you? Have you no integrity? No self respect? Didn’t I do enough for you or are you so greedy that you want more? Or is it even worse than that… Can you simply not stand the fact that I moved on first? That I’m happy? Or is finding something I did wrong the only way you can live with your own mistakes?”

“Our integrity sells for so little, but it is all we really have. It is the very last inch of us. But within that inch we are free.” — V for Vendetta

People don’t seem to have any consciousness or focus on their futures or the direct consequences to their actions. I’ll be the first to tell you: “I am no longer a part of your life, I am a waste of your time that you should be spending on bettering your own soul. Don’t go away mad, just go.” Instead they find something to be angry about, anything, anything at all, latch on to it and stand on it, not because it holds any real merit, but because they have nothing else to stand on. The rest of us stand on our integrity.

And isn’t that really all we have? Our integrity is our freedom. It is my freedom from allowing anyone to bring me down. You can stand on that little shred of something you think you have a right to be angry at me with. But why? You’re proving that you have nothing else, that that little shred is more important than your own future, your own whole life: you can’t accomplish anything accept refuse to let go of the past. And, quite frankly, I’ve been there, I’ve done that, that isn’t a life I would want for anyone.

However . . .

You might argue, it is the lack of consequences that have made so many people these days liars, users and cheaters. Shouldn’t we, as people with integrity (or trying to be) be the ones that give them a consequence? Fair enough. I agree. But I also believe it is a waste of our time, life’s just too short to be trying to teach assholes a lesson about respect. That’s not always an easy choice but I do believe it is the best one. So let em talk, let em stand on their shreds, let em smear your name because if you attack back the chances are you will be selling your own integrity. And your integrity is something worth protecting above all else. Let em talk.

I am Disappointed with myself

People have told me, “You can only be pushed so far, Ta, don’t blame yourself.” I understand that but to my own accountability, and I believe that that is really what we all live by, I failed badly this week and I feel awful about it. Where my common sense usually keeps me down and reins my pointless anger into a usual roll of the eyes and a laugh, sometimes the unfairness of life simply enrages me. When I see people never seem to get what they deserve, see people lie and cheat and smile as they sit back with no consequences. I lost it, I utterly saw red and completely lost my cool. My fault. I will return to attempting to let it go and return my focus to those I love and my future. No more useless anger that accomplishes nothing. I can at least admit that I am human and all I can do is try my best even if that sometimes is not enough. And what do I do in the mean time? I return to my book, of course, my savior, my one heart that has always meant some kind of freedom if I can just get it done.

My book

So I finished reading my book and have, eh, lets say eighty changes to make. Ugh, not serious changes, thank God, but enough changes so we’ll have to do another print out when I’m done and my editor will have to read it again. The majority of the changes were in part one with additions to the overall story structure.

My mom is reading the book and had some very intelligent questions which also caused me to add in a little bit of this and that as I went. In part one I was annoyed to find that it seemed like I had trimmed just too much of the descriptions out of the piece. In many areas it felt like the reader was just blindly following my lead character around.

This is a place I struggle with. On one hand none of my characters will realistically notice their surroundings because they have been in them for so many years. I mean, how often do you really look at your kitchen or, for that matter, the people you see every day? And this is a question I think all writers struggle with and ask themselves at one point or another. How much do we tell the story as narrators and how much is the story told clearly from the point of view of a character?

But this is old news, I was a hard core character writer for many years, where the only thing told to the reader was what the character saw. Plainly I took the “show don’t tell” notion a bit too far. However, Stephen King has taught me a lot, he tends to set scenes up before bringing the lead character into them. Often times it even reads as though the surroundings (the town, the room etc.) are characters within themselves. And what an interesting and amazing notion. This is definitely something I am working on and intend to do with all of my future writing projects. Because isn’t that the truth, we as people are as effected by our surroundings just as much as by the people around us and that makes our surroundings just as much as characters in our lives as the people.

So the changes are happening . . .

I sat down the day before last and settled in to making my many changes. I finished all but one of them last night. Can’t say it was a good experience. it started with my network printer claiming it was out of paper every time I attempted to print a single page. Damn. What a great way to start. My plan had been to change the font to red and print out every single change I made so my editor would know at least what I did at an easy glance. So, after a long struggle, I finally printed all of my changes out on my mom’s printer (my own is out of ink) but her printer is a black and white laser jet so I wasn’t able to change the font color. So every time I printed out a change I had to go grab the page and highlight it by hand. Wow, what a long night. Over a hundred pages printed later I finally finished the next night with all but one of my changes. I remembered the other change later when I was downstairs considering a glass of wine after all of my trouble. Why must everything be so hard?

The changes are the kind of things you would expect. Add dialogue here to reinforce why that is happening. Introduce these characters here so they don’t come out of nowhere later. Change that characters name throughout the book and DON’T FORGET TO MAKE THESE CHANGES IN THE SEQUEL! Also the little tweaks of grammar: double spaces that exist for no reason, is “eying” really a word? Screw it, I’ll use “eyeballing” instead. That sentence sucks, try to rework it, screw it, delete the whole sentence, it wasn’t really important any way.

So, this is what writers do and it does sometimes feel endless. There is everything else in my life to contend with too. My job, gotta make an appointment for my car and for my teeth, I need a fricken crown. Christmas is coming, gotta find the money for that, gotta budget, gotta be careful. Spend time with the people that I love, do web updates for clients. Endless.

Emotional

Artists tend to be less common sense and more emotional than most people. This seems especially true for writers. (Though far less true nowadays now that we’re in the twentieth century.) Where most people use one side of the brain most of the day artists are constantly going back and forth, making basic things (such as math) all the more difficult regardless of intelligence. I know when I do math I have one side of my brain hacking away at the problem and the other side of my brain constantly interrupting out of boredom “Why in the heck are we wasting our time on this?!” “You have better things to do!” “I am SO bored!” Making it very difficult to concentrate and it generally means a frustrated state. This makes for a a very cranky bad attitude when doing what most people would consider normal things.

Perfectionists

There are very few professional artists that I know that are not perfectionists. There will always be the lofty, no discipline, flower child artists where perfectionism does not exist. But, I find, that the artists that embrace their work with stubbornness and fierceness, are always perfectionists. I am one of these. In the above paragraph I mentioned loads of frustration. I live in a constant state of frustration if I am not careful because I never feel as though I am good enough at anything I attempt to do, my writing especially. Its apt to easily drive a person to drink because we all know, despite how bad I feel I am at it, I’m not going to stop writing. And living in that constant state of utter failure can be rather depressing.

The way we see things

And this might be the biggest one. Artists do NOT see things like other people and I believe that especially true for writers. Where painters or photographers sometimes see the beauty in things, the more writers see the reality of the world, the uglier it gets. Because, simply put, and I am a believer in this because this is how I see it; there is simply more ugly out there than beauty. We are human, lets not forget, and I feel the average human tends to focus on the negative anyway. When you take an emotional perfectionist living in a state of frustration, seeing things not just negatively but in a million negative ways, you tend to get someone who lives on a tight rope between suicide and trying to find a reason to keeping living and, normally, they keep living just out of habit. Or, and I think this being the most common, they can’t die yet, they’ve got that book that they have to finish no matter how shitty they think it might be.

Seeing Ourselves

And this leads me to how artists see themselves. They are emotional and that makes them doubtful. They are perfectionists and that makes them failures. They see the world more deeply and from more angles so they see a thousands times the horror and ugliness in this world than most people; they are simply incapable of naivety. They see themselves with more accuracy than any human being ever will and I do not mean the good sides of themselves. So, yeah, I think that just about explains why artists tend to be addicts and suicidal.

But there is good there too. We do see ourselves, we are more aware of why we do the things we do because we study humanity. We have a tendency to know the outcomes of our choices even before we make the choices. Yes, this does tend to make us control freaks but it also makes us the kinda folks you want on your team.

I have an example of this line of thinking that happened in my own life not too long ago. I’ve never wanted a typical life or to have kids and its always made me just ridiculously angry when people ever suggested I should have kids. Anything that I do (because I’m a writer) that I don’t understand, has always really bothered me. And don’t get me wrong, I had many theories, and though none of them were entirely wrong as to my reaction to having kids, none of them were quite right either.

Then, it dawned on me that I have never once been involved with a man who would support or help me. To me, having children with what I have come to believe is the normal man, would be me working minimum wage for years, living in poverty, literally using food stamps so I could eat, because I have never known a man capable of support (of any kind whether it be financial or emotional, despite some very good intentions). So, my reality of having kids would be willingly hopping into single mom status and divorce, moving back in with my mom and losing another ten years of my writing life working my ass off just to eat and support my children. And so, of course anyone telling me that that is what I should want with my life immediately enraged me.

The truly rough part of it is, is that I still believe all of that. Of the relationships I’ve had with men, being told I would be alone the rest of my life because I did not want children, I wish I had known what I am aware of now so I could have told them, “No, I’m just not stupid enough to want kids with you. YOU are not responsible enough (proven by your actions) and I refuse to be the only adult. If I have kids, I want them to have a real home with real parents who are partners, who share the burden. Hell, I just want a real home of my own: to be able to support myself one day!” I know too many women who had to do it all because their “men” simply weren’t man enough to do anything but make excuses while their women went out and got third jobs while raising the kids almost entirely alone. You might argue, men have it rough today, ok, fine, I’ll bite (as if women don’t have it rough too), but there is one major flaw in that argument: I do know good men who don’t need excuses. In fact, as unbelievable as it may be, I have one in my life right now who loves me, when I would of told you a few months ago that good men no longer existed.

So, in my view of the world, I was finally able to surmise my actions and my emotional responses to this huge thing in my life. This is my attempt to use common sense and my artistic self together to improve my actions by finally truly seeing and embracing what motivates my emotional responses from the very beginning. All I saw when having kids was my giving up it all so a man could continue living an easy life and get the experience of having a child. And I was raised, told, that that is what a real woman is; she gives up her life so her man can have one. Rage? Oh yeah, rage with no limits, rage that engulfed me for years at the utter unfairness. No wonder I bulked at the very mention of anyone telling me to have kids. And now that I see it, its so obvious, but isn’t that how it goes?

This is an aspect of being a writer I don’t think anyone ever really considers or knows, not even the writers themselves. How we delve into the actions, into the humanity, into the emotional responses that make us people. And I think to be an accurate writer we first must see ourselves and all the mysteries, the millions of tiny experiences, that dictate our every action for our entire lives.