Category Archives: Writing

How To Interview Famous People While Avoiding Restraining Orders

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One of the best parts of my life is that I get to talk to writers. Now, writers are insane. No, really, crazy as a box full of bats. But they are also wonderful, full of life, sparkly people like Edward from Twilight though they don’t drink blood. Well, some do, but anyway, I love talking to writers, the unpublished, the published, the hyperpublished.

 

Now, hyperpublished people are doing interviews with Charlie frakkin’ Rose and yet I really wanna interview them. But I’d have to fight through their publicist who would take one look at me and giggle. Tee-hee.

But, I had an idea. When I meet a hyperpublished author, why not ask them a question and chat with them and then get their permission to publish our conversation on my website in a very respectful way? So that is my plan. And so far, everyone has agreed to my idea. Because I’m harmless. And because I love talking to writers.

Now, I am going to paraphrase what they say, so when you are reading my fake interviews, they are filtered through my own perceptions. I am not quoting anyone directly. So take that with a grain of salt.

And for the love of God, don’t go to them and say, “You said this on Aaron Ritchey’s website!” They won’t remember talking to me. And I’ll get sued. And I’ll wind up in jail and I’ll have to write my next book with my own blood on toilet paper.

 

So, that is the intro to my blog series. On Wednesdays, you’ll see THE COMPLETELY UNAUTHORIZED INTERVIEWS OF AARON MICHAEL RITCHEY. But tomorrow, Thursday, I’ll kick this off. Tomorrow, you’ll hear my conversation with Charlaine Harris.

Yeah, that Charlaine Harris. Uh oh. And oh boy, is she cool.

Surrender Is Heartbreak, Not Sunshine and Puppies – Step 1 Continued

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

The bottom line is this: I wanted to write, I couldn’t write, so I had to decide between chopping off my hands or accepting help.  I had to let go of my old ideas that had not worked. When I got rejected by the agent back in 2006, I had been writing for fourteen years, in isolation, in secret. And I had failed. I had to embrace that and surrender.

The first step is all about surrendering and admitting we are broken. It’s not a happy step. Generally, with the people who I have worked with, you don’t leave this step whistling and holding a puppy. But it’s the brokenness that is the magic. The more broken, the better.

I was at rock bottom that day I left the session with the agent. And I re-visit that place every now and again, but it’s never been as bad. Because my writing habit is not a secret that I carry alone any more. I invite others into the madness.

As I’ve said in earlier blog posts, you can’t work the 12 steps alone, which is why the recovery community understands the need to have a sponsor. What I do with the guys I sponsor is to set up weekly appointments with them, just an hour a week, and yes, in our busy lives, an hour is like gold-tinted minutes, but in the end it’s worth it.

With your sponsor, you have to write down where you are powerless over your art, and how your creative life is unmanageable. A lot of these are going to be old ideas that you believe, and we’re going to inventory these old ideas in step 4.

These are some of the ideas I had that kept my writing life unmanageable:

  • I was so afraid of trying to get published that I couldn’t write anything at all. I just couldn’t. I was afraid to succeed. I was afraid to fail.
  • I didn’t think I would succeed, so why even try?
  • Crippling self-doubt. I didn’t think I had any talent.
  • Critical voices paralyzed me. I couldn’t write anything worth reading. Who was I kidding?
  • What I was doing was selfish, and so I needed to spend more time with my family and friends and being of true service to the world.
  • I should wait for inspiration. I didn’t have the big, huge, original idea and if that idea never came, I shouldn’t even bother.
  • The game is fixed and only those on the “inside” have a chance.
  • I was roasted by envy. Other people will get published and not me.
  • If I can’t be a runaway bestseller, if I can’t be the best, I’m not even going to try.

I give a talk called “From Whining to Writing: Courageously Creating and Overcoming the Odds,” and really, it is all about the first step. If I’m powerless over writing and my writing life is unmanageable, I’m stuck right there. But being stuck can be a marvelous thing.

It can bring change.

But for this blog, not yet. Next week, I play the time card. It’s like the race card, but more time-y, less race-y. It basically says, “I’m so busy I can’t write.”

Next week, we’ll see why that’s a lie.

My Dirty, Twisted, Nasty Secret About The Writer’s Life

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Writers have a hard time with reality. I mean, why do you think we spend our time in other worlds, with other people, doing things that aren’t real at all?

Do you know why? Because reality is hard. Reality is so, so, so…real. Like my daughter. To get her to eat, we gave her dipping sauces. Do you know what she said? She said, “Dipping sauces are too dippy.”

Reality. Too dippy.

A week ago, (my book is one week old!) I had a huge book launch, sold out of books, lived the dream. Me. Published. With an ISBN of my very own that I will tattoo onto my flesh. Everyone saying, “You must be so excited, so proud, so satisfied, to have accomplished this great thing.”

I nod. I agree. On this blog, look at the pictures of me, signing books, living the dream.

 

 

 

 

 

I look happy and ecstatic, don’t I? I loved all the people, all of my friends, all of my fellow writers and readers living the dream of a book getting published. Because any book that gets published is a miracle. I look happy in those pictures because I love the people in my life, and most times, they love me back.

But do you know the truth?

All of those things; praise, signings, book launches, tattooed ISBNs on pale skin. All of those things are great, good, wonderful.

But they aren’t the best part of writing. In a very real sense, they are a distraction. The best part of writing I do alone. And there is no praise, there are no claps on the back, nothing but me and the words and the story and the characters.

Because in order to have the book signings and launches and praise be at a level that would truly satisfy me, I would have to be standing in the Coliseum in Rome, Italy, surrounded by the literati of our age, throwing roses and money and offers of midnight trysts.

Like I said, I have a hard time with reality because I expect reality to match what I can imagine. And it rarely does.

But when the writing is good, and I mean, toe-curling, keyboard-smoking, Metallica-pounding good, that is when the writing is worth the effort and I tiptoe into heaven.

The only reward for writing is writing. And on some days, that is more than enough. And reality, or my version of it, is sublime.

Hey all, I have some flash fiction over at a fellow Crescent Moon Press’ blog.  Come check it out!  It’s about a broken girl and her undead step father.  And one good thing.

http://kateevangelistarandr.blogspot.com/2012/04/page-one-one-good-thing-by-aaron.html