Category Archives: Addiction/Recovery

The Terror Factory and the Fear Inventory: Step Four Continued

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Step 4: “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”

I think the number one issue that affects writers more than any other emotion is fear. Blind, raging fear. And in the writing world, well, being fearless is a necessity. Or at least finding the courage to walk through our fears. That can be rough.

However, if we really examine our fears, a lot of the time we can see they are unreasonable or completely unwarranted. So this is why I think the heart of the 4th step is the fear inventory. The “grudge list”, or resentment inventory gives us our fears laid out right down the line because a lot of the time fear hides itself as resentments, but not always.

I start my fear inventory with all the fears I have with resentments. And then I lay them out on paper. Here are the columns.

Fear History of Fear Self-Reliance Failed Me Please Marching Orders
Name the fear. Write down a brief history of the fear. In what ways have I tried to deal with the fear myself with no help from the Divine? Ask the Divine to remove this fear. What are my marching orders? What kind of person does the Divine want me to be?

 

In this way, we can see the roots of the fear and then how we’ve tried to deal with the fear. Generally, I try and ignore the fear, hoping it will go away. Typical man. No, I won’t go to the doctors, I’m fine. My compound fracture will heal if I just ignore it.

What’s interesting for me is that a lot of fears have no history. I have an overactive imagination so I can imagine the horrible things but generally, they never come to pass. Other fears have roots in my childhood. The world can be cruel to a child. And kids can be downright evil to the people around them.

Now, I have a hard time with the “God” idea, so I used the Divine. For me, it carries less weight than God. The Divine also seems bigger, more unknowable, and will this Divine Other help me? I don’t know. But I can pretend it can. Why not?

So I ask the Divine to remove my fear and then I get my marching orders. What kind of person does the Divine want me to be?

This is the meat of the whole inventory process. What is my ideal around this area? And then how I can strive for that ideal?

Next week I’ll take the fear I had from my resentment example and we’ll inventory it together. Never alone. Never again.

 

In Jail for Killing My Critique Group Partner: Step Four Example

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Step 4: “Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.”

So, one night, years ago, way before I was published, I left my critique group and I realized I hated one of the members. Hated her like the Devil hates puppies. This woman would open her mouth and I’d just want to hit her. So that night, around midnight, as I lay there, not sleeping, hating on her, I realized I needed to inventory why she troubled me so much. Because it’s a spiritual axiom; if I’m feeling upset, there is something wrong with me.

Above all, I wanted to be free from the resentment. Hating people is hard work, and I’m a busy guy.

So I got up, went to my computer, and here is a perfect example of using the 4th-Step inventory process to work through a resentment. I changed the name to protect the innocent.

I’m Resentful At:
Betty Smith

The Cause
I am resentful at Betty because her book was terrible, and yet she is so hard on my book, and she knows so little. She thinks she knows all about young adult fiction and how young adults talk and she doesn’t. She’s mean and critical.

How does this resent affect my self-esteem, security, ambitions, personal relation, sex relations? What are my belief systems?
I am… worthless. I can’t write. I should give up.

I want…everyone to like my writing.

I need…to know I’m not wasting my time and that I do have an audience.

Pocketbook…None. Well, my future booksales might be hurt if she is right and that scares me.

A Real Man…should give up if they can’t do things perfectly. A real man wouldn’t embarrass themselves by showing the world subpar work.

A Real Woman…only wants a man who does things perfectly and doesn’t want to see any weakness or imperfection.

Where was I selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, and afraid?
Selfish
I am selfish because I have talent. Just like my daughter Asha has talents. Like my daughter Ella has talents. When I disregard my talents, it’s like Asha or Ella saying they are bad and wrong. It’s not the truth and it’s selfish and prideful for me to think I’m so awful. Like Dave said, “Quit talking bad about yourself.” It’s self-indulgent.

Dishonest
I am dishonest because I know I’m not worthless and I know I can write. I am the real thing. Like other published writers I’ve read. I’m also being dishonest with myself because deep down I don’t believe real men should do everything perfectly, and I don’t believe that’s all women want.

Self-seeking
I am self-seeking because I don’t want to write for an audience. I want to churn stuff out for my own sense of accomplishment, and then not show it to anyone. And it’s self-seeking to want to be the best, above reproach, above critique, so everyone will praise me and tell me how great I am.

Fear
I’m afraid that I’ll never get published. And I’m afraid that if I do get published, I won’t have an audience.

* * *

So that was the inventory. Since it was late, I waited until the next day to call a friend of mine. I then read over the inventory and shared what was going on with me and this woman. At the next critique group, I was free of Betty Smith and I could listen to her. She didn’t have to change, I did. Once I could see the triggers, I could let Betty be Betty.

She did me a service, even if she wasn’t very pleasant. I needed to think about an audience, even if it was just one person, and that’s what really got stuck in my craw. It’s an overwhelming idea and I was afraid. But once I worked through it, I felt better.

Over the years, I’ve inventoried my hatred of other writers better than me, the whole writing industry, writing as an art form (lonely–at least being a musician you get to hang out in bars), people not liking my writing enough, feeling cursed by God for being a writer, and the list goes on.

There is no way I could have continued to write with all of the emotional baggage hanging over my head. I had to get to the other side, and for the most part, I did, but nothing is perfect. I relapse into negative thinking all the time and that’s why in 12–Step programs they say, “practicing the steps” or “working the steps.” In a very real sense, we’re never done.

Notice, part of the inventory process is the fifth step, sharing it with another person.

But we’re not done quite yet. Next week, we’ll talk fear. Don’t be afraid. I’ll be right there with you all the way.

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.