Category Archives: 12 Step Success

Step 3 Continued -The Fantasies of Writing Will Die, But the Dreams Will Live On!

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

Part of the third step is letting go of how I want things to look, how I want things to be. I have all these fantasies about what my writing life should look like, how much monetary success I should have, about how many supermodels should be fawning over me.

For example, I want to write four hours a day, no matter what, and if I don’t, I’m a loser. And I want a huge publishing house knocking on my door, no wait, three huge publishing houses, bidding over my latest project, trying to woo me to their side. And then the cash, the fame, an apartment in Paris, a villa in Italy, an igloo in Alaska. I want adoration, dammit.

I used to say after my first rejection that it was when the dream died. But that’s not the truth at all. So here’s the story. I went to my first writer’s workshop, Andrea Brown’s Big Sur Writers Workshop put on with the Henry Miller Library in Big Sur, California. So I’m nervous. I’m hopeful. So hopeful in fact that I brought a printer and several reams of paper just knowing that a big time agent would ask for my complete manuscript, and I’d have to print them out a copy immediately.

I had submitted the first twenty pages of my novel and I had a literary agent going over it with me, and I thought it was genius. The agent didn’t agree. And slowly, she ripped through my pages, but of course, she was right. I was new. I didn’t know any better. I figured I could write a novel and get it published and then, bring on the supermodels, lots of ‘em. After she was done, I had been reduced to ashes. That’s when the fantasy died. Not the dream. The dream I get to live every time I write. But the fantasies of a Stephenie-Meyer-esque success right out of the gate. This was going to take work and struggle.

So part of the third step is surrendering to my writers’ fate. Accepting reality. But don’t get me wrong. It doesn’t mean I stop fighting, or struggling, or hoping. Every query letter is a success. Hell, every word I get out on the page is a success. It might not look like how I think it should, but that’s part of practicing the third step. Letting go of our old ideas and being open-minded.

I’ll end with this story. I was talking to my wife and one more time, I was going to give up and run away and never write again. She turns to me and says, “Aaron, you’ve lived more of your life in a fantasy world. You writing and trying to get published is one of the only real things you do. It’s gritty, it’s not perfect, but it’s real. Don’t give up.”

I ran away. I wept. I trembled before the terrible truth. But I didn’t give up. Eighteen months later I got my first book contract.

The fantasy is dead, mostly, but the dream, the very real dream of writing lives on. Maybe that’s why writers have a hard time with the publishing industry. It’s numbers. It’s sales. It’s real.

Ah, but the fantasy was so sweet while it lived. But fantasies won’t get me where I want to go. It takes work and sweat.

I love the Prefontaine quote, “To love winning is easy; to love the battle requires toughness.”

Bring on the battle.

Step 3 Continued: My Best Self

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

Photo: Bresson Thomas

I have a hard time with the God idea. I wish I didn’t. Lots and lots of people find amazing solace in the idea of a divine presence with their best interest at heart. For me, though, since I have a hard time with the God idea, and since I get overwhelmed, I’ve really embraced the third step as being me living as my best self.

My best self.

Not the self that whines and hides and runs away. Oh, love that guy. Yeah, chicks dig that guy. Nothing quite so disgusting as a whining escape artist who’s never around. Self-pity. The other day, I heard a woman talk about the brown Jacuzzi. How warm and disgusting it is. I won’t go into detail. You can connect the dots.

Not the self that is better than everyone, who is just so wonderful, he probably doesn’t need a critique group or beta readers. I love it when after writing, I feel like a genius, that I burn with raw creative fire. Generally, I race to my wife and say, “Will you love me when I’m rich and famous?” She always says yes. I think it’s the money part. Fame is like poison for the soul, if you ask me.

My best self.

My best self is the person who I was born to be, the good, kind, caring, selfless fearless person who is ready for any obstacle, who asks for help, who works without complaint, and helps whenever he can. Who is more interested in giving to the universe and serving the world than his own ego and drama.

When I am in the third step, I am striving to be my best self. And I know when I fail and I know when I succeed because my vision of who I am is stuck in my head.

And that’s the thing that trips up a lot of people. You will always fail in trying to be your best self. Hell, if you didn’t, you’d be a Greek-frakking god. We’re human. We will fail probably as much as we’ll succeed. But the trick is to make the commitment and keep working at being your best self.

Because the rewards are not fame and fortune. When I am striving to be my best self, my life falls into place and things work out. I think that’s why the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says that when we get ourselves right spiritually, we straighten out mentally and physically.

But this takes honesty. If I’m not taking care of my family, or my day job, and I’m writing all the time and striving to be my best self, that might at times feel like the right thing to do, but again, it’s about being of service and being selfless. I need to remember that it’s all a balancing act.

And, when you are relationship with other people, they will generally tell you when you’re not being your best self. That kind of honesty is a terror. But it’s also a gift.

Intro to the Third Step: The Writer in the Wilderness

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

So if the third step is about turning our will and our lives over to something greater than ourselves, oh, bubba, there are about a million and five things greater than us. For me, it was not only a higher power, divine, sort of presence–the Force, if you will–but it was also my critique group, writers’ conferences, the whole process of writing and getting published. I had to admit that I couldn’t do it, other people could, and I would have to take direction. I would accept help.

Oh, how I love the Clint Eastwood-man-in-the-wilderness-hardcore-stoic-poet-warrior ideal. The man with no name, facing the banditos alone, with nothing but his courage and his six-guns. Dagny Taggart single-handedly saving her railroad from the looters. Yeah, I could go on.

I’m not that. Most of the time I’m a frightened little man living a frightened little life, and yet, I overcome crippling fear every single day. Every single day I am given the gift to live courageously.

Because if I surrender to a power greater than myself, then I don’t have to be in charge. I can do the next, simple thing. Simple things I can do, generally, but if I have to run the universe, well, I get overwhelmed.

In some recovery circles, the third step is boiled down to committing to finish the rest of the steps. That makes sense to me. When I try and figure out what God wants me to be, what He wants me to do (capital H), what kind of cereal I should eat, I freeze up. Does God want me to eat Captain Crunch? What about the high fructose corn syrup? Are there trans fats? Okay, what about an egg for breakfast? Probably factory farmed. And the cholesterol. Yeah, there’s that to consider. Okay, what about toast? White or wheat? Rye? Okay, I’ll have an apple. Hurray, I have done God’s will for me. Nothing wrong with an apple. Is it organic?

So trying to figure out God’s will is a rough one. Some people keep it easy. Just do the next, right thing. Just the next one. Okay, breakfast. Just eat a breakfast. Better to eat than not eat. It is the most important meal of the day, doncha’ know. Okay, breakfast. Should I go smoke crack now? Prolly not. How about taking a shower and going to work? Yeah, probably. Let’s do that.

With my writing life, that can be a powerful tool to use. I’m generally working on about a thousand projects on any given day. That can freeze me. And I have the marketing to do. And my social media. And decisions about how to present myself. And there’s that short story that’s been nagging at me. And I have to write my million-word epic literary fantasy about the penguin army fighting through a mongoose colony. Yeah, that. I should work on that today. But what about my current project? What about my edits to the novel with my publisher? Ugh. Don’t want to do that.

So half of the things I’m terrified to do. The other half I don’t want to do. And the other half…oops, ran out of halfs. Drat. Well, the other non-existent half is the stuff I love to do. So I have to take it easy, one step at a time, the next right thing. My Watership Down with mongooses and penguins is important, but first, my current work in progress that needs to be finished. And next, the little marketing I do everyday. And slowly, I work through my writing day.

How horrible it is to have too much to do and to freeze. It doesn’t help. Some would say breaks are important. I can’t. Every day I don’t write or work on my writing is a day I’m not living the dream. I don’t want to miss out. Better to do anything with my writing than to miss a day. It’s the life of a monk, of an aesthete, or a madman.

But it’s the dream. Gotta live the dream today.