Insecure Writer's Support Group

The question for this month's group is what's the weirdest thing you've ever googled for writing research?

Lots of murder and what not. How long does it take for blood to congeal. How quickly does a body decompose. Things like that. I'm pretty sure at this point that the FBI just cross references people with crazy google histories with their author websites and then writes them off as a lost cause (also, the FBI isn't getting involved unless your crime is crossing state lines, just sayin).

Actually, I did do a bunch of research on the FBI for one of my books because I decided that I thought the FBI would get involved in a case of a missing person who was potentially abducted by aliens.

Or the Bathrooms at the San Diego Convention center where a scene from a novel was going to take place.

And I did some extensive research on the Ghost Fleet for a scene in my current novel which, to be honest was actually pretty cool.

I guess I haven't really done anything that crazy (at least, not that crazy compared to crime writers!).

Hop on the Link and visit the Ninja Captain. Say hi to the cohosts:  Sadira Stone, Patricia Josephine, Lisa Buie-Collard, Erika Beebe, and C. Lee McKenzie! 

Nose to the Grindstone

I don't have an IWSG for you today because I am hard at work. Blogging hasn't been on my radar of late, and I'm trying to figure out if it's a thing I should keep hacking away at or move to fewer posts. We shall see. 

Even though I'm not up for it today, this is blog hop. Sign up here, visit Ninja Captain Alex, and thank our cohosts:  Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Mary Aalgaard, Madeline Mora-Summonte, and Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor!

Bigger than I thought

I'm working on a big revision right now. It's for a big book. It's not like anything I've ever written. It's so much not like anything I've ever written that I keep putting it off. It scares me. 
What if I completely fail this really beautiful idea?
What if I'm just not as good as I've always thought I was and the real reason I normally write fluff is because I'm scared to learn that I'm not good enough to write anything else? If I don't try, I won't know, right?

These are the the thoughts plaguing me as I tackle this monster, and by monster I mean a three part story that MUST be a three part story, and each part is about 90K, so I can't just smoosh them all together into one really long book. 
And it's full of pain and jealousy and duty and family and revenge and forgiveness, and I never write like this, so I must be screwing this all up. 

I feel like a fool for hoping. I feel like an idiot for trying. And I'm completely convinced that I'm just falling flat on my face, and everyone can see it except me.

Someone very helpfully suggested I send it to a beta. 

I did. I sent it to beta readers in 2017. My betas loved it. They thought it was great, but in 2017, I could see where it needed something more. More depth, more character, more something. It's taken me 2 years to figure out what that something is, and I love it even more, but as I'm standing here trying to implement that SOMETHING, I'm terrified that I can't do it. I'm terrified that I'm just flinging words around in the hopes that something sticks to the wall. 

So that's me, scared that I'm destroying an idea I love and thinking I'll never write another story like this one. Which just means I'm a writer with the kinds of worries a writer has. 

This is an Insecure Writer's Support Group Post. You can visit the Ninja Captain here, and don't forget to say hi to this month's cohosts: Gwen Gardner, Doreen McGettigan, Tyrean Martinson, Chemist Ken, and Cathrina Constantine.

Insecure: VACATION STYLE

I'm taking a little bit of a writing vacation. I haven't taken an official one in a long time, but I've carved out some time from my writing schedule (i.e. I will not be hitting the self imposed writing deadlines I set for myself that were, quite frankly, impossible anyways). With luck, I'll be ready to come back to writing for July. I still have ambitious plans for the rest of the year, so it's time to rest up, find some good compression gloves and refocus!

Happy Insecure Writer's Group Day for everyone!

Impostors at every level

The funny thing about the impostor syndrome in writing is that we often forget that it breeds itself and proliferates.

At my day job recently, I was nominated to help our Union (Join the union, pay the dues, unless you aren’t into things like sick leave, 40 hour work weeks, health insurance, vacation). So I have to go to the employer who will surely be bringing a lawyer to the table.

A lawyer.

Why am I intimidated by a lawyer?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot. For some reason, lawyers have always had a place in my mind as the pinnacle of modern professionals. They dress nice (I have nice clothes, too). They have a fancy degree (I’ve got one of those, too). And they have confidence (uhmmm…).

To be frank, I have considerably more education than required to be a lawyer (I have more education than is required to be a surgeon), so it’s not their intelligence. So why do I feel like a complete fraud going to talk to them?

Part of it is that I have always viewed myself as the underdog. I have never come into a situation and thought for sure I would win a fight. I didn’t feel adult enough to buy my first home (or my second, to be honest). I feel like most people got off the train when they were younger and started believing in themselves as adults long ago, and I somehow missed the stop—honestly I was probably playing D&D at the time. In fact, I’m sort of terrified that someone will show up with a clip board and say “Rena, you enjoy things too much to be on this Very Serious Panel That Discusses Very Serious Things. Go home, impostor.”

So here I am, a little shocked to find that everyone at every level experiences some impostor syndrome. And for me, my impostor syndrome is tied to me feeling like an outsider. I have never fit in, and I’m not going to start now just because the other side of the table has lawyers.

Don't forget to visit the Link and say thanks to the cohosts: Lee Lowery, Juneta Key, Yvonne Ventresca, and T. Powell Coltrin! 

Not the Only One: IWSG

I grew up in a very small town. I grew up in the kind of small town where everyone was just certain of my path and my destiny.

“Oh, that Rena. She’s going to be an amazing veterinarian when she grows up.”

“Rena you’ll be such a great teacher.”

“You know, Rena, you can make real money raising sheep. If you do your herd right, you’ll be able to go to college in the winter and work lambing on spring break.”

“You need to study hard if you’re going to save the environment.”

Yup, my whole life was planned, signed and delivered by the time I was 11. About then someone asked me what I wanted to do, and I said I wanted to be an astronaut. Reader, I broke hearts with that simple proclamation.

But it’s an old small town and they knew the true path to getting their way, patience, solidarity, and a steadfast denial of all words actually issuing from my lips. I played a pretty convincing part, raising sheep, showing horses, training llamas, you name it, I did it. But I also memorized all the features on the near side of the moon. I studied the stars, I took extra physics classes when I could. I sang in the choir. I was in the band, and drama, and soccer and swim team. I wanted to play football, but that path was closed to me. Small towns can only allow so much.

In school, I read every book in the library with a horse on the binding. When I’d read all of those, someone recommended that I try the ones with the rockets: and I did. And it was amazing! The only problem was, none of those books were about kids like me. Not one. I grew up lonely and never seeing a girl from a small town who got to have a story other than grow up and fall in love. The story was always girl grows up and realizes horses are childish and falls in love with a boy.

First, I desperately didn’t want to think horses were childish (one of my first real jobs was as a horse back riding instructor). I loved horses (and had to sell mine to go to college), and well, let’s just say the guys weren’t exactly throwing themselves to date the girl who ran faster, got better grades, and could literally throw hay bales, so a love story wasn’t exactly going to cut it for me. I was lonely, and my life looked nothing like the books that should have been hand made for me.

So one day, I wrote a different kind of story where a girl rode her horse into outer space to go save the Starship Enterprise. Firstly because everyone should ride a horse to go save the world, and secondly because I’d never seen a girl like me, do anything the world seemed to think important. Surely saving the Enterprise would count as important.

That story was very important to me, and no, no one will ever read it. But it had everything that I loved and it spoke to me. 

Hooked, I wrote another story just for me. This one didn’t use nearly so much Intellectual Property not belonging to me. As with many of my works, I cajoled, bribed, and begged until someone else read it. And that time, that time I heard the timid voice whisper back, “I thought I was the only one.”

I thought I was the only one.

I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve heard that whispered back to me by people who were embarrassed by some deep truth so close to their hearts they’d never shared it with anyone until I showed them the scars on mine. People I didn't think I had anything in common with, people who didn't look like me, grew up under totally different circumstances saw something of themselves in my words.

And that’s why I write. I write because even in the world of over sharing social media, I still hear it. People read my stories and confess that they had always felt alone. They’d always thought they were the only one who felt it—the shame, the secret joy, the guilt, the pain, and the pure exhaustion that is life, or just how lonely it is to feel something you shouldn't feel because society tells you that you're supposed to have exactly one emotion (I'm looking at you motherhood).

In short, I write so people will know they are not the only one.

It's Insecure Writer's Support Group, so hop on over to the Link, wave at The Ninja Captain, and say howdy to this month's cohosts:  J.H. Moncrieff, Natalie Aguirre, Patsy Collins, and Chemist Ken!

Avoidance IWSG

I’ve talked before about how the best way to protect yourself from failure is to never try. You are absolutely guaranteed to never experience any rejection if you never put yourself out there for others to see (and all too often, criticize).

Which brings me to today. I have cleaned my work area, swept the floor, answered every email, done the dishes and cooked every breakfast the people in my house are going to eat for the next week. Yeah. All of that.

I’ve spent the whole week thinking about how much writing I was going to get done, but instead I have done LITERALLY every other chore in the house. I’m avoiding it. I’m worldbuilding. I’m plotting, I tell myself, I need time to think. Okay, that might be true, self, but it looks like, from over here in the no word count land, that you are actually doing the thing where you are avoiding writing.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: I have an idea for a novel, and I LOVE it. As in, I love it so much it might just break my heart. I love the idea so much, I might just never write it because the book it will become, no matter how good, will never feel like the shiny thing in my imagination. If I could have one wish, it would be to be able to make books fell the same way the idea feels in my head. It just doesn’t happen. Well, I should say, It hasn’t happened yet.

Am I the only one, or do you procrastinate putting pen to paper when you have an idea you’re in love with?

Jump on the link, visit the Ninja Captain, and check out this month’s co-hosts: Raimey Gallant,Natalie Aguirre, CV Grehan, and Michelle Wallace!

Hey, did you know my books are up on Amazon? 

Check them out here and here! 

An Evolution

The question this month is "How has your creative life evolved since you started writing?" 

This one is really hard. I've been writing novel length works of fiction on and off since I was 12. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I recently crossed a very BIG birthday number milestone, and to be honest, Things Haven't Changed A Lot. 

Big caveat here: I have absolutely changed my writing style, but one thing has always guided me. My first novel was about the book I NEEDED. My most recent book was the book that I NEEDED. And to be fair, most of the books in between have been the book that I HAVE NEEDED. 

But I have strayed from the path. I have tried to chase a trend (it did not end well, no you may not read the result). I have maybe started projects that were not in my best interest but were in the best interest of the market. They failed. Each. And. Every. One. 

This has helped me refine my voice. My failures have, in one way, sort of shown me who I am, and what my wheel house is. It's been... useful, if painful. Rejection is part of the path, but what it does better than anything is show you where and how you're willing to accept rejection. Specifically: when I'm writing to the market and that gets rejected, it's MUCH WORSE. It's worse because I KNOW that I was chasing money not heart. It hurts because I sold myself short. People judged me on my lack luster work, and it was lack luster because my heart wasn't there. The dollar signs were in my eyes.

And now I know better. So that's the real thing that has evolved. I know that if I can't put the full metric force of nature that is My Heart, there is no point in trying to write that project. It will not come alive. Like the life stone of the Deathly Hallows, that project will have a half life, a cursed life. (and I don't have any unicorn blood to feed it!). 

In short, the only thing I have learned is that it's not really worth writing a project unless my heart is in it. Which sounds really cliche, but it's very, VERY true. 

Don't forget to visit the Ninja Captain Alex, and say hi to this month's cohosts:  Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor JQ Rose Ann V. Friend and Elizabeth Seckman!

Feeling like I’ve been here before: IWSG post

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: I’m getting ready to query a new book.

Oh, yeah, that’s come up once or twice on the blog. So many times in fact I have many agents and agencies memorized. I’d be lying if I said I was perfectly confident that this time—THIS TIME!—would be different.

I’ve had dozens of full requests, I get personalized feedback on my query letters. And I have hundreds of rejections. Hundreds. And yet, here I am with another book, making my list, checking it twice, finishing up the draft and making notes for revisions.

It is the definition of insanity to try the same thing and expect a different result, and YET HERE I AM, because this is “the process.” At this point, it’s probably fair to say that I’ve lost faith in the process. I’m not saying that it doesn’t work, it just doesn’t appear to be working for me. It’s like I’ve come to live in a world where there is an invisible line I cannot seem to cross. It starts to feel like that time I agreed to tutor one of the guys in my physics class and after I showed him the mnemonic for memorizing the formulas, he showed me how ALL THE OTHER BOYS WERE CHEATING on the exams. Literally everyone knew this one trick (and it was cheating, to be clear), but for three years they hadn’t told me, the only girl, about this one thing.

Watching other writers find their forever homes for their books feels like that. It feels like there’s a secret club and I’m somehow just not smart enough/good enough/stubborn enough to get there. It feels like there’s a cheat code I don’t know about, but everyone else does.

I’ve tried everything to find that cheat code: Writer’s conferences, workshops, crit groups, professional editors, agent critiques. I put every first page and query up for critique on every writing podcast with a critique show (You’ve almost certainly heard or read one of my queries). I’ve participated in so many query contests and received so much feedback, that I now know what does and does not work for me.

Still, I keep hacking away at the process. I’m polishing my manuscript. I’m crafting my query, and I’m girding my heart against the process, worried that this next attempt will end like all the ones that came before it. All I can do is keeping doing.

At least there is one thing I can say from my experience: I’ve tried everything. I’ve followed every rule. I’ve tried to be the perfect little writer, the perfect representation of what I’ve thought the world wanted of me, and NONE OF THAT worked. I’ve tried being me, and that didn’t work much better, but I enjoyed it more. Maybe the point of this process is to find my voice in the storm? Anyways, I’ll be sending my owls into the night again, and I’ll just be over here practicing deep breaths.

Don’t forget, this is a blog hop! Head on over to Ninja Captain Alex’s blog and jump on the Linky. Be sure to visit the cohosts Dolorah @ Book Lover, Christopher D. Votey,Tanya Miranda, and Chemist Ken!

On Publishing and the Pursuit of Happiness

I missed IWSG this month (whoops), but it was because this post was too important to just whip out on short notice, so here it is (I'll totally post a real Insecure Writer's Support Group next month, I promise).

Trigger warnings: Depression and Suicide

I’ve been thinking about this one for a while now. I know that in the aftermath of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain a lot of people were struck by how such successful people could be struggling with depression and mental health, so it’s time to talk about it.

First, so you all know what you’re getting into, the credentials. I am not psychologist. My SO has a masters in psychology, but today we’re going to be talking almost entirely about my opinions and epiphanies about mental health and how it relates to publishing and/or success. In that vein, I’ve had some pretty big successes. I have also had some pretty impressive failures. I feel like I’m in a pretty good place to talk about my own experiences having finally come to terms with many of them. Grab your blanket and a beer, and gather around. This one ain’t pretty.

I have spent a large part of my writing career (really my whole damn life) with this idea that if I can just get through this part, I’ll achieve success and the hell I have been slogging through will have all been “worth it.” Other variations go something like this: I’ll be happier once I have an agent. Or: I’ll be a real writer when I’m published. Or “Once I sell enough to be marketable, everything will be okay, and I’ll be happy.”

These are all variations of the “I’m not happy now, but if I work hard on this external thing, I will be happy in the future.”

This is a LIE.

The reason this is a lie is because you are uniquely you. As in you are always you. You are the same you after you finish your first draft, after you sign with an agent, after you publish your book. You will always be you. I’m sure there are people who are now very curious as to what I’m talking about because, of course I would be me with a book deal. I would be me with or without a book deal. And for you lucky folks, I’m pleased you graced my post, but I suspect you aren’t my target audience. I’m talking to the people who harbor in their heart the secret desire that “things will be better when.” You lot know who you are. I know because I count myself amongst your ranks. (If this isn’t you, feel free to keep reading. I bet you know someone who has this particular world view, and this might help you understand them.)

Now, it seems like this is pretty simple stuff, but believe you me, in the realm of depression (and, quite frankly, ANY situation where you have feelings that are misaligned with what society tells you), your brain just makes shit up. I’m going to focus mostly on depression because that is the monster I know, though I could talk AT LENGTH about having feelings that are misaligned with societal norms (it’s complicated, so one thing at a time).

The first concept I want to explain about success and why it has nothing to do with happiness: You are 100 percent the same person with or without a book deal. I know this seems really simple. Of course you are the same person, right?

WRONG!

My brain has been telling me for decades that I will FINALLY be happy if I:

1)      Lose weight

2)      Get a book deal

3)      Get an agent

4)      Sell a ton of books

5)      Live in a big fancy house

I’m sure, for those of you who have the benefit of seeking therapy, you can see why there might be a mismatch in what my depression tells me, and the reality of the situation. Let me use a watermelon as an example.

I’m a watermelon. I present a thick green skin to the world, but inside I’m sort of a soft, squishy material that leaks if pressed too hard. I have never been happy with being a watermelon. When I signed my first publishing contract, I sort of expected to do a Sailor Moon transformation sequence and come out the other side a more exciting kind of fruit. Maybe I’d suddenly be an orange, or a banana, or a pear. Turns out, a publishing contract was a little more like a T-shirt and a little less like a Sailor Moon transformation sequence. So there I was, a watermelon with a publishing contract. This did not magically make me happy.

At this point, most people would very rightly realize that they didn’t get the magical transformation sequence because there is none, but for the few, the proud, the suffering from depression, we think that the reason the magical transformation sequence didn’t happen was because the success marker wasn’t big enough. To power a whole transformation, one needed MORE. Okay, so readjust the success marker. Now it’s making the New York Times list.

But when Watermelon me makes the New York Times list (I haven’t mind you, but I have been number 4 on Amazon, which is similar). This should definitely have enough juice in it to power the magical girl transformation.

And once again, it’s like I got a T-shirt (and a very plain one that doesn’t even have writing on it) not a magical girl transformation. Once more I am disappointingly still a watermelon. And again, most people would recognize the flaw in thinking, but when you are in the moment, when you’ve been fed the idea that if you work hard enough anything is possible, one of the things you start to believe is that outside markers of success will transform you into a satisfied, happy, version of yourself.

And the thing that hit me the most about Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain was that they were at the literal top of their fields. There are no higher markers of success that they could have achieved. None. Seeing their tragic deaths helped me realize that they may have suffered the same problem I do. There is no magical transformation. That’s not going to happen. I started as a watermelon. I cannot be anything but a watermelon.

It has been a very sobering summer to look around and realize that happiness is not a thing that can come from the outside. If success could make people happy, then highly successful people (like Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain) would not commit suicide. I’d always pegged my happiness on my success, and now it is glaringly clear to me, that no amount of success will ever kick off the magical transformation where I mystically become the unicorn I’ve always wanted to be. I’m a watermelon.

As you might imagine, this is deeply personal. I only talk about this because I see so many people who are clearly hoping—PRAYING—for the magical transformation sequence, and it makes me sad. You are you. And no amount of success will change what and who you are.

Now, this isn’t to say there aren’t benefits to success (paychecks, etc.), but the biggest problem I see most people have is struggling with the fact that you are EXACTLY the same person you were before. In short, everyone says it, but it is all too true: success will not make you happy. There is work that needs to be done on you as a person, and no one can do it but you. No amount of success will ever be enough. To paraphrase the immortal words of John Candy in Cool Runnings “If you aren’t enough without it, you will never feel like enough with it.”

I know. Simple, right?

Don’t confuse simple with easy.

If you need someone to trade words with, you can reach me at renarocford (at) gmail dot com (I’m slow to respond, so please be patient). Don’t forget, there are people who want and need you in this world, and the Suicide Prevention hotline number for the US is: 1-800-273-8255.

Terrified and Insecure

As I’ve mentioned on Twitter, I’m heading to WorldCon’76. It’s not a far drive, and I didn’t want to miss an opportunity. So I browsed through the offerings, and lo and behold, they had a writer’s workshop portion. Now, if there’s anything I’m a sucker for, it’s a critique. I pretty much always put my work out there to receive feedback. ALWAYS. I’ve had my queries and first pages read on podcasts hosted by agents. I’ve sent my work in The Writer’s Voice. I’ve entered every feedback granting contest I had a manuscript to enter in.

All of that is good and as it should be. Peers, sometimes published, sometimes not yet published, sometimes feedback from agents, sometimes interns, you get the idea. Considering all this experience receiving critiques, it seems like I should be happy to be adding to my tool kit, right? Right?

Well, it’s in person. IN PERSON. As in, I have to sit in the same room as the people giving out critique. And presumably not melt. Oh, and I have to sit with them. In a room where anyone could show up and watch (because it’s useful to watch someone else receive critique).

When I signed up, I thought, welp, there’s no way I’ll have gotten my work turned in fast enough to get a spot. Then I got an email. And yes, I have a spot. Deep breaths.

So I’m pretty insecure about that.

I bought my ticket and booked a hotel room on Friday morning. On Friday afternoon, a fire broke out. Then another fire broke out.

Through the afternoon, it became clear these fires were growing. After an hour or two, they had grown to over 1000 acres. Firefighters commented on their frustration that these small fires could have been knocked down if they’d only had the resources (The Carr fire was claiming its first victims on Friday). And of course, the fire was headed straight for my parents house. I don’t know how many of you have been in the teeth of a wild fire before, so I’ll go ahead and describe it.

The smoke: It smells like that campfire from when you go camping, but it’s everywhere. Everywhere smells like a fire. The grocery store. The gas station. The house. The car. After you’ve been up close, you smell like the fire. And when you’re up close, you can’t see through it. All the pictures make it seem like a giant monster looming over the horizon, squatting and waiting, but it’s much more dynamic in person.

The smoke moves. It heaves. It breathes with the wind, pushing and pulling like sea weed caught in the tide. The closer you are to the fire, the more it moves. When it’s hot, the column of smoke rises off the land in billowing clouds of ash racing for the sky.

The flames: This is something no one every prepares you for: You can see the flames—or you can’t. When you can see them, they are towering monster chewing on the land, but when you can’t see them, you know they’re there because you can hear them. They hiss like a million snakes as they eat up the leaves. They pop. Trees sometimes explode. They just explode. Some trees go up like your campfire, but some go up like they’re drenched in oil (because ostensibly, they are, evergreens burn scary hot).

And the flames and the smoke are heading towards your house. It is terrifying. And you work as quickly as you can. If it’s a slow fire, you get to talk to the sheriff’s deputy. If it’s a fast fire, you’ll be lucky to have heard about it in time to escape.

We got to speak to the sheriff’s deputy this time. Three days later, my parents got to move back, but the monster is still burning. Still eating away at the land.

Last night, another fire broke out (quite a bit further from my family, thankfully), but we’re prepping to set up another shelter.

So I’m going to WorldCon’76, unless I’m working the shelters. Either way, I’m pretty terrified.

Be sure to check out Captain Ninja Alex's blog, and remember to check out the cohosts: Erika Beebe, Sandra Hoover, Susan Gourley, and Lee Lowery!

Insecure Writers Support Group!

I'm not back from my blogging hiatus yet, but things are, interesting.

I taught a workshop on brainstorming ideas for stories at my local library (it was awesome). I have had a couple of unplanned book signings, which is always fun. I've been doing the very VERY writerly things, but all the things that make a person feel like a really real writer, you can't talk about. So, I'm knee deep in secrecy, but I have really been enjoying the #secondcivilwarletters. Those have been absolutely golden.

I promise I am well and content will return soon (ish, for some definitions of the word soon).

Insecure Writer's Support Group: Hiatus style

Hey everyone!

Looks like I'm taking a bit of a break from blogging for a little bit.

I have some news, but it's sort of all over the place, so for the moment go with this: if you wanted to order my most recent book in paperback, that's now an option! Click here and order a copy!!

Also, that book is gorgeous, and you'll love having a beautiful copy on your shelf (it looks perfect next to my other books, just sayin'!!)


Other than that, I'm afraid I've got something up my sleeve, and if I stay here for too long, it won't work out. So see you all soon, hopefully with news of one sort or another!

Moving the Posts and something about green

I almost missed Insecure Writer’s support Group!

I’ve been steady on for a long time, and I’m starting to have that feel you get when it doesn’t happen for you. When I started trying to get published and find an agent, I couldn’t have imagined what being where I am now would be like. I’m sitting here with three published novels, news I have to keep quiet about, and things are looking…

Ah, but that’s the problem with goals and the feeling of having arrived: You Always Want More.

I know it gets hard to imagine, but the goal posts in your life are always moving. Sometimes this is subconscious, but sometimes it’s planned. In publishing, it’s a list of steps that we’re told is “The Way” (yes, the scare quotes are necessary there). The steps are: Write the book, Revise the Book into Awesomeness, Query dream agent, SIGN with DREAM agent, SELL BOOK AT AUCTION!!!!! *confetti flies into the air and the words PUBLISHED AUTHOR are permanently displayed above your head so everyone will know you are amazing*

As you might have guessed, this isn’t going to work for most people. I always longed for the day when I would sign with an agent. I watched while trying to control my jealousy as friends got agents. I fumed when books were signed that were similar to mine (quietly and away from the internet), and then I’ve started to see more of something else. More of my friends have parted ways with their agents, or books that had been sold are orphaned as an imprint folds. Great books sit on shelves, not moving. Mediocre books sell like hot cakes (also really great books sell like hot cakes), but there’s no reason to it. There is a solid element of luck in all of this. I love my fairytale version of publishing, but it just isn’t reality. And when one of the things on the fairytale list is one of your goal posts, it gets hard to keep taking yourself and your career seriously (yes, I can totally hear some of you saying “what career, Rena?”) when you don’t hit all the markers (or don’t hit them in the right order).

I don’t know how to solve this problem, but I do know it helps to remind ourselves that the grass isn’t greener on the other side of the fence.

And don't forget to check out the IWSG link and visit Ninja Captain Alex, and this month's co-hosts: Olga Godim, Chemist Ken, Renee Scattergood, and Tamara Narayan!

Like a Machine: an Insecure Writer’s Support Group

This is an IWSG post, and you know the drill: visit Ninja Captain Alex, then jump on the linky.  Be sure to visit this month's cohosts: Mary Aalgaard, Bish Denham, Jennifer Hawes, Diane Burton, and Gwen Gardner!

Lately, I’ve been taxed past my normal operating parameters. I sound like a machine because I’ve been working myself into exhaustion and dealing with crap WAY above my maturity level. We pulled up the floor in my house and low and behold, there was a leak…from under the tub. Yeah, a leak at the drain. So we had to rip out the tub, the walls, the sink (which started it all!), and we’ve been furiously working to replace everything.

But wait, there’s more.

Everyone in my house has been through some sort of flu and/or cold.

Yeah, nothing like being sick when the only functioning bathroom no longer contains a working shower (going to the gym for those) or a sink (gotta wash your hands in the kitchen).

And this wasn’t a planned construction project, so it’s not like we saved up.

Also all the adults in my house work full time jobs (mine has 10 hour shifts, joy), and we’re doing all the construction in our off hours.

We hit a design flaw, add two weeks of showering at the gym.

So there I am at the grocery store, shopping the sales hard because I just bought a couple bags of cement and some sheetrock and I hadn’t budgeted a construction project in my post Christmas austerity period, when the stupid card processing pad loses its mind and stops working. A line of frustrated and annoyed grocery shoppers behind me all glaring at me and my malfunction, and someone says “Stupid machines! One spec of dust and they die!”

But I thought machines were the preferred mode. When I’m getting a lot of work done, people say “Wow, you’re like a machine,” but it wasn’t until I was standing in that line that I realized how ridiculous that saying is. Like a machine, implying that machines have some sort of better ability. Admittedly, a machine performing it’s only function will have some great longevity, but only sort of.

Take that stupid card reading machine. My grocery store put the new ones in about 9 months ago. That store is open from 5 am to midnight, and they break the shifts into four hour blocks, so about five four hour blocks a day. Most people work two four hour blocks. So the machines that are already breaking have, for the last 9 months or so, have been working 5 four hour blocks a day, the equivalent of 2.5 full time employees. But they’re breaking at 9 months. So they’re dying after the equivalent of 23 months of full time work. Two years. (Coincidentally, this is how long I budget for my laptops to last because I’m rough on electronics). And those machines didn’t have to go home and deal with all the crap that comes up in the real world. They never have to push through a shift when all they want to do is go home and read a book, or curl up under a blanket and pretend that North Korea isn’t ready to blow up the world. The machines never have to come in to work when their kid is sick. And the machine only does ONE JOB.

The second things aren’t perfect for a machine, it ceases to function. No limping it off, it just dies (well, I guess Opportunity limps, but that’s a super machine with an AI, but even that is pretty limited).

So the next time someone is implying that you’re almost as good as a machine, feel free to remind them of these handy dandy facts:

“I don’t freeze up when a little dust falls on me.”

“I can fix my breakfast then go for a walk.”

“I can work through the drowning emotional pain of loss; my NES froze up any time I played it for more than three hours in a row.”

“My computer won’t turn on if it’s 40 degrees F in the room or colder.”

The only real caveat to this is the Boston company and their freaky door handle opening robots. Those are freaky, but they still have the falling over problem (but, the Boston company is pretty much skynet, so there’s that!).

In short, you’re better than a machine. Now go write like it!

Worried my Best just isn’t Good Enough

I don’t think it’s any secret, I just finished a revision on a project. No one asked for it. No one said “Hey, Rena, you know what would make this better?” I decided to do this thing on my own. I poured myself out into a novel that was probably too broken to receive that level of revision. I probably should have left this book behind.

But I didn’t. Inexplicably, I chose to pour months of work into a novel I thought was broken. I chose to put in more work on the novel that had already received more full requests than any manuscript before. And so I did. I changed characters, I added scenes, I deleted whole chapters. This great bit didn’t work? GONE. This character too unlikeable? Change it. No chemistry? CUT!

I was ruthless. I did my absolute best by this novel in that revision. All I have to do now is proof the new chapters and send it on. It is the very best I can do with that novel at this time.

If I lived in an 80s movie, I’d have a contract, an agent, and someone hounding after the movie rights by the end of my 90 minutes, but alas, this isn’t a movie. In reality, it doesn’t really matter unless that one person falls in love. In short, my very best, may not be good enough.

Ah, the cruelties of reality. I have seen people get agents with books that they thought were cast offs and only sent out query letters because, why not? I’ve seen people toil for years and years, then not have anything to show for it when their book is considered not good enough, new enough, romancy enough. And these are my fears.

But whenever I get to the part where I’m staring down the possibility of retiring yet another project, I look back and ask myself what have I learned from this? Was this all a waste of time?

What I learned is that I have a stubborn streak that will serve me well. I’ve learned that I am capable of things I didn’t think I could do. I didn’t think I could push through. I wanted to quit, but I kept finding the place to do the work. I remembered how to write for me because the idea of leaving my character in a substandard novel when I knew a way to fix it, bugged me. So I fixed it. 

I learned that my other projects will wait. They are beautiful shiny things, but I’m giving this one a shot.

So there it is, three months of editing a novel and it’s within 500 words of the length of the previous version, but I’ve cut and changed ~30,000 words. I really hope it’s good enough, but it’s already making the next book better.

As always, check out Mr. Linky at the Ninja Captain’sHideOut. Say hello and thank you to this month’s co-hosts: Stephen Tremp, Pat Garcia, Angela Wooldridge, Victoria Marie Lees, and Madeline Mora-Summonte.

Inefficient at being insecure

Like most things I’m insecure about, it turns out that there’s a numb place. At some point, being insecure about everything sort of wears off. I like to think of it more like polishing a piece of wood. The first pass with sandpaper is very rough, lots of grit, and it removes a lot of the bits and pieces we create of ourselves, the things we let go when we’re under ridiculous stress. The next time that stressor comes through, we’ve either built those pieces up again or abandoned them completely, but either way, when the sandpaper comes for us again, there’s a lot less of us that’s sticking out.

If I follow this analogy to the end then we’d have to sort of accept that life just kind of grinds us down, which isn’t exactly true, but at the same time, doing the same task that makes us insecure, eventually the sand paper goes to a finer grit. It’s less abrasive. Sure, it still grinds big chunks away, but it’s still less than before. Do that enough, and it gets less still.

So it’s not that my insecurities are less insecure, it’s that the part of me that worried so hard has been ground away a great deal. I understand the shape of me more, and that causes the loss of my extraneous bits to be, somehow, less painful. In short, for today, many of my writing based insecurities are living in the place that I label “true, but inefficient.”

It’s a nice box to have. I put my fear of public speaking there. I keep my anxiety about work there. It’s just inefficient to spend that much time worrying about some things. I’m trying to move my social media presence into that box, but I don’t think I’m going to manage that, we’ll see.

How about you, do you have a place like that? Or are you a completely awesome person without insecurities?

As always, be sure to check out the Ninja Captain Himself, Alex and his co-hosts today are Tyrean Martinson, Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor,Megan Morgan, Jennifer Lane, and Rachna Chhabria! 

Insecure about self-made barriers

Don't forget to check out all the other Insecure Writer's Posts at Ninja Captain Alex's blog, hop on the Linky and thank this month's co-hosts: Julie Flanders, Shannon Lawrence, Fundy Blue, and Heather Gardner!

This has been a heck of a year for me professionally and personally. On the writing side, I’ve done more new things than ever before.

I joined SCBWI

I went to a writer’s retreat

I went to a writer’s conference

I went to a class visit

All of these were terrifying to me, but I went and did them anyways. And, I didn’t die. I’d even be willing to do repeats on all of them. But the funny thing about these items were these were all items on my list of markers that denoted a “real author.” These were all things I had seen other writers posting about and feeling jealous about. And, like most things viewed from the outside, they are different once you do them.

I’m a little suspicious of Moving Target Syndrome, the sensation that you long for a thing, but once you achieve the thing, you long for something else to feel gratification. I’ve experienced this before with writing, and well, it’s real. But somehow these markers were a litter different:

I was the one lurking in the shadows not joining SCBWI for more than a year after publishing—you can join at any time, by the way! I just hadn’t felt worth it, somehow. Going to a writer’s retreat was amazing because there were people at literally every stage. There were people with multiple books, people with agents and sales, people with agents and no sales, people with no agent, and people who had never written a book. It was awesome. And that was another barrier I had given to myself, thinking that I needed to be wildly successful to participate in that.

I could go on (the class visit was fun, and I’ve taught a lot, so I already knew how to handle a group). My point is, these markers of success that I had were all things I could have done years ago, but I felt too much like an imposter to do them. If you can learn one thing from my fail, please learn this: if you’re writing, wherever you are in the journey, don’t write yourself out.

Anyone else suffer from False Barrier Syndrome?

But teenagers aren't like that! An IWSG post

I think the thing I’m most insecure about is ever connecting with my audience and who that audience might be.

I am constantly under the attack of “that’s not what teenage girls are like.”

I think that’s my favorite statement ever. I love it because it seems to always come from men, but also because it completely ignores the fact that there’s no one thing that teenage girls are like. If you had fifty teenage girls in the same room, yes there are going to be some commonalities, but there’s going to be a huge spread about what they like and what they want to do. More importantly, there’s going to be a huge spread about who they think they are.

Caveat: I say think because the first encounters you have with college and adult life afterwards sometimes destroy who you thought you were in highschool. And sometimes, it only hardens it. One of my favorite quotes after coming back from college was that someone said “Wow, you haven’t changed a bit.” To which I replied, “I’ve changed a lot!” And the kind person said, “I know, but you’ve become so much more you than before!”

I digress. My point is that people are different and they have different desires. When I was in high school, there was this terrible choice you had to make: You could either be tough and sporty—able to change your own tire and throw a pass—or you could like pretty things. I see now that it was just another way for society to try to change me into a less powerful version of myself by letting me be tough, but denying me something that I really wanted.

As an adult, I see that it was a falsehood. Who would have stopped me from wearing pink fingernail polish while changing sparkplugs? Would the fashion police have stopped me if I’d worn a cute dress before the game? (okay, well, after the game, that might not have been as practical, but still). My point is I liked to do things where you got your hand dirty AND I liked pretty things.

This is something that I try to write into my characters, but it’s really hard because I’m constantly up against the “but teenage girls aren’t like that.” It’s something that I’m always insecure about. I’m always checking myself, when I start up a new character, are teenage girls like this?

And then I remember how I was forced to choose, how society didn’t seem big enough for my peers to not tease me mercilessly for have diametrically opposed likes. How could I possibly like fingernail polish and soccer? They teased me when I dressed nice. They teased me when I painted my nails. They told me I wasn’t taking my sports seriously enough.

It was all a lie.

Every scrap of it.

So when people tell me that “teenage girls aren’t like that,” I tell them to fly a kite. My only concern is that when you write a book with a character like the person I was, constantly rubbing against the grain of what others want you to do, it can be hard to find my audience.

Because my audience are the people who are still struggling with who they are and what they like and how life has pigeon holed them into “but that’s not what teenage girls are like.” I know there are people out there who are struggling, but trying so desperately to fit in, and I’m worried that their trying so hard to fit in makes them close off to the things they might actually love. And those people are my audience. I’m literally trying to reach the kids who are hiding who they are because they fear being called out the same way I was called out. In short, the people who might literally be afraid to pick up my book for fear of not fitting in.

Whelp, if you made it this far, fantastic! Consider hopping on the link and checking out the Ninja Captain himself, Alex! And a special thank you to this month’s co hosts: Tonja Drecker, Diane Burton, MJ Fifield, and Rebecca Douglass! 

A Thief or a Vanishing Act: IWSG

I once wrote about where I find the time to write. I said I didn’t look through my pockets to find loose time. I said it had to be stolen, pilfered, and sacrificed to the god of words.

I’m clearly not making the right sacrifices lately. My word counts have been REALLY low this year. I finally drew a line in the sand and said “enough.” I went to a retreat and pounded out 11,000 words to finish a book I started in 2014, (a small miracle as far as I can tell), but since that retreat, I haven’t been able to just sit down and make the magic.

I worry that I’m broken.

I worry that the magic is gone.

I listen to podcasts and they talk about writing exercises and I despair at ever having enough time to write those exercises to try things on. How would I find the time?

And that’s when I realize I’ve caught myself in a trap. Doing a writing exercise is a literal act of improving the craft for the sake of improving my craft. If I can’t improve my craft prior to writing a book (or the second draft of said book) then how will I write a better book? Yes, all writing moves a writer in the direction of better writing, but sometimes, you need to spend a couple dozen pages of words figuring out a character. It’s worth the time to hone the craft before diving into the words, as the choice is really write it better the first time, or rewrite it, it seems more efficient to take the time out of my writing schedule to work on the elements of craft.

But my writing schedule has been insanely tight with edits and proofs, and marketing plans.

So, I’m insecure about the fact that I’ve been writing and publishing and I feel like there is SO MUCH to learn, and I’ve been blithely sending books off into the world without these elements. Which isn’t true, they were just there without me having to think about them because my betas stuck them in, or my editors pushed me to write those things in. But it’s time to level up.

What about you, dear reader? Do you feel like you have the time to work on craft as well as piling on the word count?

Don't forget to visit the Ninja Captain, Alex and this month's lovely co-hosts: Olga Godim, Chemist Ken, Jennifer Hawes, and Tamara Narayan!