Category: Writing Fears

Posted in Activism, Politics, Writing, Writing Fears, Writing Goals

Writing in the Midst of it All

Posted on by beckylevine

Okay, my thoughts here are going to be nothing new and certainly nothing profound. But I’ve had a block in my writing all week (Anyone else? Yeah, I thought so.), and I’m hoping processing it here a bit will free me up to get back to my story. Which needs to happen.

My Facebook feed is filled with posts from other writers, because, well, that’s one of my biggest tribes. And I’m hearing so much the past few days about how we need to write, we need to keep putting out words, we need to give stories to children–stories that help keep their hearts and minds and arms open. And I believe this.

Except, I don’t always believe it. Partially, this is probably because for me, reading has always been more of an escape than anything else. Books do inspire me about writing, but I haven’t ever had that connection so many other people talk about–that a book turns their life around. Okay, wait, no–Martha Beck’s Finding Your Own North Star did have a profound influence on me. But that’s nonfiction, and I was in my forties before I read it.

Also, while I am extremely aware that words won the Presidential election (empty, empty, nothing words, from my pov), I also know that there were wonderful, strong words on the other side, my side, and they didn’t win the election. So, I don’t know…I’m a very inactive person who is realizing she had darned well better find some actions to do, soon, and I’m struggling with believing that my words can do enough.

But…oh, you knew there would be a “but.” I have to write. I believe in self-care, and I know that a me without writing is not a me who’s going to be happy or strong enough to do much else. And, like I said, logically (and usually emotionally), I totally know that words have power.

So here’s what I’m telling myself. I am working on a story these days that has a hero I love. He is not diverse, in any of the ways we often use that word. But I think he is part of a personality population that sometimes, maybe often, does get overlooked, ignored, not understood and not recognized. And if, if, I can tell his story in a way that one day, one child, might actually see themselves in this hero and feel better, then…well, maybe doing that is a part of all this–this active fight that I think we have to take on. So I’m coming back to the commitment I made earlier this year–to write more slowly and write more deeply and paint this true character onto the page. As best I can. Even if, for now, the only one who benefits is me.

Posted in Writing Fears

Thanks to Jo Knowles and Steven Tyler

Posted on by beckylevine

I’m a scene and a half into the second draft of my historical WIP. The last few days, with writing time, have been wonderful–just letting myself relax back into the happiness of putting words on the page. And, yes, with all my words about research, I’m still leaving placeholders for specifics. I hunt for a while and, if I really can’t find the details I need, I add them to a list I’m calling RESEARCH I NEED HELP WITH. And when the list has a few important items on it, I’ll take myself down to San Jose Library and prostrate myself at the feet of the research librarians there. But the pull to write is there, and I am listening.

The words are flowing, my fingers are doing slow jigs on the keyboard. And, yet, as I write, I marvel at the way I can feel so good and still be telling myself that maybe it’s not fast enough, maybe the tension isn’t high enough, maybe I’m not getting enough conflict in, am I seeding enough of the problems early…

Bottom line, I am wondering whether it’s going to be anywhere good enough to catch an agent or an editor and make them say, “Want!”

I’ve been nudging the questions away, because–for pete’s sake–it’s only the second draft. It took a blog post from Jo Knowles this morning, though, to really wake me up and remind me to write. Just write. As if, Jo says by way of Steven Tyler, “there’s no one in the room.”

That’s what I’ll be doing this morning.

Thanks, Jo.

Posted in Writing Fears

Some Thoughts on Fear

Posted on by beckylevine

I just read two wonderful books of historical fiction:

The reading of both of these books was an absolute delight. The books move quickly, not weighed down by too much historical baggage, with the hero’s problems and needs always the main focus.  As a reader, I lost myself in both stories and found excuses to put off other work so I could keep reading and keep reading. And as a writer, I kept hearing myself in the background, saying, “Yes! This is what historical fiction should be. This is what I want to do with my story.”

Those were the ups.

The down, of course, was that other voice in the background, still mine, but the variant that isn’t so sure about things. And that voice was saying, “…if I can.”

It’s a big if.

I’m also reading Seven Steps on the Writer’s Path, by Nancy Pickard and Lynn Lott. My friend and critique partner Terri Thayer bought multiple copies of this book after hearing Nancy Pickard talk at a recent writers conferences. She wrapped them up and handed them around the table at our last meeting, because, she said, we all needed the book.

I think she’s right. So far, I’ve only read up to  Step 1, Unhappiness, which the authors identify as the stage before you get writing, when–in a not-so-bad case–you’re itching with unreleased creativity, or–in a pretty bad case, you’re depressed and curled up with misery. I don’t think I’m there right now, not full-blown, anyway, but I recognize the stage. Probably you all do. Because in this stage, whether you’re bursting with the need to write or stressing out that you might not be able to, there’s one common factor.

Fear.

These days, I’m feeling pretty good about my writing. In the “old days,” I typically had one idea at a time and, if that project was going poorly, I faced the big fear that this was all I would ever think of to write and I wouldn’t even be able to do that. For whatever reason these days, I have more ideas than I can juggle, wishing mostly for more time so I could get to all of them.

But…reading these two novels reminded me that the fear can still lurk. The fear that what I want to do with this historical fiction novel I’m working on, the story that I want to tell, may be beyond me.  I’ve looked pretty closely at this, and–honestly–I’m pretty sure this feeling is not jealousy. This is one way I’m lucky, I think–when someone creates a thing of beauty, especially out of words, it motivates and inspired ms, rather than making me feel like I should give up. Still, mixed into the pleasure and the awe is that other, less happy emotion.

I honestly know only one way of dealing with this feeling. And that is to look fully head on at the question I’m asking myself.

That question is: “What if I can’t write Caro’s story, not with the strength it deserves, the power I know a book can have? What if I am not a good enough writer?”

I don’t know the answer to that question. Perhaps that’s a good thing. 🙂 

What I do know is this: If I stop trying, if I give up, then, no, I won’t be able to write the book. If I quit, then I drop any chance of success that I might hope for.

Pickard and Lott talk about not hiding from the unhappiness; they say the only way to get through it is to recognize and speak it. I would add that there may or may not be a way to get past the fear, but there is a way not to let it beat us. And that is to choose the option of hope. Possibility. The maybe I can. To keep writing.

And, of course, to keep reading. To remind ourselves why we do this, what we are striving for.  Thanks, Joyce. Thanks, Laurie.

Posted in Writing Fears

Somebody Else Says: The Other Sixth-Letter-of-the-Alphabet Word

Posted on by beckylevine

Some of you already know that I took on something new this month–developing an online how-to-critique course for Writer’s Digest. Exciting. Fun. Different. Scary.

What’s the word? “Fear.”

Luckily for me, I have wonderful critique partners and writing friends who pat me on the back and keep me going. And a seriously great, patient editor to work with who lets me shoot her off a sample every few days, as a reality check, so I can get the relief and confidence back when she tells me “Yes!”

Anyway, I watched with amazement as last weeks nervousness FEAR turned into that other old enemy–procrastination. I’m sure I’m not the only one out here to whom this happens. So thought I’d throw up a few links that talk about the whys and hows and the fixes.

And then I’ll GET BACK TO WORK. 🙂

Here’s to the new projects you’re all taking on these days. And here’s to reminding yourself that you can do them.

Posted in Bravery, The Writing Path, Writing Fears

Opening Those Closed Doors

Posted on by beckylevine

I come from a long-lived family. I got to know three of my grandparents well into my thirties, and both of my grandmothers made it past 90. I was lucky in many ways to have them in my life, but one of the more shallow ways in which I like to look at that luck was that, truly, I got to put middle-age off for quite a while. (Do the math. Divide 93 by 2. Forty is NOT middle-age.)

Still, somewhere in the past few years, I got there. And, yes, twisted ankles take quite a while to heal; finding a comfortable & decent-looking pair of jeans takes even longer. On the flip side, it hardly takes any time, once I’ve curled up with a book, for me to fall asleep!

And there are days when I look ahead and feel like I need to race a whole lot faster if I want to do all the things I…want to do.

But I’m finding a big plus to being a person “of a certain age.” And that is that I believe in more possibilities than I did when I was younger.

When I left college, I decided that I was not a good enough writer to get into an MFA problem. This wasn’t low self-esteem; I’m pretty sure I was right. Unfortunately, I used that decision to do something we should never do…close a door. For too many years after that, I puttered with my writing, something that had previously been–since I was about ten years old–one of the most important things in my life. I wrote, or I said I was writing, but I drifted from project to project, with long gaps in between, and never getting further along than a beginning. If that.

Sometime in my thirties, I decided I was missing out and moved writing back up to a priority. The years off had put a dent in my confidence, though, had made me view myself as less of a Writer, had made me unsure if I had the skill or commitment to really produce anything. I wrote and I joined critique groups, and I wrote some more. And gradually, I began to take myself seriously enough to move steadily forward. That door was open, and I dared (and still dare) anybody to push aside the boulder I’ve got keeping it that way.

I thought this was it. I thought this was all the looking back I needed to do, that there were no other doors–in terms of my writing–that I needed to unlock.

Then just the other day I saw another door. It was tucked far into a corner. The bulb at that end of the room must have burned out, because I’ve passed that door a gazillion times in the last ten years and not even noticed it. I did hear some tapping, so muffled and quiet, I didn’t even realize something was trying to get in. A few authors I’ve been reading lately–Naomi Novik, Jim Butcher, Laini Taylor joined in, bringing the tapping up to a loud knocking. Then, finally, with a huge DUH!, my brain got it.

This was the fantasy door.

Basically, in junior high, I went straight from kids’ books and required classics to fantasy–via Tolkien and McCaffrey and Brooks and anyone else who fed my craving for elves and wizards and dragons and dark forests and sword fights. I never even heard of fan fiction until people went crazy with Harry Potter, and I never thought of sharing stories with my friends, but that’s what I was writing. Every story I started had someone with a long, white beard who spoke profoundly and made no sense. I didn’t read my work out loud, but you can bet every single character spoke with a beautiful British accent. My heroes communicated by mind with unicorns and dragons; they turned from poverty-stricken, hard-working peasants into powerful bearers of heretofore unknown magic.

You get the point.

And then–I can’t tell you when or why–I shut that door. I have a feeling it was the same kind of decision as the MFA one–I wasn’t good enough yet, so I wasn’t good enough.

Oh, all the things this writer “of a certain age” that I am now wants to say to that young girl writer…

Luckily, as I said, somehow getting older has taught me to stop putting limits on my future. I don’t know if I will ever write a fantasy. I don’t know if I’ll be able to come up with something non-derivative, completely my own.

But I do know that, as of a week ago, there is a folder in my filing cabinet labeled FANTASY. And in that folder, there are a few slips of paper, with just a few scribbled notes on them. Ideas.

Possibilities.

What doors have you closed and either forgotten about or too stubbornly ignored? Is it time, perhaps, to go oil the lock and hunt out the key?

Posted in Bravery, Getting Organized, The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide, The Writing Path, Writing Fears, Writing Projects

Taking Risks…Come On, Just a Few

Posted on by beckylevine

I am by nature an extremely cautious person. I’m also not so good with change. 38 years later, I’m still not so sure my family needed to sell our smallish tract home and move to the much bigger house, on the top of a hill, with an ocean view and a bedroom for each kid, that my parents had designed and built just for us. Really.

‘Cause you know, why swap out the old for a new? Why take the chance, when where you’re headed might be worse than where you are?

Well, obviously, because it also might be a lot better. Or just really, really good and mesh in beautifully with the happy life you already have.

The last few years, I’ve taken more risks. Nothing huge, from a lot of people’s perspectives, but from Little Miss “Okay, Mom, I’ll get nine books I’ve already read from the library and one new one,” some of the choices I’ve made have been a big deal. And they’ve gotten me to some very good places, including the writing and soon-to-happen publication of The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide.

So, this week, with school starting, more time to focus, and a year ahead in which I want things to be different, I’m putting myself out there. I’m digging deeper into my WIP, reminding myself how important this story—and my fiction—are to me. I’m working on a couple of basic pitches for two nonfiction projects, to send to my agent. I sent an email off for some consulting work. I’ve got a list o children’s nonfiction-book publishers that I’m going to contact.

You can see where the risk comes in. These are all projects I’m qualified to do, and they’re all things I really love doing. But, yes, it’s a lot. The old me would say I was insane, diving head first into all these options, instead of maybe sticking a toe (or just the tip of a toe) into that water. The new me takes a look at the possibility of insanity and does some reassuring. Here’s what I tell myself:

  • You can do these.  You can. [Sigh.] Yes, honestly.
  • None of these are sure bets. To be realistic, some—if not many—are longshots. The odds of you getting to do all of them—get real. You’re not that good. (Yes, sometimes, a big of ego-deflation is actually necessary these days. When did that happen?!)
  • They won’t all happen at the same time. Projects take weeks, months, even years to come to fruition. You’ll probably be bored, waiting for anything to do.
  • A full, exciting life is better than a quiet, dull one.
  • “Yes,” is better than “No,” much of the time. And for your writing path, just about all of the time.

Do I still get nervous? Of course. Do I let that stop me, as it would have when I was young, from reaching out, from stretching myself for the things I really want. Not any more. I may not race ahead and grab it at full-speed just yet. I do, however, hold out my hand and say, “Please.”

What about you? What risks have you taken, or are you facing, that can add to your writing path, bring you more of the happiness that it already gives you?

Posted in The Writing Path, Writing Fears, Writing Goals

And Here Comes School

Posted on by beckylevine

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you know that I consider the actual New Years Day to be August 25th. Or whatever day school starts.

Wednesday, we go pick up my son’s class schedule. Next Tuesday, we head back into the school year. Eighth-grade, at the same middle school, so there shouldn’t be any big surprises. (Of course, now that I’ve said that…). His routine starts up again.

And so does mine. Five hours to focus on my novel. And my picture book. And marketing the critique book. And developing workshops. And thinking about other nonfiction projects I want to go for. This is going to be one of my busiest years in a long time.

I could panic.

Instead, I’m just reminding myself how good it is that all this is happening and that, yes, it’s what I’ve been working toward for years. And I can do it. At least most of it.

I’m working out a new schedule for those hours. One that’s based on the pay-me-first premise of finances, that says you pay your retirement plan first, then take care of the other expenses. This year, I’m paying my fiction first. This does not mean that I’ll be shirking my other projects, like getting the critique book out there to people, or organizing writing classes and conferences, or sending out proposals for more writing. It’s just that–honestly–I always get that stuff done. And pretty well. It’s the fiction that gets pushed to the bottom of the to-do list and, too often, off the list.

So…here’s the plan, guys.

  • Get up an hour-ish before son (whose school starts later this year, so he can actually sleep in till 7:00–woo-hoo!). Take that hour to read email and blogs. Say “hi” to you all over on Facebook and Twitter. Write up posts for my own blog.
  • Take son to school.
  • Come home, TURN OFF THE INTERNET, and work on my fiction for a minimum of one hour. Depositing words into the novel or PB account. (I say fiction here, but it really means my most creative work, which may include that nonfiction, biography PB that’s stewing in the back of my brain. I say writing, but it will also mean doing research, working on character development, or just standing and staring at my white board.)
  • Work on everything else. That being anything from to marketing biz and nonfiction projects to grocery shopping, paying bills, shopping for b-day presents, or adding new lead to the mechanical pencils. Life.
  • Exercise. I really prefer to do this earlier in the day, but when I exercise in the morning, well–somehow the morning disappears. As does the writing. So…this gets pushed later on the schedule chart. 🙂
  • Pick up son. We’ll be carpooling in the afternoons, so there will be a couple of days with a bit of extra time. More pencil leads. Or perhaps a nap.
  • Hang out around son. (I don’t say hang out “with”, because he’s 13, and we’ve prettymuch gone back to parallel-play  these days.) Clean house. Think about dinner. Check in with the Internet. More writing-biz stuff. Putter as productively as possible.
  • Dinner/Family time.
  • Before bedtime, try and re-orient on fiction, if only for a few minutes, so that I’m more ready to dig in the next morning. And with the usual hope, typically fruitless, of sparking some wonderful dream that will iron out all my plot knots and create amazing arcs for my characters.

Next day, rinse and repeat.

Me, a control freak? Ha! But truly, that hour a day is the thing that keeps my fear levels down, the fear that says I’ll make progress on everything but my fiction this year. When I look at it this day, I know I’ll keep moving forward, that I’ll be giving myself the space and time I need to grow this novel and any other creative projects I dip into.

Will it work? Check back with me at Thanksgiving, and I’ll let you know.

Do you have a plan that already works for you? Are you playing with one for this year? Drop a note into the comments and share!

Posted in Promotion, Somebody Else Says, The Writing Path, Uncategorized, Writing Fears

Somebody Else Says: Jo Knowles & Bubble Stampede

Posted on by beckylevine

Two seemingly very different posts to link you to today. I think, though, that they’re actually pretty strongly connected by being BIG parts of the writing path.

Jo Knowles is a wonderful YA writer. Her Lessons from a Dead Girl is incredible, and Jumping off Swings (Due this August) is high on my to-read list. In her most recent blog post, she talks about how hard it can be to get seriously constructive feedback on your writing and how wonderful it is to remember what you can do with that feedback. A must-read for anyone who knows that discouraged feeling.

http://jbknowles.livejournal.com/319123.html

A year ago, Laura Purdie Salas and Fiona Bayrock created Bubble Stampede, a LiveJournal blog about their upcoming months of promoting their to-be-published books–Stampede!: Poems to Celebrate the Wild Side of School and Bubble Homes and Fish Farts . The year’s posts are definitely worth skimming, but they’ve also just posted a summation of the year-what worked, what didn’t. Lots of valuable insight.

http://community.livejournal.com/bubblestampede/13237.html

Happy Monday. I’ll be back soon with some more of my own thoughts!

Posted in The Writing Path, Writing Fears

Writing Fears…How I REALLY Feel

Posted on by beckylevine

I think I’ve talked here before about how, in The Critiquer’s Survival Guide, I’m making up excerpts from “not-so-good” books, to use as examples. (I also have excerpts from real books, but those are for the better examples!) Anyway, today I was playing with a bit of text for a pretend self-help book called Overcoming Your Writing Fears. I didn’t have to come up with a lot of words, just a few paragraphs. I sat for a few minutes, thinking & imagining, and the muse answered my call.

The wicked, evil muse who sounded an awful lot like some vicious, boot-camping, pep-talking villain, the kind with a get-over-it attitude and butt-kicking motivation technique.

This is NOT me. Okay, it was kind of  fun to write, and I think it’ll stay in the book, but it also started me thinking about how (and why) I really deal with my writing fears. To be honest, this is a relatively new question for me. Call me cocky, but for years I pretty much wrote along, thinking I was a decent-to-good writer, learning my craft and putting words on the page. Then, as I started getting “closer” to the real thing, to submitting to agents, to getting contracts, to sending some of those pages off to an editor–the fear started to show up.

It’s not a fear of whether I can write. It’s, not much, anyway, a fear that I can’t write well. It’s pretty much a fear/worry that I will keep writing and writing and never “make it.”

Which is pretty silly, when you think about it, considering The Critiquer’s Survival Guide is scheduled to come out this fall. 🙂

Silly, or not, the fear is real. As are all our anxieties about our skill and “success.” So how do I deal with it?

Well, mostly I try to be kind to myself, but not too kind. I don’t beat myself up for the days I make less progress, and I don’t try to press-fit myself into the computer chair with a big shoe horn, when it’s clear the shoving will only be painful. But when I take a break, especially if that break is from fear, I try to make that time useful. I get up and exercise or I tidy up some of the mess in the house that’s been driving me crazy. (This is different from procrastinating by cleaning–if I’d been doing that, the mess wouldn’t be there in the first place!)

And I bring myself back. I try very hard not to spend more than one day, other than the weekend, away from SOME kind of writing. I know that the best way to make progress on a manuscript is to keep it at the front of your mind, and every 24-hours that you are not working on it is another layer down in your brain that you have to go down to dig it up. And because I know that staying away from the writing never feels good; it just feels frustrating and tense and makes me angry at myself. Even the fear is better than that.

That’s pretty much the how. The why–the reason I try and work through (or with) my writing fears–is perhaps even more important. When I look at the problem, when I face the fact that I am afraid and worried and too full of doubt, I have to ask my question. And that question is: With all this, will you, can you stop writing?

There is only one answer to that question for me: No.

So, if I’m going to write–and I am going to write–then I have to come back, fears or not, to the novel or the picture book or the nonfiction project. Because that’s the only way I’m going to get the flip side of that fear–the delight, the magic, the power.

I’m not alone in this fear, and neither are you. Here are a few more posts on the subject, some words from a few more writers.

And another post popped up today (Thursday)–must be that time of the year!

What are your writing fears? How do you handle them, to make sure you keep moving forward on whatever your writing path may be?