Kicking the Arse of Self Sabotage

We all have a gremlin living inside us. This gremlin's name is Self Sabotage. It's the voice that tells you that you can't do it. You will fail.

This gremlin could be some kind of primitive self-preservation mechanism. If you don't try, you don't risk heartbreak and failure. But it also seems to want to see us miserable. It doesn't want us venture out and risk new things. It doesn't want us to venture from the status quo. It keeps us in a rut, because the rut is safe and familiar, and even if we're not happy in the rut, we have got used to being in it.

Some people let this gremlin rule their lives. They are also the same people who fuel other people's gremlins. We all have people in our lives who tell us we will fail.  Whenever we hear that, our own gremlin gets a bit stronger. Hear it enough times, we might even start to believe it.

If you're a writer, this gremlin is the voice that is telling you you're no good. You will never succeed. You can't really write very well at all. And it fuels the fear. You are afraid of rejection. But if you repeatedly tell yourself you're a rubbish writer, you will never finish that novel, which means you will never get around to submitting it, which means you save yourself from the heartbreak of repeated rejection letters.

But it's not good to listen to that gremlin, no matter how loudly it speaks to you. Plenty of songs have been written about how it's better to have loved and lost than never loved at all, and so on. Some of them are pretty corny, but the sentiment is true. Sometimes you have to take chances. Sometimes the risk you take doesn't work out, but sometimes it does, and you won't know either way unless you give it a go. There's another corny old adage that seems highly appropriate here. The things you most regret on your death bed will be the things you didn't do - not the things you did. Even if some of those things proved to be mistakes in retrospect, at least you lived to tell about them.

So the next time you hear that Self Sabotage gremlin whispering to you that you're going to fail - whether it be referring to your writing, or something else in your life - be sure to give that critter a good kick up the backside. That doesn't mean it won't come back - it invariably will. But the further away and more frequently you kick it, the longer it will take to come back. And when it does, at least you'll be ready for it.

Writing 10K

Courtesy of MorgueFile.com

Yesterday was the start of BIAM_Writathon, the BIAM standing for Book in a Month. Every April, a group of us intrepid writers embark on a month-long journey to get words on paper (or on the screen). Unlike NaNoWriMo, there's no minimum word goal. You don't even have to write a new story. Revising is perfectly fine, too.

I wanted to step up my proverbial game. One of my shortcomings as an author is I'm a slow writer. As a result, I watch my fellow writers dash past me to the finish line, contracts their trophies. Needless to say, this can be very discouraging.

So, armed with Rachel Aaron's 2K to 10K, I set myself a goal. At least once, I would write 10k words, just to see if I could do it.

I did. Yesterday, I started Serpent's Venom, the second book in my Angels of Death series. Armed with a 15-page outline and a lot of determination, I pushed aside my internal editor and wrote. It took about eight hours, but I did it.

Not so sure I'll make that word count today, although I've clocked in 2k, and I can stay up all night if I want. If I don't limit myself to having to get 10k in before midnight, when Tuesday officially ends, then it's feasible.

Maybe I don't have as many book contracts as my fellow writers, but I keep hanging in there, persevering, writing and revising. I don't know who originally said writing was a marathon, not a sprint, but he or she is right.

But if I can write 10k words a day, I'm going to give it my best.

Happy 2013!

Happy New Year 2 by Sabine Sauermaul

How was your New Year's? Hope everyone had a good time, and didn't suffer too bad a hangover. I watched the Red Green New Year's special, while negotiating for chair space with my cat. Amazing how such a small creature can take up so much space.

I guess a lot of people are writing about their resolutions and goals for 2013. For me, the focus is on writing, of getting more of my work out there. Not that 2012 was a washout. I published five short stories, four in anthologies and one through MuseItUp Publishing. I'm currently finalizing the draft of an urban fantasy short novel that I intend to submit this month.

This year, I've decided I'm not going to listen to the naysayers, those negative people who try to convince me, rather insidiously, maybe I'm not good enough. You know the ones. They hide behind insincere compliments, but when it comes time to walk the proverbial walk, they're nowhere to be found.

Sadly, these people (and some writing groups) have played a negative role in my writing, convincing me maybe I wasn't good enough, or that I wasn't writing the right stories, etc. So many of my stories lay dormant on my hard drive, pushed aside, even though I liked them.

That's why I've decided to dust them off, finish and/or revise them, and send them out into the world. Screw what my detractors say. I don't have time for those who want to shoot down other people's dreams.

As for resolutions, I usually don't make any. Except this year, I want to submit at least one story a month. Doesn't have to be a story, either. Could be a screenplay or a poem. As long as I'm writing. :-)

Faith

I've talked a lot on this blog recently about negative feelings writers endure. Fear. Jealousy. Mood swings. It's time to talk about something more positive. Today I want to talk about faith. Faith in yourself. Self-belief in your work as a writer.

It's quite a difficult one, this, because there's a fine balance between self-deprecation and arrogance. I've encountered both over the years. The first is that very promising and inherently talented writer who suffers from such low self-esteem that they believe everything they write is rubbish. They might have a literary masterpiece tucked away in their desk drawer, but no one will ever know because they never let anyone read any of their work, for fear of rejection.

Then there is the type of person who believes themselves to have talent that surpasses everyone else out there. They are the best writer that ever lived - if only someone would recognise their genius. Such people tend to be deluded as well as arrogant, as generally their writing is average at best, but they won't hear any kind of criticism and often write angry letters to the agents and editors who have the audacity to reject them.

These are two extreme examples, of course. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle. Maybe not literary geniuses, but not bad writers at all, and we lurch between feeling pretty good about what we've written and believing it to be a big steaming pile of poo.

But this is where faith comes in. Believe in yourself. Believe in your writing. Maybe you're a beginner writer and you feel you've got a lot to learn. That is probably true. But keep reading, and keep writing. Talk to other writers. Go to conventions and conferences. Let more experienced writers crit your work, and take on board what they tell you. Your writing will improve all the time. And one day you will get published. Have faith.

Maybe you're already a published author but you have lost your way in your latest work. Maybe you think you've lost the muse, and you worry that you'll never write anything of publishable quality again. Have faith. Somebody thought your writing good enough to publish. Why would that go away? Nobody becomes a great writer overnight, but nobody becomes a rubbish one, either.

Keep the faith, my writer friends. And believe in yourself.