Sunday Reflections, 25
“The growth in money and credit has outpaced both savings and economic growth. These inflationary pressures have been concentrated in asset prices, not consumer price inflation—keeping monetary policy too easy. This increase in asset prices has fueled domestic borrowing and spending. Government policy and the increase in securitization are largely responsible for this bubble. In addition to loose monetary policies by the Federal Reserve, government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have contributed to the problem. The fourfold increases in their balance sheets from 1997 to 1998 boosted new home borrowings to more than $1.5 trillion in 1998, two-thirds of which were refinances which put an extra $15,000 in the pockets of consumers on average–and reduce risk for individual institutions while increasing risk for the system as a whole.”
—Dr. Ron Paul, MD
CONFERENCE REPORT ON S. 900, GRAMM-LEACH-BLILEY ACT, November 8, 1999
End-to-End, Part IV: BOGU!
In this example of end-to-end analysis, we have a a chilling prediction of massive wealth transfer. The prior post is helpful Part I of this video series.
How we doing folks? Do I need to start posting about puppies and kittens yet? 
True Conflict: Bad Choices, Bad Scenarios
This is the second part of a series about failures in end-to-end analysis. Part 1 is here.
In the prior post, we talked about levels of conflict, from the accident to the failure of thinking through all the ramifications of the problem before a character and the consequences of mistakes. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time is interesting. Royally screwing the pooch, now that will generate conflict.
Let me give you, the writer, and example of an intense, and all too-real, end-to-end scenario. Here in Hack Writerville, we deal in reality. And sometimes, reality is a real bitch.
Setup: In this scenario, you are pretending to be me, Anthony, but let’s call you Chuck and give you one child instead of two. At the end of this scenario is a question. It is a yes/no question, and is not an ethics question, but rather a logic question. From a logic standpoint, there is a correct answer, and a wrong answer.
Scenario: You struggle to park your car for a dinner rendezvous with some friends. You are alone and not with your family. You finally find a parking space away from your destination but not far enough where you need to take a bus to get to the front door. It’s a pay lot squished off to the side with plenty of spaces.
You close the door and lock the car, and notice someone is approaching you. You realize, too late, that this is an isolated place to park your car. The person approaching you is a white male, who looks like a tweaker—scabs on face, dirty clothes, etc. Far from feeling sympathy, you feel danger.
Since you, the writer, are pretending to be me, as Chuck, you need to know at this point that Chuck is armed. Chuck carries a sidearm, and, as trained, you move away from your danger by moving to the back of the car.
The tweaker follows you. We are heading down a path of escalation, and in seconds we have gone from a heighten sense of danger to the possibility that this person is up to no good.
“What do you want?” you ask, while you still move. Indeed, Chuck is a bit of clever at this point. As long as you are moving at the same speed as this person of interest, you merely have to circle the car. If they follow you around the car, then, as they say, it’s on.
He doesn’t, but you place your hand on your sidearm anyway.
That’s when you notice the other man walking towards you, grinning. You cannot play round robin with two assailants. He has his hand in his coat, and this second bad guy is pulling something out of it.
“Give me your fucking wallet and keys or we’re going to kill you!”
It’s on.
Do you draw and engage the felons, or do you hand over the wallet and keys? There is a very real possibility that you, as a marksman trained in the art of self-defense, will kill one or both of these men before they lose the will to fight. There is also the distinct possibility that you will be shot. Question: Is keeping your wallet and car keys worth killing two men?
The answer is below the line. Before you go there, however, be warned this scenario is not something I pulled out of my butt to prove a point about self-defense. This is a study in end-to-end analysis. Re-read the entire scenario again, make your choice, and click.
True Conflict: The Hidden World Around Your Characters
I know about conflict. Crisis Management/Disaster Recovery essentially is, from a holistic standpoint, about conflict resolution. People, things, any risky area, you name it—I have managed it (only in my field, however, I am not a military officer).
On the other hand, my qualifications for novel writing advice are not impressive. No publishing credits are under my name, I am un-agented, and really, I have only written two books, one of which I will never show anybody.
This is why I am very careful in giving writing advice here in Hack Writerville. But I can speak about conflict in a literary sense.
Why do people fail? What do people do to cause systems to fail?
In books, just like life, bad things happen to good people. Just like life, and in books, this is a cliché. A good writer can take these circumstances and turn them into a compelling novel, one even I would like to read. As a simple plot device, it works. Just look at the thousands of fiction books using this hook!
If we are talking about a spectacular fail, however, one that hurts people to the core or causes systems to go splat in impressive ways, then look no further to a lack (and it is always a lack) of end-to-end thinking.
Ah ah ah, I bet some of you were thinking “critical thinking”. Critical thinking is a component of the end-to-end analysis, and a lack of it causes conflict, but not on the scale of the end-to-end failure scenario. Let’s go over a literary example of end-to-end thinking.
I read two of Stephen R. Donaldson’s books, after I forgave him for invoking sympathy for a rapist, filled with complex conflict.
The Mirror of Her Dreams has a very interesting character, the King. The King and his Wizard adviser are two childish malcontents. They act foolishly. They pay attention to seemingly inane things and make far-reaching decisions at apparent whims. People think they are crazy and harmless.
But they are far far from crazy. The King, you see, is an end-to-end thinker. At the end of book two, you can see how, in the shadows, he made the correct decisions because he considered all the risks (to his kingdom and subjects), and picked the best courses of action. Indeed, his ability to think many moves ahead, and keep it secret from his enemies, is, in effect, conflict. Conflict about conflict! The two books in the series alone are worth the characterization and portrayal of the King.
On the other side of the coin, is the conflict generated when the main character sees a problem on the horizon (conflict!), yet, because he did not consider all the available data and make decisions based on logic, he fails. He tried and failed. Often, this is a spectacular fail.
How do we know? Because that’s what happens in real life!
Being in the wrong place at the wrong time is conflict. Being in an accident is conflict. Anticipating a looming disaster, either personal or in a more visceral definition, is conflict, just as trying to prevent it is even more conflict. Gibbors me mohr conflicts! Nom!
If we bump it up a notch (BAM!), trying to prevent the disaster, and failing, is sticking the conflict amplifier on eleven. And trying again and succeeding because of the ‘learn from mistakes’ cycle (Motivation! Conflict!), is pure satisfying goodness, both in a novel and in the real world.
Now I know what you are thinking, You’re thinking what I outlined is “life” and what does that have to do with end-to-end thinking, anyway? And this is where I look at you, dear 8.3 readers, over my glasses sitting at the end of my nose, and say:
“Isn’t ‘that’s life’ weasel-speak for ‘I’ve royally screwed the pooch’?
For a failure to consider ramifications end-to-end is symptomatic of living in the dream world. The world that one wants, rather the world as it is. When reality intrudes on wishful thinking, logic, rather than mere gravity, is the ultimate harsh mistress.
And for a all-to-real example of that, tune in to my next blog post!
Another Great Interview Over at Mooreville
The lovely and talented Alex Moore once again has a great interview on her blog, this time with R.J. Anderson, author of Faery Rebels: Spell Hunter.
Okay, we all know of my little pixie fetitsh. Faeries are near and dear to my heart, too. I cannot wait to read her book!
IM Conversations with the Wife Unit, Part 2: The so-called benefits of marriage
The Wife Unit [3:54 PM]:
I start my mondo Vitamin D dosage todayAnthony [3:55 PM]:
is it a shotThe Wife Unit [3:55 PM]:
nope its a pill that I take once a weekAnthony [3:56 PM]:
Can it be a shot? So I can stick you in the butt with a needle?The Wife Unit [3:56 PM]:
um… No!!Anthony [3:56 PM]:
So much for the “benefits of marriage”!The Wife Unit [3:56 PM]:
LoL
Best Song Ever
It was good live!
Big Chihuahua
Lyrics by Arni Adler
Sung by Uncle Bonsai
***
The world is a big chihuahua
That’s been put in the microwave
Someone forgot when you cook chihuahua
You have to poke holes or
You’ve ruined a perfectly fine chihuahua
Sunday Reflections, 24
“Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.”
Atmosphere
Previously on Hack Writer TV: Characterization
***
Terrance dreamed about the war again. Each one was different, and this one carried with it an aura of menace, taunting him in his sleep.
The tank wing stopped at the start of the carnage, and they all got out and shut down the tanks, so it was quiet. Sixteen men walked through the blasted Iraqi armor, trucks and tents. The Iraqi dead lay everywhere. In the blasted tanks, the blown trucks, lying out of the tents, strewing this way and that, bodies mangled unbelievably, hundreds of bodies all in name only. To an objective observer, they were just parts. The sand was wet with their blood, the air smelled like burnt metal, burn bodies, burnt fuel, the tang of blood and viscera, and yes, even fear and terror. The wind carried an eerie sound, mostly the tenor of burning accompanied by the whooshing and whirling moans of the breeze low across the sand. When it blew across his face, he could taste death. The sky was a sickly gray-yellow, the sun more of a suggestion.
They found their forward scout’s buggy with a few holes in it, but it was mostly intact. Other dreams had the buggy blown to pieces, but this one was more accurate than most, with just enough changed detail to let Terrance know the dream world trapped him here. Outside the riddled tent next to the buggy was Logan, hands bound behind his back with a bullet hole in the back of his skull. Inside the tent was his crew, more of the same treatment.
The tank wing walked aimlessly among the dead, Terrance noting each man coming to the same realization that he did: their holy vengeance did not serve their slain brothers well. What they did went beyond revenge. It went beyond obscenity; as if some fell, dark forgotten god of vengeance offered his services, and the only price an accurate look into what each man was capable of doing, how far they could go.
How far they could sink.
The LT came back with the white, impromptu flags some of the Iraqis had been waving, most of them stained with blood. He tossed them on a burning tank, and stood there looking at his stained hands.
“What does this mean LT, what does this all mean?” asked Terrance.
He looked at Terrance, a blank look of a man with only a thread of soul left.
“Now we’re all sons of bitches.”
I turned off…
…Snap Shots for my blog. This is when you hovered over a link, it gave you a preview of the page it was going to, or, for an RSS feed, a smattering of posts to expand.
Nice idea, bad implementation. How do I know? In 10,000+ hits to my blog, they were only used six times.
See ya.
Characterization
Previously on Hack Writer TV: Setting
***
There was a knock at the door. Juliana looked at the clock. 5:45 PM. Terrance was early. She went to the door to let him in.
“Hello Juliana. I brought you flowers.”
Juliana once again found it difficult to be mad at the man. Frequently an ass and completely mercenary, he was still a rogue and a charmer. Wearing jeans and a simple buttoned blue shirt, rolled up at the sleeves, he held a vase of yellow roses, and, wonders of wonders, was not wearing that damn gun of his.
“Oh those are lovely, Terrance, thank you.” She took the card and read it.
Juliana,
May your expanded bookstore be everything you wanted it to be. Sorry if my mouth got me in trouble. Wouldn’t be the first time.
Love,
Terrance.
Juliana had to fight back tears. The cad. Brute. Meanie. Why were all men so exasperating? Damn it.
She put back the card. “Bunny is in the kitchen.”
Terrance winked at her.
I hate men, thought Juliana, but she smiled to herself, suddenly remembering Terrance from so long ago. Her face suddenly felt hot, and she was glad he was walking in front of her.
***
In the kitchen, Bunny stopped chopping as Terrance put the flowers on the counter. Juliana noticed Terrance giving her daughter an appreciative glance, but she could not fault him for looking. Bunny was wearing the gray sweater-dress again, all slinky and warm looking, hair pulled back into a ponytail, a wholesome look she realized Bunny recently perfected.
“Oh! Those are pretty, thank you!” said Bunny as she snatched at the card and read it before Terrance could say anything.
Juliana saw Bunny’s eyes go wide and she was frowning. Bunny looked at Terrance then back to her.
Whoops, thought Juliana.
Oh, shit, was the thought written all over Terrance.
Bunny slammed down her knife on the cutting board. “Oh, I see. You won’t fuck me but you’ll give my mom flowers!” She burst into tears and ran from the kitchen, stomping up the stairs. “I hate men!” she yelled and then slammed her bedroom door.
“Ah hell. I suck,” said Terrance.
“My daughter is seventeen,” said Juliana. She sighed. “Thank you for not fucking my daughter. But you have angered Teh Bunnahe.“
Terrance sat down without prompting. “I’m just a guy. I don’t have a lot of experience with women, or even women friends.” He stood up. “I should go apologize.”
Juliana placed a hand on his arm. “Wait.”
Setting
Previously on Hack Writer TV: Conflict
***
They were standing in the gray nothingness, the four of them, holding hands.
Zeke realized this was an errant thought. They were not really standing, nor were they floating. They simply were.
“This is the Void,” said Father, still sounding ghostly. “It is merely a perception of a reality we can only see. There is nothing ‘here’ but us. It is the literal Void. We could, if we so desire, stay here for all eternity. Time marches on based on our understanding of the passage of moments, but the longer we stay here the slower it gets, and after a while, it will merely stop, and that is a dangerous state of being. Your body you see before you is just a reflection of how you used to see it—for you are the Void, not just in it.”
His father took a deep breath, uncharacteristically steeling himself.
“Never tarry longer than necessary.” He looked at Zeke. “Sometimes the sheer nothingness will call to you. Beckon you to stay, because ‘stay’ is a very accurate for what you feel. At this moment, you are everywhere and nowhere. Come here without a destination and after awhile, everyone you know, everything you have seen, is gone, lost to you in the relentless march of time.”
“Where can we go?” asked Josh.
“Good question,” said his mother. “You can go to places that you have been and can recall merely by wishing it so, once you are in the Void. And one other place.” To Zeke, her eyes were sad.
“Where,” asked Zeke, “is this other place?”
“Here,” said his father.
Suddenly their feet were on solid ground, and the transition was sudden, jarring, and Zeke almost fell to the ground even though he transitioned standing up.
He looked around him. No sun was visible, but the incredibly bright stars overhead lit the landscape, as if the atmosphere served as some magnifier. And the night sky here was filled by a gigantic moon—no, that is a planet, thought Zeke, staring at the extraordinary sight of the blue and green cloud filled planet with a ring.
And the smell—there was a slight breeze, and it carried with a dusty, metallic smell of summer, of earth baking in the sun only to cool off at night. It was an overpowering scent, and he suddenly realized, wrong.
Through sheer willpower he forced himself to look at the nearby, not the dream of the beautiful night sky. This is when the horror of the place washed over him. They were standing in the middle of a gigantic battlefield, with bones, armor and broken weapons stretching as far as he could see—and somehow in the place he knew he could see for miles. On all sides of him, off in the great distance, were hills and mountains, as if designed to collect the battlefield and steer the combatants to a titanic struggle for—Zeke looked around again.
For nothing. There were no buildings. No fortifications. It was as if armies clashed here for the sole purpose of killing each other.
For the first, time Zeke felt raw fear. This place was wrong. It was wrong. It was—
“W-w-what is this place?” whispered Josh. To Zeke he looked pale, probably how he himself looked.
“We’re not sure,” said his mother, “but we are fairly certain this is where Great-grandpa and his friends came from. Escaped from. Fled.”
“When?” asked Zeke.
“We don’t know that either,” said his father, “we do know they spent time in the Void, longer than they should have. What your mother and I do know, this place came unbidden to us in our memory. Like a racial memory. No one showed us the way.”
His mother nodded. “We are sorry to show you boys this, but Great-grandfather was, well to put it simply, insane. When your father and I got here it was not hard to figure out why. If he fought in this battle, he saw things, did things, that must have been unspeakable. He and his friends never showed their children anything of the Void.”
“But we figured it out,” said his father, “and here we are. Our parents didn’t show us the Void, but they taught us all of the necessary things about how to access it ourselves. Your mother and I have theories that it takes several generations to remove-whatever the taint was that prevented them from traveling back to their home.” He looked around. “That is, if they had a home to go back to, it could be…”
Suddenly a gigantic sound filled Zeke’s ears—a massive trumpeting, low and malevolent, coming from the mountains on his left. It went on and on and on and ended in a low wail that made his teeth ache.
He did not even know his sword out, but it was in front of him in the low-ready position while Josh, who stood facing the other direction, had his in the high ready. Slowly they circled, looking for the threat. His parents did the same.
“What was that?” asked Zeke.
“We’ve never heard of anything like that here,” his father said simply.
THUD.
The ground shook with a low boom. Zeke peered to his left but could not see anything at all other than the stars and battlefield, so he started slowly looking around hoping to—
THUD.
The ground shook again.
“Are those earthquakes or something?” asked Zeke.
THUD. Zeke noticed the bones and battle remnants rattled with each thud.
“Impact tremors,” said Josh, matter-of-factly.
Zeke caught his breath involuntarily. He really did not want to know that. He felt the grip of icy fear anew.
The bones—THUD—moved again.
The low, load moan of the trumpet call went out again, this time slightly louder.
Zeke stared at the bones while slowly circling with Josh at his back. That wasn’t—
Suddenly they moved again.
THUD.
“Combat is imminent!” Zeke yelled.
“Where?” asked his father, “I don’t see anything!”
“The bones! They are moving by themselves, not just with the impact! With the next call I believe…”
THUD.
“BARRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” goes the call again, this time sounding otherworldly, alien and very very evil.
Closer.
Zeke did not hesitate. As the bones around him stood up, he was striking, his sword already moving in a fast arch, obliterating the thing that was forming right before him. Off to his right, another thing has formed—a skeleton of bones, dust and insubstantial, boiling black and purple mist, with eyes of burning red. It grabbed a broken spear stuck in the ground and looked directly at Zeke, a warbling hiss escaping from its bony jaw.
Zeke reversed his grip and continued his swing, this time arching up with the sword tip as he stretches forward and—
“Annette! Get us out of here!”
While it was still hissing obvious hatred, Zeke’s sword impacted the thing’s head in his upward swing. Behind him, he sensed Josh taking down something that rushed him while—
THUD
—the things are all around him now, dozens and then a wall of bone and mist and red eyes, Zeke grabbed his brother’s arm, locked his own with it and they whirled against each other, lashing out in a huge, sword filled double-arc. Bones flew everywhere, wherever his sword swung; he connected with a bony, red-eyed monster. They fall from the sheer force of their blades and they do not get up, but there are so many. So many!
“Boys, protect your mother! Form a triangle!”
Instantly they shifted positions and in an eye blink, they surrounded their mother, but in doing so, the things press in at the opportunity their movement created. One bashed at Zeke with a battered shield, and Zeke parried with his sword. The shield and sword impact and make a mighty crash, stinging his hands. Zeke lashed out with his foot, kicking the shield with a mighty blow. It sent the creature flying backwards just in time for Zeke to parry a particularly large thing with an intact sword.
THUD.
Zeke realized they were now on the defensive. Concentrating, he evened out his movements. Shifting into a rhythm let him press the attack.
Behind him, he heard his mother strike her sword with a tuning fork. It sounds different from his father’s, a rich tone that sets her sword singing in reply—
“BARRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
The chord off the sword and fork stopped, as if never struck.
A part of Zeke’s mind wanted to be more frightened, but he dropped into a rhythm, a deadly cadence that flowed with his father and his brother. The three parried and thrust, go on the offense and just as suddenly, dropped back to protect Mother. Zeke realized they can only keep this up for so long. To tire means death.
THUD.
“I see it! I see it! Off of my two-o-clock!” screams Josh. “It’s invisible, but the stars shimmer differently behind it! It’s huge!”
Josh is not panicked, but Zeke noted that clearly whatever he saw had shaken him. Zeke picked up his pace by decapitating a rushing skeleton, realizing now he can expend as much energy as he wants. This battle will not be long.
Suddenly his mother sang a clear bright note, her soprano voice loud and unwavering. His father instantly answers, a third below his mother’s note. Zeke sings out with his mother, an octave lower, and Josh answers on the same note as his father.
“BARRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
This time the trumpeting is loud, so very loud, and it rattles Zeke’s head. But he does not stop singing, and neither does anyone else. He delivered a vicious chop to a rushing skeleton, his sword impacting the top of its head. As Zeke continued with his stroke, his sword traveled down its bony, misty body, and it literally exploded outwards in all directions.
Zeke heard a new note, this one from his mother’s sword. It was sweet and metallic, and it blended into their singing, creating a wondrous harmony.
THUD.
This time the impact almost caused him to lose his footing. It certainly did with the skeleton things around him—most of them fall and he heard crunching sounds off Josh’s two.
Suddenly Zeke felt a pull, a primal tug coming from behind him. There is wind at his face. He did not see it but he knew it is there; surely as if he had eyes behind his head. Slowly he backed towards it in step with his brother and father, as if he had rehearsed the maneuver. As one, the three of them entered the rent that his mother opened right at her feet.
In a blink, they were gone.
Conflict
Failure was imminent. The scenes were dull. The characters unsympathetic, the plot, which started out whimsical, was not even worthy of clever.
Typing on an antiquated laptop running a version of Windows so old, she was sure if she called tech support, its age would be older than the person answering. She promised herself long ago the laptop would stay until she earned enough money writing to replace it.
Now, every press of a worn key was a validation of her ineptitude.
“Grrrrrr,” she said, rubbing her hair frantically, a nervous habit she picked up from her older sister. There was no other response to her plight she could think of, other than throwing the damn thing out the window.
“What’s up?” asked her lover, walking into the room.
“There is no conflict! So this novel sucks!” She growled at the screen again, this time following it up with a hiss.
Her lover laughed. His laugh was honest and warm, but now it bugged her and she wished he would go away. She harrumphed and started typing again.
“I got your conflict right here, Baby,” he said as he came up behind her. He started to rub her shoulders, and nibbled on her neck.
“Stop that!”
In response, his hands moved swiftly to her breasts.
“My conflict for you knows no bounds!”
“Shut up!”
“It’s a long standing conflict!”
“Will you stop?”
“Eventually, this conflict will be messy!”
Despite every ounce of will she had in her body, she giggled. He picked her up and threw her on the bed.
Later, wrapped around him, she sighed.
“You always get so moody when you write,” he said, giving her bottom a small smack.
“Hmmm.”
“Does there have to be conflict?”
“It’s in all the books you read.”
“Didn’t notice.” He started lightly caressing her back, and she sighed again, but this time nuzzled into his shoulder while doing so.
“Isn’t life,” he asked, “sometimes without conflict?”
“Yes, but that’s just not interesting to read. It’s not a story.”
“Aren’t we important, to each other? Don’t we have a story?” His caress was making her sleepy. She fought it, because he rarely spoke to her about her writing. He was going somewhere.
“Yes, but who else is interested in it besides us? What is special to us might not be…”
“Maybe you just need to wait.”
“What…” she closed her mouth and looked into his eyes. Far from being sleepy, they were dancing, engaging.
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe you need to feel more, do more, before you can write, uh, more.”
“Huh.” She was silent for a bit, and reached over and turned off the lamp. “Listen to you, Mr. All Writer Philosophy.”
“I always wanted to be a muse,” he said. She could hear his grin in the shadows.
“A muse is supposed to inspire me to write, not tell me to wait until I grow up!”
He laughed again. “Tell you what. Make love to me all night long. Tomorrow, I will go out and play golf and then bring home lunch. Sit at your craptop and imagine this was the last night we had together. And then start writing.”
She shuddered “Ewwwww, that thought just gives me the chills!” But she kissed him anyway, climbing on top of him, melting into him, loving him with all she had.
***
In the morning, she sat there, in the silent room. Everything was quiet, and the quiet was disturbing. She imagined life without her lover and instantly she started crying. Soon she was sobbing in great heaves, and it was sometime before she was able to type anything.
The words were hesitant, at first, but after a short while, her fingers were dancing, and the words came gushing forth. She typed and typed, and they would not stop. She suddenly realized they would never stop, she would write always until her very last days.
***
The knock on the door startled her and her stomach growled while her bladder suddenly demanded attention. She looked at the clock. She had been typing non-stop for hours. Her lover must be back with lunch, wanting her to open the door.
She bounced to the door, feeling elated and threw it open with a smile. “I am so hungry…”
It was not her lover.
It was a policeman, with a priest.
She screamed, and screamed and screamed. Her vision went black, she fell to the floor, and knew no more.
This Lack of Self-Confidence is Inexcusable
In the world of writing, the lack of self-confidence drags the online community. Pardon me while I step out of the poo pit.
Tangent Alert: I am going to talk about writing, self-confidence, strippers, fear and #queryfail
I think.
I frequently see a lack of self-confidence, mainly because I received training to spot it (a long story).
A lack of self-esteem will hork (and hork is a technical term) writing. It is an automatic fail. If a writer sits around thinking of perceptions of what people think of her, how she is or was treated, or other such deviations from the core of her center (and they are deviations), she is wasting time putting words to paper and wasting time showing them to other people.
Self-confidence issues have roots in many things, like sucky parents (and sucky is a technical term). Harsh? Certainly. Just ask Kitty the Stripper, as she gyrates her sex for dollar bills, about her relationship with her father. Every one of those girls is some man’s daughter.
Am I stretching it thin, comparing writers and strippers? It’s not a comparison—it’s a scale. At one end of the scale, you have people like me. My confidence borders on arrogance. I am the big rock sitting in the raging stream. Eventually, the water will wither me away, but for now, I laugh at the cold liquid as it attempts to move me. Ha ha!
In the middle, is the writer questioning why he is writing, why he is querying agents, etc. And on the other end of the scale is poor Kitty. So here I am, the Mr. Rock, looking down the line past Hesitant Writer at Little Ms. Kitty. I have a lot of sympathy for Kitty. Her pain of rejection radiates from the very center of her existence and is a shadow.
And you, Hesitant Writer? I have little sympathy for you. You, I want to put a boot in your ass to wake you up to the world as it exists.
Fear and poor self-esteem belong together. They are inseparable and they feed off each other like a perverted Yin and Yang. The foundation of this fear is a poor image of self. This fear is prevalent in the online writing community; look no further than the responses to #queryfail.
Some people complained about #queryfail without reading the Twitter feed for it. These people are dorks, so we can just shove them in the Dork Bin. Others thought it was funny, some neutral while others either were saddened or offended that their query could somehow make it to the big FAIL bin of Twitter for all to see. And they complained. My God, did they complain.
Me? I was pissed. Royally torqued (and torqued is a technical term). My professional query will fall into the same inbox as that utter crap? Are you kidding me?!
No, they were not.
But I digress. When reading the responses to #queryfail on various blogs, there is much fear wrapped around querying. #queryfail simply spotlighted this prevalence. Fear of query rejection. Fear agents will print out a query and snicker at you personally in a posh office while sipping Johnny Walker Blue and eating Godiva dark chocolates. Fear of never being published. Fearing failure—where each rejection a certification one is a failure, both as a writer and a person.
This fear is a lack, a lack of self-confidence.
Either a novelist is worthy of publication or is not.
How do you know if you are a writer, much less worthy of publication?
Write a novel. Send in a professional query. Get rejected. Repeat while writing book number two. You’re not going to stop writing are you? If you do, you’re not a novel writer, much less one worthy of publication.
Finish book two. Send in a professional query. Many times. Start book number three.
Here we come to the Big Life Altering Scary Fork in the Road. At some point, book number one or two is either going to get an agent, or it is not.
If you get an agent, congratulations. You are an agented writer!
If you fail to get an agent, forget about how that makes you feel. Do you want to finish the book you are writing on, indeed, must finish it because it is a burning need? Yes? Congratulations. You are a writer. Your passion for writing is boundless. You are an artist comfortable with her craft. Writing is what you do for fun. It is enjoyable. Someday you may see your book in print, but then again not.
If there is no passion at this fork in the road to continue, simply take an objective look—do you feel like you are wasting your time? Is something more interesting to you? If so, writing is probably not your thing. Go find your thing.
But if you simply don’t want to go on because you are afraid that you’ll get rejected yet again—but the passion to write is still there—you have problems. Your problem could be your writing sucks. And well, we can all learn to be better writers. That problem is fixable and by the continuation of writing, you can improve.
Most likely, your primary problem is you are a writer, but you let fear, not logic, drive a decision.
If a lack of self-confidence did this, what else is it doing? How far do its roots go? Just what are you afraid of, and why? And what the hell is it doing to your writing?
Is the decision to be a novelist this simple—set aside the fear and just keep writing?
Yes, it is.
Lack of self-confidence is understandable, but ultimately, inexcusable. I have more respect for Kitty the Stripper than I do for the writer who let something as simple as publication (querying/getting an agent/being critiqued) affect her passion for writing. At least Kitty put herself out there for the world to see, and is more honest about it.
Meh
Uh, where did the week go?
I haven’t the foggiest.
Sorry for my lack of posts, I am a consultant, and any time my contract ends, there is a flurry of brain-melting activity. Then there is the flurry of brain-melting activity for the new client.
I am just happy I put my underwear on the right way this morning. It was that kind of week!
Bwahaha!
I preface this with: I want a Kindle 2.0 sooooo bad. With that said, this Penny-Arcade comic tickles me greatly (click to embigen).
Fifteen
Fifteen years ago today, I married The Wife Unit.
Fifteen years of happiness and love, bliss and adore, cherishment and togetherness. First, we were co-workers, then we were friends, and then suddenly, like magic, we were so much more. I cannot fathom any other existence. My love, my muse, my wife—forever.
Wife Unit Literary Influences
The Wife Unit has a sneaky literary influence on me. She has a penchant for historical mystery novels, or the character-driven historical novel. She introduced me to a type of book I use to by-pass, what I now call the “Über-researched” novel. A story full of show, but you can feel the undercurrents of the setting because the author made it come alive. The details are not in your face, but oozing from the page, taking you back to the time of the setting.
I started to appreciate this type of mystery, and as a researcher, cracking open one of these gems is a special treat.
I have one word for this type of book: NOM!
When I joined Twitter, I followed a few people I exchanged email with prior, and suddenly I had several followers who in turn were following the people I was following who followed me back. Did you follow all of that?
One of these people was Gary Corby. Gary is not a heavy Tweeter, but sometimes he would say something about his work in progress or the novel he wrote previously that would peak my interest. Gary seemed like a researching, fun writer, and his blog was a hoot. I will admit, after awhile, I just wanted to read the damn book. Like now, a clear case of book lust.
Now he has an agent, and his novel I was so interested in makes its way to bookstores in 2010 as the THE EPHIALTES AFFAIR. How exciting! I plan to immediately preorder it and hand it to The Wife Unit to read. Then I can harass her proper, with “Are you DONE WITH THAT YET?” and passive-aggressive husband behavior such as walking into the room when she is reading and delivering a big sigh.
In any event, at the very least, I shall enjoy finding a genre specific book in the Wife Unit Category before she does. These little one-ups keep me slightly ahead of the curve.
Lastly, if you like historical mysteries, bank on Mr. Corby. Five minutes in his blog will leave you drooling for more.
Chapter of Doom
Book Project was such a bitch this last month. I rewrote Chapter Fifteen several times, each time I became more frustrated with the results. With two other books under my belt (the first one now stored under the bed), this is the first time encountering this phenomena.
I began to think the preceding chapter was the real issue. I may be the Hack Writer, but I understand the basics of novel writing: a crappy chapter in a good book inadvertently has a bad intro.
This was not the case. I simply failed to set the right tone, the right bit of atmosphere. Chapter Fifteen is all about atmosphere, getting it right from the get-go.
Here is getting it right:
In my mind, I expected a nasty bit of business crawling through tunnels, destroying shielded kill bots one-by-one—like a jumpy horror vid with aliens bursting forth from dark recesses to impregnate Brittney and Tiffany with devil spawns after wiping their personality from their brains, turning them into mindless baby-factories.
Actually, that describes the last years of the war.
I am not going to reveal getting it wrong, ha. Let us just call a truce, Your Little Sister and I. We now return you to your scheduled program of 1500 to 3000 words a day.
Sunday Reflections, 23
“The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us – there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation, as if a distant memory, of falling from a height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.”
