Category Archives: All about me

Stand Together or Die Alone: Step Five, Part 3

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

Back when I started going to writers conferences, I would always attend the first-time published sessions and listen to the experiences of those lucky few that got published. Here I was in the darkest cesspool of obscurity, scribbling in the dark, but these writers, these people, they had made it!
Writers Conference

Ha. Not sure we ever really make it. Will Stephenie Meyer write another novel, or have the haters hated her right into a cesspool I can only dream about? That of the despised, successful writer.

But back to the First Published panels at writers conferences. I can’t tell you how much it meant to me to see these other writers succeed. Usually, I’m a very envious person, but hearing their journeys, for some odd reason, I didn’t focus on that. I focused not on the differences, but on the similarities. They struggled. They fought. And they made it. To getting published. As my friend Linda Rohrbough says, the game changes at every stage. And they were honest.

Listening to that honesty, I knew I wasn’t alone. And I could keep struggling and fighting.

Part of Step 5 is baring our souls and letting another person see how completely wacky we are. But there’s another part. The person who listens gets to share. And the stories we tell each other during the Step 5 process are priceless. I’m scared, you’re scared, we’re Nickelback+When+We+Stand+Together+2011both scared. Doesn’t mean we stop. No, once you have two people sharing their fear, the fear is lessened. I think that’s where the idea came from of when two people meet, there is God in that meeting.

Together we can do things we can’t do alone.

 

One of the best things that’s ever happened to me at a writers conference came when I ran into a guy who had just come from a terrible pitch session. He blew it. The fail was epic! White-faced, he was wandering the halls and we started talking.

He explained how horrible it had been. And right then, I could look him in the eye and say, “Yeah, I know. Here’s what happened to me.” I talked to him just like how Linda Rohrbough talked to me after my meeting with an agent went terribly, terribly wrong.

That’s the power that community has. That’s the amazing synergy that can happen if I reach out and engage with other people. But I’m a dark-souled sort. I need to remember that I need to share my victories as well as my defeats. That yes, my inventory is of the darker bits of who I am, but there are many sides to life and to me. I need to remember to celebrate when it’s time to celebrate. I had a rough time with that one.

One last thing. I’m choosy about who I let into the little circle of my life. Some people won’t understand, or they’ll try and preach.

hair on fireDon’t tell me what to do. Not even if I’m on fire. The minute you say, “Oh, you should put out the fire that’s burning on your head!” I will let that fire burn me to cinders.
But if you say, “Yeah, this one time, my head was on fire, and it hurt. Jesus, it hurt.”
I’ll listen closely to what you are saying. Because you’re not talking about me. You’re not preaching. You’re sharing about what happened to you.

And then, when you say, “Yeah, my head was on fire, and I got a bucket of water, and oh, it felt so good to douse the flames.” Then, I’ll go looking for a bucket. I can learn from your experience, not your preaching.

I love stories. Tell me a story, and I’ll learn.

So find a close group of people you trust, share what’s going on, and above all, keep working. Keep writing. Keep creating.

Because no one will read the book you don’t write.

One last thing on Step 5 next week.

We Write Alone but We Are Not Alone: Fifth Step, Part 2

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

I grew up Roman Catholic and I love being Catholic. My brother Scott calls Mass the longest dinner party in history. Yes, the Church has issues, lots of issues, and the Church has slaughtered people all in the name of a homeless pacifist who was probably a little crazy and definitely a lot poor. But I love the Catholic Church even though it is so, so flawed.

cath church

In Catholicism, there are the seven sacraments. I’ll try and name them all, though I can never get it right. Here goes: Baptism, Dopey, the Eucharist, Dancer, Sleepy, Confession, Holy Orders, and Vixen. Oops, that’s eight.

Anyway, Confession, or Reconciliation, is the sacrament where you go and tell the priest your sins. But notice, it’s really not called Confession any more. It’s called Reconciliation. By talking about your sins, the priest represents the entire church, Jesus, God, and you are forgiven. You are reconciled with the community and everyone feels better.

speakIn 12-Step programs, we call that healing through our mouths.

Some kind of magic happens when you admit where you are wrong, where you tell someone about your troubles, where you air out your dirty laundry. Let me give you an example.

My book had just come out. I was working on marketing. I was terrified. I was dying. Now, them crazy Catholics would say that I lacked faith. And I did. I truly believed that I was alone in the world and DESTINED to fail. That is one of my character defects. I think that of all the people in the world, I have been chosen to fail. Forever. A failure.

I’ve been working the steps long enough to know that when I’m in that space, I need to reach out, and so I called two writer friends, Chris Devlin and Angie Hodapp. They met me at a Village Inn and I think I even blogged about it at the time.

So we all got into a booth, flirted with the waiter, well, I didn’t, but the girls did, and then I spilled my guts. I admitted my fear. I talked about my character defects. I let them in on the freak show that is my head.

And Angie said, “Yeah, I understand. But everyone is afraid.”

Suddenly, I didn’t feel alone any more. Suddenly, I found courage where none had been before. I was shrived. I was reconciled back into this family or writers and artists who create and sell and fear.

That is the power of the 5th step. When another person witnesses our struggles, our dark places, our foibles, our sins.

I’ve heard a lot of 5th steps, and people thank me for listening. I then thank them. Because it’s a sacred thing to bear witness to another person’s life. Everyone is helped.

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So them crazy Catholics were smart to include Reconciliation in their list of sacraments. There is power in talking. Suddenly, our thoughts become real in our words, and so, we can see how silly they are, or how real, or how unnecessary. And all the power is removed.

We heal through our mouths.

Not sure how much more I have to say about the fifth step, but next week I’ll add more. Like most things, it’s simple but oh so powerful.

Thanks, everyone reading along!

Step 5 Introduction: My History as Bart Simpson

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

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Writing is a solitary thing. No, really. One of my favorite bits from the The Simpsons is the summer where Bart breaks his leg. And he’s alone. And he gets weird. At one point, Lisa invites him out for something, and Bart, reduced to a pale, raccoon-eyed creature, hisses at her, “No, Lisa, I can’t. I’m working on my play.”

Spending large amounts of time alone is not good for human beings. We get strange. But as a writer, that’s one of the job hazards. I got used to being alone, though, even before I chose to write in every spare second I had.

I grew up in the basement of my house watching TV and working on my play. I was pale. I had dark circles under my eyes. And I was alone. I built multiverses out of legos. I read dark tomes. I watched Happy Days. Lots of Happy Days. Real life couldn’t compete with all that alone time.

I can still go there, and so I can write books. If I had been more well-adjusted and popular, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to be a writer. What’s done is done, though.

The thing is, after I wrote in isolation for years and years, fourteen years and hundreds of thousands of words later, I wasn’t making much progress. And I was lonely.

Somehow, I got the idea that writers were like high school theatre people. Not sure where I got that. It’s not the truth. I was driven to meet other writers because I was desperate to improve and I needed help. So I reached out.

We write alone, but we are not alone.

All of that is a long intro to Step Five. Step Five in its basic form is reading our inventory out loud to another person. A real-life person. Someone who can listen and keep quiet about what they heard. Some people use priests for this. Others call 411. True story, someone dropped an inventory on the poor gal working the information desk.

The process of reading our inventory, listing our inventories, admitting to our petty resentments, makes it real. As we read, we are admitting to ourselves what is really going on. Another person bears witness and represents the world. Get out your rosary beads, light the incense, get your Catholic on—this is a confession.

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We’ll talk more about step five next week.