My husband and I were talking today about expectations and beliefs.

I am a firm believer in self-fulfilling prophecy.  That is to say, if you believe you’re going to fail at something, then you probably will fail.  This is the philosophy behind a lot of the focus of the public school system (or was, when an aquaintance was getting his Master’s).  And they are completley correct in saying that kids need to believe in themselves in order to be able to succeed in life.

What they are NOT correct about is to the extreme the school system wants to focus on raising children’s self-esteem.  Self-esteem doesn’t come from a bottle nor does it come from being put into positions where it is impossible to fail.  As I have said before, the thrill of success is only matched by the thrill of escaping failure.  Or, in other, more familiar words, you cannot succeed unless you take the risk of failure.

You can nuture an atmosphere where children begin to develop their own self-esteem.  Some kids may be better at Mathematics, some at English, some at Science, some at Mechanics… But they have to have the chance to figure out for themselves the areas where they excel.  Once they do, they then learn to set their own expectations of themselves.

When setting these expectations, you have to have a balance of realism.  Realistic beliefs go a long way to helping build self-esteem and I think people who are truly successful and innovative have taken baby-steps towards their expectations, learning as they go along that they can achieve more than they expect.

You can outshine your expectations, but not your beliefs.  It’s a balancing act — if you don’t believe you can meet (or exceed) your expectations of yourself, you probably won’t meet your goal and your goal is a false goal, doomed to failure from the beginning.

Yeah, what’s this got to do with writing?

As a writer, I am all too familiar with the Grumpy Editor Man who lives inside all of us.  He takes away any itsy-bitsy little thread resembling a smidge of self-esteem, especially when in front of the All-Powerful Blank Page.

But I also know if I set expectations and then meet them every day, I will increase that thread of self-esteem and the Grumpy Editor Man will have to go away and come back and visit me the next time I have a Blank Page (or a New Project) in front of me.  You will begin to believe in yourself and you will start the long, difficult road to success.  Just keep moving and meeting your expectations of yourself.

Steamer (Photo by Christopher Lusher)

If you’ve been around here long enough, you know how much I really love the photography of Christopher Lusher in Huntington, WV.   It’s a unique look at the city I grew up in, dirty and gritty, but always with an eye to the artistic.  I received the above picture in an email showing updates to Chris’s newest site, Hillbilly Mag: The Cross Pollination.  This is the second incarnation of the site, the first one having reached it’s upload capacity.

While I’m not a very good person to try and explain the “artistic nature” of anyone’s photography or artwork, I do like to use these images as photo prompts for freewriting.  Pick an image and write about whatever pops into your head.

More of his work can be found at Deviants and Derelicts.

Seth Godin

Today, Seth Godin talks about procrastination on his blog.

I’d like to posit that for idea workers, misusing Twitter, Facebook and various forms of digital networking are the ultimate expression of procrastination. You can be busy, very busy, forever. The more you do, the longer the queue gets. The bigger your circle, the more connections are available.

Laziness in a white collar job has nothing to do with avoiding hard physical labor. “Who wants to help me move this box!” Instead, it has to do with avoiding difficult (and apparently risky) intellectual labor. (Emphasis MINE)

As a writer, I consider myself an “idea worker.”  And if I do not write, then I will never get better at it.  I will never have a book to publish or a story to sell.  If I do not write, I am not a writer.

I fall into the trap of visiting Facebook and my email (not to mention about a thousand news and entertainment sites I have listed on my RSS feed) far, far more than I really need to.  Sometimes it’s hard to stick with it and to do what you know you want to do.  It’s far easier to sit down and check out what other people are doing or have done, to read the news and bitch, whine and moan about things that you really cannot change at the moment, and to be secure in the knowledge you really haven’t put anything out there that people can judge you for.

My Internet procrastination stems from the idea that a part of me is afraid to write, to put my bare emotions, thoughts and ideas out there on the table for anyone to discard haphazardly without giving it a moment’s thought. I fear failure and my own disappointment and, instead of working towards success, I am paralyzed by the idea that I might fail.

You know what?  There has to be a chance of failure in order for there to be a chance at success.

Failure teaches you lessons if you’re willing to listen.  I know a family who’s teaching their preschooler and toddler to ski, emphasizing, “Yes, you will fall.”  The kids are excited because they fell down on the snow.  The parents know that the more you do something, the better you get at it.

If their kids started out thinking that they could do it all the first time on the slopes, their first fall would be devastating, wouldn’t it?

Why do we, as writers who want to be successful, feel afraid to write?  We are afraid of making mistakes and failing that we lose the knowledge that as humans, we learn through failure.  Tabitha King pulled Stephen King’s first novel, Carrie, out of the trash, read it, and said, “This isn’t bad.”  We know he had written a great deal before that — this became his breakout novel and he is now the world’s most bestselling author.

If Tabitha hadn’t found Carrie in the trashcan (where Stephen thought it belonged), the world may have never discovered Stephen King.

Do you have a Tabitha to go around behind you, quietly getting your work out of the trash to read it?  If you’re not writing and not making those mistake, no, you don’t.

If you want to be a writer, you must write.  Period.  Afterwards, you can decide what you want to do with it.

Get your ideas and thoughts down on paper!  Now, not later — Facebook will always be there and, believe me, you probably aren’t missing anything except what so-and-so is having for lunch or what so-and-so is doing this afternoon.  You can catch up to all that later.

For now, write.  Write your heart out.

Occasionally (often), it’s difficult (impossible) for me to come up with an idea right off the top of my head to sit down and write about.  Seriously — to just sit down at my computer and write seems nearly impossible sometimes.  But that’s what writers do.  They write.  Be it about the day’s happenings, what they’re thinking that day, memories sparked by their life or even something their children do.

So, what should you do when you can’t think of anything to say?

1.  Writing Exercises. Pick up a book or magazine or check out a writing website such as Writer’s Digest.  I have a few books lying around that are full of just writing exercises.  If you Google “writing exercises,” you can come up with lots and lots of websites with exercises to choose from.

The hard part for me with these exercises is picking one.  But usually I buckle down and will find one I can stick with — even if it’s only for a few minutes.  Those few minutes I’m writing are very important though — at that point, I can change topics or go on to use other ideas that pop into my head, etc.

2.  Journal. Can’t think of anything to say?  You can ALWAYS journal your thoughts and daily activities.  Even something simple like “I took my daughter to the park and she had fun on the slide” works here.  The idea is to get your brain working and once you write a sentence, it can snowball into an avalanche!

3.  Set modest goals based on your experience. If you don’t usually sit down for an hour and write a full short story, editing and all, this is probably a really bad goal for yourself.  The goals you should set should be doable.  How about 10 minutes of freewriting?  5 minutes of writing a particular exercise?  100 words on your novel before checking email?  These are easier goals, but you may find them more difficult when you actually sit down to do them.

4.  Time yourself. The impending deadline can be the most useful tool of all but it requires self-discipline, something I don’t always have.  This step will help you develop that self-discipline if you use it properly.  Set a particular amount of time that you will write for.  As above, 5 or 10 minutes is good to start and, if you master that, you can always increase (or decrease, if need be) the amount of time.

5.  Remember: you don’t have to show anyone anything you write! This is a huge release for me when it comes to just sitting down and writing but it has taken me so long to figure it out.  Note: at some point, you will probably want to show someone, send something off for publication, post it online.  But you can choose what you want to show to the world.  And you can change it from its first draft, rewriting it.

Which brings us to my final thought:

6.  Rewriting can be much easier than writing. Sometimes you just have to get something down on the page (or in the word processor).  Once it’s written, you can go back and correct your errors, change words around to make it sound better, fix plot points that you might have skipped over the first time, even throw it away if you really don’t like it.  Getting the thoughts that you have down on paper, to me, is a LOT more important than worrying about how it sounds the first time around.

“In other words, blood and guts don’t make horror, it’s an emotional reaction that’s created by the author.” — Jessica Faust, BookEnds, LLC

“I think literary horror has many meanings, but generally the story is well written and contains sufficient horrific events to keep the reader in terror or suspense. Some folks are easily scared by the most serene of terrible circumstances. The story should be one where the reader is drawn into it and has a reasonable expectation of fear that something bad is going to happen…. the literary horror is a venue that can take social conflicts and inject the horrific elements necessary to make a readable horror story.” SpookyWriter, poster on AbsoluteWrite.com

“I think people get ’scared’ when harm might come to themselves – and ‘horror’ when it’s already come to someone else. “ BarbaraKE, poster on AbsoluteWrite.com

“And true horror in novel form–the extention of that feeling of dread that builds as the chapter progresses. Horror per se can be found in any genre, but in the horror genre it must be chapter after chapter of that build up, that feeling of dread. Anything will do, as long as the characters fear, and the writing keeps the reader moving along with the character. When the writing does that, the agents will come.” Kerr, poster on AbsoluteWrite.com

When it comes to reading, I really do tend to read suspenseful novels.  I want a story that’s going to keep me awake and wondering what’s going to happen next.  However, there are ALWAYS exceptions to this rule and while I enjoy suspense, I’m really not that big of a fan of “popular suspense.”  Dan Brown’s “The DaVinci Code” and Jack Kilborn’s “Afraid” are both examples of this “popular suspense” that I’m talking about.

Kilborn really does a remarkable job in this novel of keeping you on your toes and wanting to know what’s going to happen next.  It’s also a remarkably easy read that someone (like myself) can just sit down and devour in one or two sittings.  The problem with this novel, for me, is that once everything was revealed, the plot really wasn’t that great.  But the suspense in the novel makes it worth reading for someone who wants to learn how keep people on their toes.  In a way, it’s a fantastic example of this: I wasn’t happy with the story, but I wanted to know what happened to the characters, how they got out of the predicaments they were in, and how everything was to be wrapped up at the end of the story.

Brown’s “The DaVinci Code” was definitely suspenseful, but, to me, I was already familiar with the topic material which is ultimately what makes Dan Brown’s books bestsellers.  It isn’t that Brown is a fantastic writer, because he isn’t, but his choice of topics as well as adding in the suspenseful nature of his novels… boom, there’s the bestseller.

Here are a few pointers that I found that I want to incorporate (to a degree and most definitely not at the price of a watered-down plot or characters):

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This past year I have been under a lot of stress — unnecessary stress — with my writing.  I have put pressure on myself to get things done and to make money for it.  It seems I have forgotten why I write to begin with and this tends to make my writing drab and dull, boring and a struggle for me to get out anything that I think is of value.

In the past couple of days, I have been writing for the sake of writing.  Just to sit down and to get onto paper what’s in my head, my memories and thoughts.  I nearly cried yesterday at some of the memories that I dredged up.  And I have continued to write today.

Today has been a day of preplanning and planning some more.  I am currently reworking what I’ve done on “The House” as I feel what I’ve got isn’t worth the electronics that show it on the screen.  I’m unsatisfied with what I have and I’m going to redo it using Holly’s “How to Think Sideways” course.  I need to find a better structure and better, more interesting scenes.

In the past few weeks, I’ve read several books: “Mean Martin Manning” by Scott Stein, “Afraid” by Jack Kilborn, and most of “Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers” by Mary Roach.  While I thoroughly enjoyed “Mean Martin Manning” as well as “Stiff,” it was “Afraid” that caught my attention and kept me on the edge of my seat, reading because I had to know what was next.  Mind you, the plot was… eh, okay, at best.  Once the full plot was revealed and I distilled it to it’s essential parts, it really wasn’t a great plot.  Parts of it were a little transparent.

BUT what got me, yet again, was the suspense that Jack Kilborn infused into his writing.  It’s that suspense that I want to emulate and I don’t think I do in the current beginnings of “The House.”

So, are you ready to dive into what makes something suspenseful?  I am and I’ll be looking at that in my next few posts.

It was mid-November when I really started to think about what I was doing with my life and what I wanted to do with my life.  I made both Reading resolutions and Writing resolutions and, while 2010 has already started, I wanted to confirm the resolutions I want to keep

The Reading resolutions that I have listed, I am probably not going to keep to their fullest extent.  Sure, it would be nice, but, in the grand scheme of things that I want to accomplish, they really are minimal.  Yes, reading is important and I need to read the books I have rather than go out and purchase new books as soon as I have money.  But my goal in life is not to be a reader – for I am already that.  And no list of books is going to make me even more of a reader.

It is more of the Writing resolutions that I would like to focus on.  So let me reiterate them here:

1. I want to get “The Book Collector” rewritten and revised by the end of June 2009.  As it stands, it’s about 50,000 words and I want to increase that amount to around 90,000.

2. I’m going to go back and using Holly’s HTTS course to fill in the gaps in my head regarding “The House” as well as “Infinite Realities” once “The House” is in revision.

3. Both “Infinite Realities” and “The House” are going to be about 90,000 words.  Once I finish writing “The House,” I will start writing “Infinite Realities” again.

So, for both of these last two works-in-progress, I need to do the math:

“The House”

Start date: January 5th (day resolutions start due to trip)
Target word count: 90,000
Target WPD/PPD: 1,000 words per day
End day of first draft: June 16th

“Infinite Realities”

Start date: End of first draft of “The House”
Target word count: 90,000
Target WPD/PPD: 1,000 words per day
End day of first draft: 117 days for first draft only

4. I want to get “The Book Collector” revised and finished.  Holly’s HTRYN course is a 22 week course and I want to use all 22 of those weeks in learning Holly’s method of revision.  At the end of the course (or the revision), I want to start submitting it to different publishing houses.

5. After each book is through the rough draft phase, I want to go through Holly’s HTRYN procedures in order to get them ready for submission to other publishing houses.

6. I want to continue going to my writing group at Barnes & Noble.  I think this is a valuable group for me both because it forces me to write and to learn to be creative on the spur of the moment and because I can get out and meet people in Colorado Springs.

So now I have a list of things I would like to actually accomplish in 2010. The end goal of it all?  To be a published author by 2011.  Can I do it?

Absolutely.

Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Evil

Ok, there are NO SPOILERS in the section of this page above the cut – in fact, I will also make the cut noticeable for those of you who are viewing this page at it’s permalink.

So, let’s talk about what is undeniably the best show on television: Dexter.  Dexter Morgan is Miami Homicide’s blood spatter specialist by day, vigilante serial killer by night.  He lives by a “killing code” taught to him by his foster father, Police Officer Harry Morgan, taught to him in an effort to keep Dexter ultimately out of prison.

The show’s writers are fabulous.  When you hear (and think) that there are no good writers in Hollywood these days, keep in mind that these guys are NOT INCLUDED in that statement.  In fact, after watching a couple of episodes of Dexter, you’ll want everything on television to be written by this same set of writers.

Now, on the Dexter Wikipedia page, you’ll find a list of writers who have contributed to the show as well as the executive producers and the creative content people.  While I’m not going to list them here, I feel that they really deserve all the praise I can give them.  You should go look at their names, but I’ll warn you – be careful: that Wiki-page has spoilers for all four seasons.

What I really, really want to talk about is the show’s writing itself.  The problem with talking about the show and how I can foresee using it’s influences in my own work will entail that I have no other option but to give you spoilers.

So, here is your OFFICIAL SPOILER ALERT! Do not read past this unless you have watched all four seasons of Dexter because I will be discussing the show as if you have already watched it.

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"Who Mourns for the Hangman?" by S. A. Bolich

I was lucky enough to get a chance to email Sue Bolich (pen name: S.A. Bolich), the author of “Who Mourns for the Hangman?” a novella I reviewed last month for Niteblade Fantasy and Horror Magazine.  The novella is available through Damnation Books.

First of all, I’d like to say thanks for doing the interview with me.  Would you like me to call you Sue?  Why did you choose S. A. Bolich instead of Sue A. Bolich or even Sue Bolich as your pen name?  The initials intrigue me.

A lot of female science fiction and fantasy writers early on adopted pen names or went by their initials to disguise the fact that they weren’t men writing in a traditionally male-dominated genre. Me, I just don’t like my first name all that much, but I do have a few regrets now in the internet age. The initials make searches on my pen name difficult, since Google wants to run the letters together. Bah humbug.

So, let’s start with the basics: “Who Mourns for the Hangman?” I really enjoyed the novella and your writing style.  Where did you come up with the idea behind the novella?

The story arose from a twice-yearly bit of fun we have on Other Worlds Writers’ Workshop (where I am one of the moderators): the Short Story in a Week challenges. Members provide their favorite words; we choose 5 at random, and the challengers must compose a coherent story using all 5 words within a week. The list the week Hangman was written included “gallows.” In my mind hanging is much more strongly associated with England, than America, where it was less of a public sport, hence the setting. The central premise of trying to be kind while dealing justice comes from the historically accurate habit in England of entertaining the crowd by stretching out the condemned’s death as long as possible. So, a hangman trying to change the system might build his own more humane gallows and try to hedge his bets against killing an innocent. A traveling hangman was interesting to me, and after that the story fell together when I started to think about what he might have left behind in order to pursue this calling.

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