Tag Archives: 12 steps

Step 5 Introduction: My History as Bart Simpson

Posted on by
2

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

031506monica306

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.

Simpsons-2

We’ll talk more about step five next week.

Shackled to God – The Writer’s Commitment to the Universe

Posted on by
Reply

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

Okay, to recap. The third step is about living as our best selves, giving up on the fantasies of writing, and accepting the reality. Living the dream.

So part of the joy of my online presence is that I get to interview writers, and I started asking people if they could take a pill to remove the desire to write, would they take the pill?

Most said no. Most love writing and wouldn’t give it up.

Me? I’d take the pill because my life would be so much easier if I didn’t have a full-time job I try to cram into the cracks of my other full-time job and the rest of my life. William Faulkner was a mailman before he hit it big and he used to throw away mail so he could write more. Henry Miller was more realistic. He just hung out in Paris and wrote, poor as the lice in his mattress.

But I have to wonder; why was I given this desire to create? Other people don’t have it, but man, I have it in spades. Why?

The fact is, every writer has a unique voice and a unique perspective. Give two writers the same prompt, and you’ll always get wildly different results. Always. Because we are unique.

So if I have the desire to write, then I have a duty to the universe to write my stories. Why else would I want to write?

Yes, I watched way too much TV growing up. I was hurt. I was alone. I ran away into stories, and I began to tell myself stories when I got bored. So I was molded into a writer, but now that I am one, I can’t just quit. Because I have a duty.

I have friend who wrote a wonderful novel about heaven, hell, angels, the whole deal. In her book, she had a moving scene where it showed what happened when people died. As the people died, a dove would come and draw out the song of their life, and that song would join the infinite symphony of the universe.

My stories are my song. I am doomed to write them. Doomed, maybe blessed. Depends on the day. The Sikhs wear a steel bracelet as a symbol for their connection to God. It’s steel because the Sikhs believe they are shackled to God. No way out.

In the same way, as a writer, I am shackled to God.

 

 

I have to surrender to my writing, make time for it, make it happen. Because no one can write the stories I can write and that means I have a duty.

At times, it can be a divine form of slavery.

Step Two Concluded: The Path to Hope

Posted on by
Reply

Step Two: Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

A lot of people say that the principle behind the 2nd step is hope, and I think that’s right. We hope that we can be restored to sanity, that we can live at peace with ourselves and with our writing. Yes, a lot of writers become very successful and they fight and spit and growl through the process, but that’s not my ideal. And again, I say, if I can write and handle the writing game sanely, everyone wins. I win, my critique group wins, my family wins, everyone.

But if I fight and spit and growl my way through the stress of creating, then querying, then publishing, then marketing my writing, well, it’s hard to be around all the negative energy day in and day out.

At some stage, I had to embrace the idea that me writing was good for the planet. That stories are worth the time it takes to craft them. Not just for the entertainment value, though that does have its place, but for the experience of enjoying and relishing a fine story well told. I would argue that the world is better because of Harry Potter and the Twilight novels.

I have to have hope that my stories can only make human life bearable for those who read my sometimes dark, but still hopeful books. I love the idea that the story I’m working on now just might be the next Hunger Games. Odds are it isn’t, but what if?

And while I’m pursuing that “what if,” I can play the writing game and not be full of fear, self-doubt, self-loathing, or just plain crazy.

I can be a writer who has courage and dignity. That’s the hope, and through the steps, I’ve found a lot of peace even when things have gone from bad to worse.

Because at my core, I have hope.