Mind Disease Kills Writer: The Deadly Patterns – A Last Thing on Step Five

Step 5 – Admitted to the world, to another person, and to ourselves the exact nature of our disease

It_Takes_a_Village_imageBottom line is this. Do you have someone to talk with about your writing life? Do you have someone you can share your doubts, fears, and resentments with?

If not, I’d find someone. I have a whole group. But for me, it takes a village.

Now, you want to be a little careful with this. You want someone who is supportive, who can listen, but who is also not afraid to ask questions, or point out where you might be off in your thinking. I have poor thinking sometimes, and I need help to get my mind set straight. In my head, working on four books at the same time makes perfect sense. In reality, that’s a stretch.

As we share our fourth-step inventory with that lucky, supportive person, what we are doing is looking for patterns of behavior or thought that are self-destructive.

This is why we shouldn’t burn our fourth step inventory because it really is a treasure map. Unfortunately at the end, there isn’t buried treasure, only weird, twisted thinking generally. No gold there. It’s far more icky.

It’s amazing what happens once you get your resentments and fear on paper, and then actually read what you wrote to someone else. Things become clear. You can see things that you believe that are simply not true.

For example, I truly believed that out of the five billion people on earth, I was destined to fail in everything I ever tried. It was set in iron. Is this true? Hardly. And yet I believed that unquestioningly. Without a shred of real evidence. I was deluded.

Another idea I had, that I truly believed, was that if I couldn’t be the best, right out of the gate, I just wouldn’t play. I love the idea of the “natural” genius. I think it comes from watching waaaaayyyyy too many movies. In the movies, the hero becomes awesome in a montage scene. A little Rocky Balboa music, a little running, and they are ready to defeat the villain. I WANT THAT! Real life takes too much time.

But I walked away from a lot of things because I wasn’t good at them right away. My thinking caged me. I had no idea I thought this way until I looked at it.

I was haunted by demons, especially around my writing. I had lived a lifetime of fear and terror without ever actually failing.

I had to get a list of my character defects, the exact nature of my disease, before I could start to heal from it and rise above my defective head.

It’s by going through our fifth step that we get the tools to write our list of character defects. And it’s through steps sixth and seven that we get some freedom from those character defects. Self-knowledge is one thing, but I need help from a power greater than myself.

2838_How_is_the_value_of_a_diamond_determined

 

What’s Love Got to do With It: A Blog Hop for Love

*LOVE*

http://www.dreamstime.com/-image17577654

I’m joining up with other Crescent Moon Press authors for a sexy, lovey-dovey celebration of l’amour. Check out my post below and:

Click on the hearts above to learn more about how to win!

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

What’s Love Got to do With It: More Never Prayer!

Romantic love has become the pinnacle of the human experience, or that’s how we Americans see it. Arguably, romantic love is the primary religion in the U.S. Can you have a show that doesn’t have a romantic angle? Can you listen to music that doesn’t hit us right between the legs?

romantic-love1

As Nick Hornby put it in his novel, High Fidelity,

People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands – literally thousands – of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss.

Yeah, romantic love pervades our culture, but then our culture is one of youth. Our stories are about first meeting and overcoming obstacles, and usually end in marriage. Would anyone want to read stories about the doldrums of being married for years on end? Don’t bet on that pony, my friend. Go with what the people want, which is immediate lust and then forever love.

Do I believe in the gospel of romantic love? Part of me does. Hence I like Twilight, adore soap operas, and can’t imagine watching anything that didn’t have some sort of love story going on in it. Some scholars think the reason why Edgar Rice Burroughs did so well is because his John Carter carried such a torch for Dejah Thoris. Same thing with Tarzan; he had his Jane. And Tarzan DOESN’T get the girl at the end of the first Tarzan novel. A tragic love story about some monkey man. Cut and print.

Another part of me is skeptical about romantic love. Hey, I can be atheist about God, I can be agnostic about romantic love. Generally, those wonderful neural chemicals which characterize immediate attraction wear off after about eighteen months. Just long enough for you to meet, have sex, have the baby, and then nine months for the baby to be out of the womb before it’s time to break up and find the next eighteen-month affair.

sparkle heart com-29510Real love is less about sparkle and more about commitment. It’s less chocolate ice cream and more broccoli. It’s good for people. That’s why men and women live longer when they are in a committed long-term relationship. It’s hard, but it’s worth it. Or so the story goes. I’m skeptical about that as well.

However, in my novel, The Never Prayer, there is a definite romantic component. Funny, though, my main character Lena is less about love, more about survival. Hard to be interested in romance when you’re on the run from the law, you’re grieving your parents, and your ex-boyfriend has gone into drug treatment.

And yet, Lena finds healing through a romantic relationship. While she does have the chocolate ice cream sparkle with one boy, she winds up with another, but there’s sparkle there as well.

Romantic love definitely is one of life’s more interesting aspects, but it can be a hard thing to hold onto.

When I was trying to decide if I wanted to get married or not, I had a friend who said the best thing about marriage is that when you fall out of love, it keeps you together so you can fall back in love. Last time I talked to him, he and his wife of a bazillion years were having a second honeymoon. And with all that history together, it’s special. Not easy. Not sexy. But special. Real.

Reality and romantic love don’t always mix, which is why pining for someone is often better than actually having them. The idea of romantic love is probably better than the reality. Maybe that’s why we like it in our stories.

In the end, our society is missing out, I think. By making romantic love the pinnacle, we miss out on the benefits of selfless sacrifice, religious ecstasy, or just plain everyday serenity, being comfortable in our own skin, in the moment, and not needing any sort of romantic drug to ease the pain that living brings.

But I gotta’ say, I’m still a believer, though I’m also conflicted.

For right now, I think my buddy Catullus said it best,

Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris.
Nescio, sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.

Basically, it translates to, I love and I hate. I feel it happen, and I am tortured. Excrucior. Best word ever.

catullus_1530245c

Happy frakkin’ Valentine’s Day.

 

 

 

 

Step 5 Pt. 4: I Am Not Unique; One Writer’s Story is All Our Stories

Step 5 – Admitted to the world, to another person, and to ourselves the exact nature of our disease

 

Last week I talked about first sales panels at writers conferences and the funny thing, most of the time I completely discount other people’s experiences. Totally. Do you know why?

snowflake

 

Because I have this deep-seated notion that I am unique. No one is like me. Only one Aaron Michael Ritchey ever born, that’s me, and if you think anything you say matters to me it doesn’t.

 

 

Kinda’ like my favorite joke.

How many VietNam vets does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

You don’t know ‘cause you weren’t there, man.

Ain’t nobody been Aaron Michael Ritchey.

But it’s a stupid idea to think that I am so unique. As a person or as a writer. That’s the thing with the first sales panels—their story is my story. Or could be. If I keep working and keep trying.

From what I’ve seen, it takes about five to six years to get published once you really set your mind to do it. Really commit. Then it takes another twenty to get on the New York Times Bestseller List. And that can happen to writers. Happens to writers all the time. Why not me?

Why not?

I’m just a writer, after all.

And that’s the power of the 5th step. Once I shared all of my foibles with another person, once I got everything on paper and out in the open, I realized I wasn’t unique, or alone. That I’m a person, a writer, and other people feel the same things I feel. The successful ones find a way through the fear and pain. Those are the people I need to talk to and the stories I need to hear.

If I focus on the similarities and not the differences, I can get to a place where success as a writer is possible. If I focus on the differences, then I’m doomed, doomed I tell you! Doomed to be alone. Doomed to be a failure. Doomed forever!

But that’s not the case. That’s why I can talk to writers so easily. They are my people.

So cowboy up, all you happy writers, because we’re leaving Step 5 and going on to Step 6. This is where the hardcore part of the program hits.

Steps 6 and 7 ain’t for sissies!