Category Archives: 12 Step Success

What Does a Sane Writer Look Like? Step Two and Finding Hope

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Step 2 – Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

So we’ve spent weeks talking about step one, which is all about despair and being broken. I’m powerless and my life is unmanageable. I can’t do it alone. I need help.

Cool. Now, the despair drives us out of the smelly basement of our misery and up into the kitchen of hope. Kitchens are hopeful places, yeah? That’s why everyone gathers there during parties.

Step two is all about hope. We came to believe that “something” could fix us. I ain’t gonna talk about God. Okay, maybe I will a little.

A little God. Just a little pinch between your soul and mind, or cheek and gum, or something. God as chewin’ tobacco. Yeah. I can dig it.

Notice how this step says a power greater than ourselves. For some, that is gonna be the full-on trinity: Father, Son, and Paraclete (not parakeet, you slackers, look it up). For others, it might be the other trinity, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. For others, the other other trinity, their editor, agent, and critique group. But the idea is this: we can find help and comfort if we search for it.

I blogged recently about the idea that God can be used as a tool to help us break out of our small thinking and embrace a more creative, unknown path. The “God Idea” can give us thoughts or ideas that we might not have had unless we sought sources of strength and inspiration outside of ourselves.

Step two is about finding the courage and hope that we can be better, that we can be restored to sanity. But what is sanity? What does a sane writer look like?
Everyone is gonna define sanity a little differently, and every writer is going to be sane in a different way.

I’ll tell you what I think a sane writer looks like. A sane writer writes consistently. If I didn’t have to battle my own demons every time before I wrote, I would write every day. If there wasn’t all this drama, I wouldn’t have fantasies of the perfect time to write, and I would write when I could. Might be fifteen minutes. Might be hours on end. But I would be writing consistently.

And a sane writer puts the work first. It’s not about the fame, the money, the glory, it’s about creating quality pages. Not a lot of drama. Not a lot of gnashing teeth in the darkness. Simple work. One of my many issues is that I put my ego first. What if I suck? Who am I to think I can do this? Other people are more talented. And then all of that negative thinking freezes me up solid. Writercicle. Not very chocolatey.

No, sane writers put the work first. Even those getting paid. The work comes before food, or the food never comes.

Sane writers say no to drama. My critique group is full of published writers, and when I go there with my drama, they look at me curiously. They scratch their heads. They poke. They prod. How very interesting. Who is this angsty writer in our midst? They don’t quite get me because they don’t have a lot of drama. They know the game is hard. They know it because they’ve lived it. And drama doesn’t help that. Doesn’t make it easier. Drama just wastes a lot of energy.

Sane writers aren’t afraid of revision. The game is to write a rough draft, and then revise. Revision isn’t a big deal. Even big revisions. It doesn’t mean they suck, or should give up, or they aren’t brilliant. Harper Lee worked for years with agents and editors on To Kill a Mockingbird. So, revision? Not a big deal!

Sane writers are always working on something. They don’t write books, send off query letters, and then start watching lots of T.V. Nope. I talked with a successful children’s book writer and he said, “Always have something in the mail.” Always being querying and looking for publishers even as you work on your newest project. Sane writers do that.

Sane writers love writing. They might not always like it, but deep down, they love it, which probably makes them insane.

So this is my ideal, but I think every writer has to map out for themselves, what does a sane writer look like? What is my ideal self?

Next week, I have an exercise that helped me map this out a little more. More on Step Two next Tuesday, my lovelies!

When Your Back is Up Against the Wall – Final Step One Post

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Step 1 – Admitted we were powerless over our art and our creative lives had become unmanageable.

Previously, on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, no wait, that’s not right.  Well, last week I talked about all of my wounds. That was last week, in my last 12-Step post, but this week, well, we start the climb out. Still in step one, but inching closer towards step two, where all the hope is. Let’s catch you up.

Last week, me alone, in the basement, gnashing my teeth in the darkness.  I needed a dental dam.

Then, a light shining in the darkness, I realized I needed help. And I found people who were willing to aid a poor wretch like me.

Let’s start at home. If not for my wife, I never would have ended up in Big Sur at that writers’ workshop. She got books from the library on writing, and we went over them. She pointed out that what I was doing wasn’t working and that I needed to change. And it was a bad year, that year. I was willing to pursue this because I was so miserable. Let me tell you, if life were all cotton candy, kitties, and puppies, not much would get done. I had to be willing, and willingness for me generally comes when my back is up against the wall and my ass is suckin’ plaster. That’s also when my mind opens to other possibilities.

You’ll hear such things in 12-Step meetings. It’s colorful. And true.

So, finally, after I realized I had my head up my butt, I started to read books on writing. There are a few around. Did I do it in large chunks? Nope, ten minutes a day. It took me months to go through books, but I learned a ton, and it wasn’t the time suck that I had imagined it to be. The few minutes I spent every day were golden.

The books all said to find other artists, and they also suggested reading books on how to improve, take classes, stuff like that. And as a writer, reading successful books is what you do to improve. As Barry Eisler says, you read like a writer, and write like a reader.

I also found a critique group, I found writers conferences, I found people who could help me, and such things exist for all art forms. We don’t have to suffer alone. Suffering with other people is so much more fun. Which is why 12-step programs work. Because in a group, the suffering can turn into something life-giving.

Working in a community of writers, I got to see a variety of writing, good and bad. Analyzing bad writing is just as important as analyzing good writing. I could see where my own writing needed work. And people gave me critiques and that was crucial. Alone, I couldn’t see the whole picture. With other people, I could be far more objective.

The happy, good news is that every artist can improve, and practice is most likely worth more than natural talent. At a Pikes Peak Writers Conference, I heard a speaker talk about the 10,000 hours idea. Basically, to become an expert at anything takes about 10,000 hours, and those who can discipline themselves to do the 10,000 hours get the talent they want. I can guarantee you, Stephen King did the 10,000 hours before he got rich and famous. Some are luckier than others, but the bottom line is that there is a world of information on how to create better ideas on form, style, aesthetics, and if you only rely on your little brain, you are cheating yourself. The way I cheated myself, for years and years.

But I had to be completely willing to do whatever it took to keep on creating, and this is the magic of Step One.

To be in a position of total surrender.

To do anything to move forward, no matter what.

A lot of these belief systems I found that were holding me back I learned in step 4, 5, 6 and 7, but they all put me in a state of powerlessness and unmanageability. When I started down the path, all I needed for a good Step One was the idea that I couldn’t do it alone, that I was out of ideas, that I was stuck. Once I was there, I was ready to move forward.

I entered into a contest with a friend that the first person to reach fifty rejections would owe the other dinner. And I had another friend who was willing to proofread every query letter.

This worked. I won the contest, found a publisher, and one of my books finally found a home outside of my hard drive. And it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been willing to really look at how my creative life was unmanageable.

Some questions for you to ponder:

How are you powerless over your creativity?

How is your artistic life unmanageable?

Are you willing to do whatever it takes to move forward? Why or why not?

Next week!  We hit Step Two at last.  I hope you’ll come back!  Step two is where the hope is.

My List of Writing Wounds – Powerlessness and Unmanageability Continued – Almost Done with Step Number One

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Before we hit it with the step one madness, just a shout out to everyone who was listening to me yesterday on Bookmark Radio.  I’ll post the link once those cool cats at Bookmark Radio post it.  Had a blast though it was harder than I would have thought.

Step 1 – Admitted we were powerless over our art and our creative lives had become unmanageable.

Our main job in the first step is to truly understand how broken we are as people and as writers. Now, some writers aren’t broken. Some writers do all of this naturally and easily and they don’t have the angst I have. I wish I were one of those people but I am SOOOO not. I am damaged goods, people.  Run far away.

Here are some of my wounds:

My Revision Wounds
I was a writer who couldn’t revise. For a writer, not being able to revise is death. But I was always being seduced by the next project. I’m a fickle, slutty writer. A book whore. What I’m working on sucks, but this next book, oh, she’s so pretty, and she’s so exciting and new, that I know she’s going to be THE ONE! The book I’m working on now, that I’ve been working on for three years? Been there, done that. Snoozeville, with no snooze button, just the same old, same old drone.

My Superman Wound
I can do it all! I can do anything! Time, energy, sleep mean nothing to me! I can write three books, attend two critique groups, and speak at that writers conference. No problem. I can sleep when I’m dead. Let me give you a hint. I said in my last blog you might lose some sleep, but losing sleep and not sleeping are very different, the difference between a little crazy and being locked up and getting electro-shock therapy.

I lacked focus, and yes, in art, focus is a critical thing. Sometimes when I’m stuck, I think, if I were to die in three months, which book would I want to have written? And that helps.

My Envy Wound
Oh, how I hated Christopher Paolini, author of the Eragon books. I loathed him. I made fun of him. I burned his image in effigy. That little bastard. I had written fantasy stories when I was seventeen and no one was making my books into movies. I thought he had just gotten lucky, but no, Mr. Paolini worked it. When I let go of my resentment, and finally read Eragon (oh, that was rough, my heart would pound, I wouldn’t sleep, I’d sweat tears), and I read about his story, I learned that Paolini self-published his book, went to bookstores on his own, and pushed his own work. I had to give him all the credit. He got published because he put himself out there. Yes, he got lucky, but in a huge way, he made his own luck. Bottom line, if I wanted what he had, I had to do the things he had done.

My envy even reached to Stephen King. I thought he came out of the womb writing prose that hooked you like a catfish hungry for metal, but then I read his story. He got hundreds of rejections while he learned how to write. Yeah, he started early, and he had a nail on the wall in his room. Every time he got a rejection letter, he put it on the nail. Eventually, he had to replace the nail with a spike. I had a ton of stuff to learn from other writers, but because I was resentful, I didn’t even start to look.

My Natural Genius Wound
Over the years, I had collected books on writing, including The Artist’s Way, but my pride kept me from reading anything, or attending classes, or going to writer’s conferences. I had the idea that if I wasn’t a natural genius, I shouldn’t write. If I can’t be the best of the best right away, I don’t want to play. This is insane. And yet, I spent years here, writing in furtive spurts, but never consistently, and never very well. Which is why very few people could read the first novels I wrote. I loved them, and they were wonderful for me, but when I gave them to other people, well, they never quite found the time to read them. But they were reading other things. Why not mine? Because I had a lot to learn.

My Clint Eastwood Wound
But the biggest way my writing life was unmanageable was that I was determined to do it alone. I’d met writers before, and I didn’t like ‘em. Weird bunch. Smelled like ink and they had dreamy, goofy looks about ‘em.

Here is where I was completely deluded. I could not have gotten published without the community of artists that I’m lucky enough to have in my life. And yes, writers are an odd bunch, but they are also one of the most interesting, driven, baffling groups of people you’d be lucky enough to run into. Because generally, artists have a vision of how life should be, and they follow that vision, and it leads them to a variety of odd places rarely visited. And I get to be lucky enough to talk with them.

So yes, I am damaged goods, but the genius of the 12 steps is that from our wounds and from our foibles come new life and new hope.  We build the foundation for our future lives not on our perfections, but on our imperfections, but heaven knows, I can count on myself to screw things up, not to do things perfectly.

Okay, next week, we wrap up Step One.  I promise.