Sick of Myself

A couple days ago, Karin Tabke asked what challenges her blog readers face for the coming year, and my answer is - as usual - getting an agent (and all the stuff that comes after that). Karin's reply was simply: "Are you sending stuff out?"

Umm... :hangs head in shame:

Not at the moment.

You see, everything I have ready to send out has already been rejected by damn near everyone on the planet (or at least it feels that way). :cough:loser:cough: Which is why I'm reworking Blink - which hasn't been rejected because it was never queried - and trying to write that cute mystery series I've always wanted to write.

Still doesn't make me any less of a loser. I mean, seriously, five years? (Officially, five years last week was when I typed the first words of Spectacle.) And not five years of working on one book, either. It wasn't even five years where I had to compete with a day job for writing time.

Of course, some days are better than others. Some days I hit the world with a bright outlook and cheerful optimism (no, really... I do). Other days are like today when all I can think of goes kinda like this quote from Shelley:

I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne, and yet must bear.

And then I get totally pissed and sick of myself. (I can only wonder whether you're sick of me yet, too. Wanda Whiner that I am. Boo fucking hoo.)

So, coming back around to the question of the day: Am I sending stuff out? In truth the answer is: No, I'm too much of a big baby to send anything out lately. "What if they don't like it?" "What if they stomp all over it (and by it, I mean the story and therefore my chest) again?" Wah.

I know I can't sell anything if I don't send it out. I know if I never try I'll always fail. I've heard all the maxims. I know all the rah-rah'isms. I've tried all the tricks to get myself out of this slump. Unfortunately, it all comes back to this.

And I'm totally sick of myself.

Aarrgghh

I hate everything I'm writing. Every friggin' word. I'd burn it all, but it's on my hard drive and it seems like such a pain to print it all just to burn it. (And I'd have to get permission from the city to burn anything anyway.)

I'm trying to work. Damn it. I'm trying to put the words in my head onto paper. But it's all coming out crap. That's why I had Flaubert's quote posted. "I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within." I figure if Flaubert went through it, it's not fatal.

It feels like it, though.

I've sat down numerous times over the past few days (weeks, months) to try and make the words come out. I've tried it here at the keyboard. I've tried it sitting on the couch with my trusty notepad. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Zip.

Aarrgghh!!

Every time I think I have it in my head, it disappears like so much dandelion fluff caught on a stiff breeze. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the words in my head.

It's fucking pissing me off. Seriously.

I thought if I took my meters down, and stopped thinking about how badly I needed to get x-number of words done, the words would come back. I thought maybe I was putting too much pressure on myself, so if I laid off, it'd come back. Ummm....

NOPE

I thought maybe I was pushing too hard to write for the market. (I even theorized as much in an earlier post.) I went back to a weird ass book I was trying to write a couple years ago. It's weird-ass, but I still think the story deserves to be told. So I thought if I went back to the 'book of my heart', the words would flow like they used to. Again....

NOPE

I even tried just sitting down with one of my unedited pieces and through reworking one of those, it would get the juices flowing again. I hate to repeat myself, but that was also a big fat No.

I'm really starting to tear my hair out here. I want to write. I need to write. I'm fucking jones'n to write. This may even qualify as the DTs soon.

Last time this happened, it was 9 months before I could write again. NINE MONTHS!!!??? Not going to happen. Someone or something will have to die before I make it through three-quarters of a year without writing again.

So I keep trying.

Stephen King is quoted as saying: "Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when it feels like all you're managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position." Yeah. Right. I tried that. The shit just kept getting deeper, and I can't hold my breath that long.

And it's not even that I don't feel like writing. There's nothing else I'd rather be doing right now that churning out some fiction. I want to write, that's not the problem. The problem is I feel like everything I write is pure crap, and I hate that I can't put together a coherent sentence to save my ass. Every character is BORING. Every scene feels trite. I want it to flow out like RTL or Spectacle or Caldera or Manhunter or Blink. I don't want it to drag out of me like Justice did.

Maybe I'm just not feeling it. But I can't figure out why. I love the ideas I'm working on. I love the characters and the scenes and the premises. I want to finish Nano, but I'm terrified that if I work on it again, I'll just screw it up. (And I really like what I've written so far.)

Perhaps it's a lack of self confidence. Yeah.... That's a definite possibility.

Not that I don't have justification for it. I mean it's not like it was four years ago when I finished Spectacle and I was so certain it would be published immediately. (Like three years ago, at least.) When it didn't draw interest, I thought maybe it was because the premise was a little out there for the world at large. I set it aside and went after the world with Caldera. (After I got over that nine months stretch of writer's block, that is.) I thought for sure it would get published...

Are you seeing a theme here?

After the absolute certainty that I would get published, and the years since those early days without even getting an agent, it's no wonder my self confidence sucks. I mean, christ-almighty-whitey. It's been four damn years. :POUNDS HEAD REPEATEDLY ON DESK:

You know that irritating little voice in the back of your head? It's the same one that told you you'd never get that cute boy to ask you out, and you'd never get that job, and you'd never amount to anything. That's the one that's been whispering into my ear that the reason I haven't gotten published is because I suck. I suck, my writing sucks, my submission materials suck.

"Don't quit your dayjob."

Little too late for that. This IS my dayjob. And my nightjob.

Remember how it's okay to suck? Remember how I've been a big proponent of giving yourself permission to suck? Well, I did that tonight. I gave myself permission to write crap, and that's exactly what I got. Crap. Sometimes that's okay. Sometimes writing crap leads to a break in the log jam, and good stuff comes out. Not this time. Crap crap crap crappity crap.

I just keep telling myself: "This too shall pass."

I just wonder how sane I'll be when it does.

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Introspection Time

Several times over the past few weeks I've thought about doing a post on introspection. I've even mentioned it in a couple other posts. Well, today's the day.

Let me start with a little lead in...

I woke up this morning feeling like a cross between Piglet and Eeyore. You remember Piglet? He's afraid of everything. And Eeyore is the epitome of negative. So, here I sit afraid of doing anything because I'm sure it will turn out wrong, that I'll screw up and everyone will laugh at me, or that I'll say something stupid. (Or that I already have said something stupid and now everyone is laughing at me. You get the gist.)

If you've been reading along, you know most days I'm a fairly solid, rational and secure person. So what's the deal with me today? This is where the introspection comes in.

First off, let's take a spin in the Wayback Machine. I wasn't always the person I am today. I was the type of person who wouldn't say shit if she had a mouthful. I let people walk all over me (believe it or not). I was 'a very small animal', if not in stature than at least in my own mind. Which is weird because I also did very well in leadership positions - like first chair flute and captain of the QuizBowl team (i.e. Nerd Olympics). Outside of my box, though, I was Piglet. Drop me in a room with the popular kids and I shrank against the wall quivering.

This constant living-in-fear eventually turned me into Eeyore. If anything bad was going to happen, it was going to happen to me. Murphy's Law became my code to live by. In the end, I just stopped trying to do anything, and whatever anyone else wanted to do was fine with me. If other people were making my choices, then the bad things wouldn't happen.... Umm... Right.

Fast forward... After years of work, I finally pulled myself out of the Piglet/Eeyore cycle. But even though I escaped the mindset, it's still there. It's down deep for the most part, but it's still part of me. Every day I have to watch to make sure it doesn't sneak up and engulf me. Some days I fail.

In the old days, it would overwhelm me and I'd spend days in a funk, wandering through my life feeling crappy and wondering why. Then came introspection. You see, once I learned to sit my butt down and think about where the funk was coming from--once I discovered the things I feel now often have roots in the past somewhere--these attacks of Piglet/Eeyore came less frequently and stayed a shorter period of time.

Where today's funk started isn't important. (It's personal and after locating its source, I kicked its ass.) The reason I even mention it is to highlight the importance of knowing what's driving you and why. (Which is really all introspection is about.)

And believe it or not, this can help with your writing. Digging through the unmarked boxes in your own past--opening them up and baring all the contents to the harsh light--can show you how your characters' pasts and memories affect who they are today. It can give them more depth which makes them more sympathetic, which sells books.

It can also help you overcome your fears about writing, life and everything else, making better person because of it. (For instance, I used to have a real phobia about moths - complete with heart palpatations and screaming. Once I figured out where that fear came from and why, I got the damn thing under control. I still don't like the little buggers, but I can live with them in the same room - as long as they don't touch me.)

So, I want you all to do a little exercise. Think about something that bothers you today, look into your past and figure out why it bothers you - maybe one incident that happened when you were a child. Dig deep. Chase it all the way down to its roots. (Back to the example above, my fear of moths came from when I was a kid. A moth landed on my face, startling me so I screamed and jumped - at which point, my family laughed at me. The embarassment of that night started the fear. The moth never hurt me; the laughter did.) You might feel better for it, and your characters will thank you, too.

Now, if you've done this little exercise, or experienced a similar epiphany, feel free to comment about it. If not, share some fears you have. Shared fear, like shared pain, lessens with the sharing.

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Letting Fear Drive You

Well, I finished Corpse Pose earlier, and started No One Left To Tell. I watched The Kentucky Derby (if you didn't watch it, it was both exciting and tragic) and the latest round of the National Heads-Up Poker Tournament.

During the tournament, poker legend Doyle Brunson made an interesting comment. I don't remember the exact wording but it was something to the effect of not letting fear drive the choices you make. This is my problem in poker. I let fear dictate the choices I make, and lately those choices have put me on the losing end.

I've been thinking about Doyle's statement ever since. Not just in relation to poker. I've been wondering if I let fear drive me in my writing choices, too. I don't really know the answer to that. I know I can't think about fear or it stalls my writing, but does fear enter into the other choices I make? Am I writing what needs to be written without fearing someone will get their undies in a bunch over the subject matter? Do my query letters stink of fear? Am I putting my best foot forward, or is fear making me torpedo myself?

This whole thing bears some serious consideration and deep introspection. I don't think fear invades my writing choices, but my subconscious could be doing an end-around I'm not really aware of. That's where the introspection comes in. (It's a really effective tool, but I'll save touting the wonders of introspection for another day.) So, I've got some thinking to do.

Meanwhile, I have some more writing to do tonight. I'm trying to hit 30K before I finish for the day, and since I'm about 700 short at the moment, I need to get back to work. If the meter over there -------> says 30K plus when you read this, I succeeded. If not, there's always tomorrow.

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