Category Archives: 12 Step Success

My Completely UNAUTHORIZED Interview With Mystery Author Sue Grafton

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At the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention in Chicago, as I walked down the aisles of authors hawking their books, I saw a woman, standing behind her table, looking very approachable and charming. Then I saw who it was. Sue Grafton. No way! THE Sue Grafton! A is for Alibi? Yeah, that Sue Grafton!

I went up, turned fanboy for a minute, then asked if I could do a completely UNAUTHORIZED interview with her. She agreed, not nervous at all.

I asked her how she overcame her own artistic angst, which is the question I ask most people.

She smiled and said her dad taught her how to be tough and in the book business, well, you will learn that you are tougher than you think.

And that is the truth. To be a writer, you have to be in-the-dirt-blood-on-you-face tough. In my heart of hearts, I am a sissy-boy whiner, but I’ve overcome so much just by sticking with it and keeping an open mind.

Which leads me to what Sue Grafton said next.

She said that she had to bend during the bad times, bend so she wouldn’t break. Flexibility is also key because the game changes at every turn and we’ll all have our dark moments of the soul. We have to learn to weather them and adjust our sails to stay afloat.

Above all, she said to keep working and don’t take short cuts. Writing is a demanding task and yeah, no short cuts.

So, no short cuts, writing quality work, and maybe someday, some big, nervous guy can interview you.

A huge thank you to Sue Grafton! She is such a warrior!

Find out more about Sue and check out her books on her website.

Sailing photo courtesy of Erki, Wikimedia Commons

What is Your “Why” for Writing and How Deep Does it Go? Third Step Completed

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Step 3 – Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to a power greater than ourselves

Photo: Nvvchar

It’s funny. When I tell people I’m a writer and I have a book published, they get really excited. Most do. Some don’t. But that’s good too. In life, some people will not celebrate your successes, for whatever reasons. Prepare for it, and forgive them.

But the “most” who do get excited, well, they don’t get the whole picture. All they know is that I did something that’s really hard to do and they get excited. It’s even better when they read it and scratch their heads and think, “Wow, that Aaron wrote a book and it doesn’t suck.”

So for most writers, there is some external motivation, some outside stimulus, for us to write. And yes, like I said in my last post, we have a duty to write if we have a story to tell. And yeah, when I write, when I overcome my fear, I am displaying some of my best parts to the world.

But for me, I had to go deeper. I had to know exactly why I was writing. The “why” of writing is something I had to come to terms with if I was going to spend the countless hours making up stories and not being with my family, not sleeping, not watching baseball or the new shows that aren’t streaming for free on Netflix.

Here is more about my “why”:

For me, writing is the hope that life is good, that I am good, and that there is a purpose, a reason, for all of my pain. When I write, I am affirming life’s inherent goodness. This is my sacred, secret dream. When I write a story, I am spitting in the face of doubt, despair, and death.

That is my why.

So I have to believe that since I have been given this desire to create, that I can do it sanely, rationally, and with a heart full of hope.

I need to give up my pre-conceived notions about what it all should look like and let it just be. Write and finish the book I’m working on. Try to get it published or publish it myself. And keep at it.

Because I’ve come too far to give up now. There is a point where you have spent so much time and energy and have spilled so much blood that to quit would be a crime.

When I meet new writers, I ask them if they’ve tried to quit. The newbies look at me and shake their head. The veterans understand. If you can quit, quit. If you can’t, figure out your “why” and follow it until you can’t any more.

Yeah, I’ve written a lot about the third step, but let’s boil it all down to this. Are you willing to commit to working the rest of the steps?

If you’ve committed yourself to finishing the steps, then, well, you’ve turned your life over to something greater than yourself.

Photo: Guadalupe Cervilla

And we can continue on to the fourth step, which is probably my favorite step. It’s the step where you get to do a whole lotta’ writing.

Shackled to God – The Writer’s Commitment to the Universe

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Step 3 – Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to a power greater than ourselves

Okay, to recap. The third step is about living as our best selves, giving up on the fantasies of writing, and accepting the reality. Living the dream.

So part of the joy of my online presence is that I get to interview writers, and I started asking people if they could take a pill to remove the desire to write, would they take the pill?

Most said no. Most love writing and wouldn’t give it up.

Me? I’d take the pill because my life would be so much easier if I didn’t have a full-time job I try to cram into the cracks of my other full-time job and the rest of my life. William Faulkner was a mailman before he hit it big and he used to throw away mail so he could write more. Henry Miller was more realistic. He just hung out in Paris and wrote, poor as the lice in his mattress.

But I have to wonder; why was I given this desire to create? Other people don’t have it, but man, I have it in spades. Why?

The fact is, every writer has a unique voice and a unique perspective. Give two writers the same prompt, and you’ll always get wildly different results. Always. Because we are unique.

So if I have the desire to write, then I have a duty to the universe to write my stories. Why else would I want to write?

Yes, I watched way too much TV growing up. I was hurt. I was alone. I ran away into stories, and I began to tell myself stories when I got bored. So I was molded into a writer, but now that I am one, I can’t just quit. Because I have a duty.

I have friend who wrote a wonderful novel about heaven, hell, angels, the whole deal. In her book, she had a moving scene where it showed what happened when people died. As the people died, a dove would come and draw out the song of their life, and that song would join the infinite symphony of the universe.

My stories are my song. I am doomed to write them. Doomed, maybe blessed. Depends on the day. The Sikhs wear a steel bracelet as a symbol for their connection to God. It’s steel because the Sikhs believe they are shackled to God. No way out.

In the same way, as a writer, I am shackled to God.

 

 

I have to surrender to my writing, make time for it, make it happen. Because no one can write the stories I can write and that means I have a duty.

At times, it can be a divine form of slavery.