Mistakes, Vulnerability, and Critiques

It has been almost five months since I last posted to this blog. I feel guilty about that. I started out about a year and a half ago with high hopes of being able to create content for this to share with you, my audience, and I was doing a good job – up until I returned to school last year. It sucked my time and my energy to blog away from me and I found that regardless of my desires, I had to re-prioritize  my life to put family, school, and personal writing first before I could return to blogging. It was a hard decision and counting the cost was more challenging than I expected it to be. However I recently published an article with the Evolllution, an online newspaper on adult education (you can find that article here), and I discovered in my bio that they linked back to my blog. A blog that hadn’t been given any new content in a long time. So I return to blogging at a pace I believe I can handle. One post per week. We’ll see how that goes.

My mother and I on Graduation Day.

This mistake of judgment is one of many I’ve made in my life. I’ve often over burdened myself because I’ve thought that I need to be perfect and that a perfect person could juggle 20 different hats in their life successfully. Some of my role models can do this, but that doesn’t mean that is a standard for me to attempt to live up to. Every time I have tried I have found myself dropping priorities and attempting to clean up the mess later. I’ve been doing that for the past eight years as I have been working towards graduating from Weber State University. I recently received my Associates of Science and it began a period of reflection for me on all that I have gone through to get there. Mistakes that were necessary for me to come to know the person that I am.

I have a tendency to overburden myself in seeking my own standard of perfection. I am very expressive in person, but I tend to blunt my feelings when I speak with others about them. I have a need to remain busy all of the time. I take all the bad things that happen in my life and use them to make lemonade which I tell people I like because I enjoy lemonade, only they can’t see I didn’t make the juice with lemons but rather with my heart. You see I’m afraid to be vulnerable. It terrifies me. So instead of allowing myself to be human and feel and express emotion, I numb myself.

Growing up this was an unintentional theme in my home.

I numb myself to get rid of the messages that run inside my head like the ones to the left. Doubts plague me about being smart enough, good enough, strong enough, stable enough. Though there is one place in my life I don't suffer thoughts like these that I suspect other writers do. And that is in the world of critiques. Anyone who wants to have their work read by others and valued has to learn how to have their work critiqued by others. At first this may not sound terribly difficult, but for myself and I believe a great many other writers the act of writing is expressing one's own identity in words. You expose yourself more fully than you can in any other medium, because you don't express just what you believe, or what you like, but the very nature of the thoughts you have. And someone else is going to tell you what they think of your thoughts. Kinda scary, yes? But it doesn't have to be. Here are three tips about how to receive a critique with grace.

One: Critique often hurts.

I know a writer who it doesn't seem to matter what is said to them, they just won't change anything about their story. It didn't make much sense until one day I heard through the grapevine in our class they only got one good piece of advice for their story. This was after having spent hours on their work trying to find things to help them. And it was a workshop class of roughly twenty students and our professor. I've puzzled for months over why they couldn't accept what was said. And it boils down to the fact that they were not willing to be vulnerable about their writing. And if a writer cannot be vulnerable they cannot grow nor can anyone help them to grow.

Anyone who spends weeks or months on a writing project, dreaming up things to make their fiction or poetry thought provoking, laugh worthy, or emotional has every right to be vulnerable about what they wrote. Personally I look at it like this, the more red that a critiquer can put on my story and still be invested in the world and learning more about it, the better of a job I've done. All the markings can be symbolic of the work I've put into my story. And by allowing another to invest in your world they can point out the things that you can't see while you are inside it. It may hurt like exercise does, but once you allow yourself to get used to it your writing will get stronger just like your body would.

Two: The critiquer doesn't know all you know.

This is how I felt that day, but less elegant.

Story time. So I had my critique group over one day and we were going over one of our members stories. I opened with the critique on this specific story. And I just tore into it, I saw so many things on the story level that just didn't make sense to me. Like why would a fortune teller allow someone close enough to have somebody watch what they were telling someone. Or why would a girl allow a guy to take her to an abandoned building to have sex. And it was strange because this was a person who I typically enjoy their writing. I just went at them honestly about how I felt about the work. At the end of my rant my group decided to inform me that the story wasn't fiction. It was nonfiction about the author. I wanted to crawl under the table and then out of the room. At that point all of my critique held no water. My points may have had validity for a different story, but not for that one.

Remember the critiquer doesn't know all you know about your story. If what they say resonates with you and points you towards crafting a better story note it. If it doesn't resonate with what you are trying to write or causes you to feel less excited about your story, it probably isn't right. And if what they say makes you angry note it especially, because often these are the things you need to sleep on to find out if they resonate or not.

Three: Listen and ask questions.

Critique is a unique time in the telling of a story. It is based on it that you are going to develop your next story. Listen for everything that you can. For this purpose some people only critique in person and they actually read the entire piece aloud. You get to hear peoples first hand reactions to reading your work then. That information is crucial to you crafting the story you want to tell.

Don't be afraid to ask your critiquer to get specific about what things they are having trouble understanding. If they say they can see a problem somewhere ask them why they feel that way. Require them to express their emotions about what they are feeling when you are writing. This allows you to know what you are guiding people towards emotionally. Writing fiction is all about what the reader feels as they read and if you don't know what they are feeling you can't create the emotional experience. Your vulnerability in writing is what creates their experience.

I'm at a place in my life where I have tried to stop numbing, but it is hard. It frightens me often and I try to open up to my wife and my friends what I am feeling. Often they help me to identify what is really going on inside of me and that is what I attempt to put into my writing. Having people you can trust with your vulnerability is a precious thing and shouldn't be taken lightly. This journey we call writing can take us through the storms of our own vulnerability and teach us that strength is not found in the numbing, but rather in opening up and allowing others in. But only if we let it.

Goals for the New Year

I think Mr. Einstein was on to something when he said that. I can recall that many of the greatest experiences of my life have been those related to having a goal. I've won NaNoWriMo twice now. I'm a year off from graduating from college. I've gotten married. I've gotten help for my addiction. And on and on goes the list of goals that I've set and been able to achieve. And I think I want to actually reach for things that are terrifying now. Because when our goals scare us, the joy we get from their achievement is multiplied.

You can do anything, when you set
your mind to it.

This year I plan on going to Clarion West Writers Workshop. It is a workshop that is based entirely upon the submission of a work of fiction. The story that I wrote during this last NaNoWriMo "The Blood Malediction" is the story that I'll be sending to the judges. It is based in the same world of "Crimes of the Umbramancer." And writing it already has developed that world far more than I would have thought it would. I've finished the first draft of the story at 10,672 words. I'm now in the process of rewriting it. My rewrite and edits have to be done by the end of January for me to send it in to the judges of the workshop (not because the deadline is then, but because I don't want to send it to the judges once they are burning out).

The food my demon prefers: Eyeballs.

I can't tell you how much this scares me. I'm competing on a national level with my writing and hoping that others like it enough to get me to a place that I can take it to the next level. I find myself wondering if I'm good enough. Wondering if I will belong if I make it. Wondering if I haven't wasted all this time working towards this dream that can't come true. I know that it is the inner demon critic within trying to tear me down. That knowledge is the only reason I refuse to allow myself to wonder in those avenues.

My internal editor is much
like my wife. Supportive
& willing to push me.

Instead I go to the productive places. Like tonight I was writing a scene that I had watched multiple classmates attempt and get wrong, and I found myself making the same mistakes. I fought with myself to figure out why this scene had relevance and found what made the scene meaningful. That struggle made me really think about what I want to say with my writing, and it got me to the place where I understood my characters and their motivations much better than if I had simply allowed myself to make the same mistakes they did. This is the work of my friend, my internal editor. I am grateful for him, because he encourages me to work.

I am determined to actually move somewhere with my writing this year. So I joined up with Write 1 Sub 1 this year. I will be finishing "Crimes of the Umbramancer" before I leave for Clarion this summer, but in the meantime I will be writing at the very least one poem per month. This month for the project I'll finish this short story, but while I'm working on the novel I'll do poetry. It is a good way to learn how to compress meaning into small works.

So listing them out in order goals for this year:

1. Get accepted to and attend Clarion West Writers Workshop.
     A. Finish "The Blood Malediction" by the 31st of January.
     B. Send story and application for scholarship to Clarion February 1st.
     C. Await letter of acceptance in the mail (This isn't so much a goal, as a projection of what I want to have happen.)
     D. Attend Clarion West starting June 23rd, 2013.

2. Write one short story or poem each month for 2013.
    A. Finish "The Blood Malediction" by the 31st of January.
    B. Write one poem per month while finishing the drafts of "Crimes of the Umbramancer."

3. Finish complete second draft of "Crimes of the Umbramancer" by June 22nd.

Concerning my writing those are the only goals I have at this time. I thought about attaching a wordcount goal to them, but it doesn't feel right. I need to base this year on finishing projects, not on wordcount. Perhaps when I get to work on NaNoWriMo next November, I'll focus on that again, but right now I need to be elsewhere. Particularly on the commitment I've made to you. Yeah, by writing these goals down like this and committing to them publicly I need to achieve them. Kinda like when I was doing NaNo and I had to finish because I had announced on live television that I would finish.

So wish me joy this year friends, because I'm going to places that I never thought I would have the opportunity or skills to go. Share in the comments what goals that you have for this year. Maybe we can support each other. ;) Peace, y'all.

Moving up by a NaNo-meter #1

Howdy folks!

I am currently at a 9530 words as I write this.  I'm pretty excited to be at this point keeping a steady pace of writing.  This year has been so much more difficult than last year was, but rewarding in new ways also.  Perhaps because last year all I had to worry about was writing during my time off for the most part.  But now I'm home and all the responsibilities of being home are cutting into writing time.  This killed me during both Camp NaNoWriMo events earlier this year, but something about the main event is different.  It is simply that I've chosen to find a way to make this a lifestyle here, not just a flash in the pan event this time.

Writing as a lifestyle has been the dream I've been chasing for some time now.  And during events like NaNo you have the support and community to help you develop it.  I'm hoping that I'll be able to develop a habit of writing these first twenty seven days.  So far I have been able to anticipate when I might miss a day, and I've written four out of these first five days.  No small task, let me tell you.

Because this month is really all about learning how to write more frequently and reach deeper for the stories within us, I figured that I would share some of the things that help me to reach my wordcount goals for NaNo and what I've learned over these past five days.

1) Don't be afraid to rewrite a scene if it doesn't feel right.

Sometimes when we are drafting we write a scene and just try hard to get it to fit what we want to have happen in the story.  During NaNo they often tell us to not bother doing any revisions to our work.  And I have to say, that's silly.  Keep the words, they are important, but rewrite the scene.  Don't let yourself get into a place with what you are writing that you no longer like it because you are writing so fast that you aren't invested in your story.  Remember that you are writing to become the best writer you can be.  Rewriting is a part of that process.  You might say that there are other writers who haven't needed to do that.  Guess what, likely your not going to be one of them.  And in reality they could have given us better writing if they did revisions.  That's just the nature of the beast.

For me this has resulted in some great things already.  The first scene I tried writing just didn't feel right at the end.  So I decided to rewrite it.  Funny thing is I discovered during the rewrite the voice of the story.  With the voice I began to understand the main character better and found myself wondering new questions about him.  Particularly what made him give up his faith.  I'm hoping to discover that this month as I write him.

2) Don't be afraid to write things that don't have anything to do with the story you are working on.

This sounds like advice that is weird doesn't it?  But we all need a break from some kinds of writing.  I use blogging as a break from writing fiction.  Oddly enough this break gives my mind a rest from the challenges that fiction forces me to face, and I am able to remember for a little bit, why I began this journey.  It isn't because writing fiction is easy.  It is because I enjoy it, in every moment of its difficulty.

This NaNo I am attempting to write several short stories.  But the longer I'm working on it, I realize that I'm not going to get to more than the one short story I'm working on.  Much of this has to do with the fact that I'm going to write about this character's childhood to inform myself about it.  I'm going to take the time to really get comfortable with this character, not just on the superficial level, but I want to know him as well as I know myself.  Because a character that well developed has power to drive a story on their own.  And because he is a major character in my novel it will just work to inform that also as I write.

3) Butt in Chair Hands on Keyboard everyday.

Last year during NaNo I didn't write everyday.  I would slack off because I thought my brain needed time off.  And during those times I underwent a period of just feeling disoriented, not because I didn't need time off, but because I wasn't approaching it in a balanced way.  We usually make time to talk to friends everyday, our spouse, pray, or read.  What makes writing different?  The fact that it uses up so much brain space?  Or perhaps because it is hard.  The other things we do everyday aren't hard. But the reason they aren't hard is because we do them everyday.  By doing them everyday we reduce their difficulty and increase our skill in doing them.  Thus the only way to make writing a lifetime habit is to BiC-HaK everyday.

4) Believe in yourself.

Nobody else can really believe in you until you do.  NaNoWriMo has such great energy because literally people from all over the world come together to belief that they can write a draft of a novel in a month.  Each person comes with a different idea of success, willing to work hard to achieve that.  Do you understand what kind of power is found in that?  And that power isn't bound to just NaNoWriMo season.  It lives within your fingertips each and everyday.  It takes hard work, time, and consistency to develop that power into a future.  It doesn't matter whether you are a neurosurgeon, a musician, a homemaker, or a businessman it takes those ingredients to find success. I want to apply these ingredients to make myself a writer. You can too.

You probably got to the end of this post saying, "OG, we knew all that already. We heard that in our writing class, or on Writing Excuses, or at the last Writing Conference we went to."  That's cool.  I'm just another voice telling you the same kinds of things you already knew and needed to hear again.  Honestly I'm just trying to egg you on for the adventure ahead.  I find myself to be the very happiest in my life when I am writing.  It just makes the rest of it all make sense.  I just hope I'm not the only one who feels that way (and even if I am, I'm not going to stop).

Thanks for reading if you're just trying to support me this month, and if you are a fellow NaNoer, take some of this advice to heart and move in the directions of your dreams.  It might take us a year, two, or even ten, but writing is less about the words and entirely about the ideas we can grapple with and trying to make our writing as perfect as our ideas.

A video on how to make our words as awesome as our ideas.

This is the OG, finishing the day at a grand total of 10652 words. Peace!

P.S. Due to Blogger being a pain, there will be a revision of picture and video sizes later.

NaNoWriMo #2 Getting my Groove Back

Weber State's Nontraditional Student
Literary Journal T-shirt design for the year.

Life has been crazy the past few months.  I was on the right track.  Working with a writing group weekly, a president for chapter of a professional writing organization, and a managing editor for a student literary journal are all things that should have meant I was doing something right.  Right?  I have what (I think) most writers would dream of if they were trying to build their resume.  Yet over the past few months I’ve lacked something: Perseverance.

I'm the President of the Wasatch Writer's Chapter now.

I stopped writing with my writing group and blogging weekly a few months back.  Why? I could give you all sorts of reasons.  I got busy with school.  I worked on my addiction recovery.  Our house flooded.  But none of them strike at the real heart of what is going on with me: “I’m not making writing a priority.”  I haven’t blogged, I haven’t worked on anything new, nor I haven’t been to my writing group, because I haven’t made them priorities anymore.  And if I want to be a professional one day, I need to incorporate writing into my daily life in a healthy way.

So after two attempts at Camp NaNoWriMo this year with spectacular failures, I’m signed up for the Official NaNoWriMo event this year again.  I did it because I need a community to help me make my writing a priority again.

A twitter writing community.

You might wonder why a person who is super busy with school, married life, work, a literary journal and an organization to manage would want more on their plate.  Quite simply, if I’m not writing the other writing activities in my life have no meaning. How can I inspire anyone to keep writing if I’m not doing it? How does my urging people to submit to my literary journal have integrity if I’m not writing? How can anyone in a writing group with me feel my criticism is valid if I’m not in the trenches with them?  And most of all how can I look myself in the mirror and say I’m a writer?  Bottom line, I can’t.  So I’m going back to where I began last year and finding the strength I learned there to continue this journey.

Another Online writing community.

A few nights ago I had plans of using the novel I wrote last year and finishing it off for my NaNo piece.  It is even on the website still.  But last night something clicked, if I want to really be in the fray with everyone I need to be doing something new.  My words need to suck.  My head has to be in the clouds.  And it is hard to get to that place when what you are really doing is editing an older story.  So I decided to do a NaNo of short fiction.  I figure I’ll get through roughly six to seven short stories by the time all is said and done.

This also supports me for the most important goal of my young writing career at this point.  Preparing to go to Clarion West.  At the end of the month I’ll be taking one of the pieces that I have done and polishing it up to send in to Clarion West to see if they will accept me as one of the writers in their 2013 workshop.  

Read this book!

Clarion West is a science fiction and fantasy writers workshop that is focused on helping writers belonging to minorities (women and ethnic) learn better what it takes to be a writer.  I learned about them a few years ago in Orson Scott Card’s “How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy.”

I will graduate in a year, and at that point I'll need to be working full time and doing writing on the side until I publish.  If I wait longer to attempt to go to Clarion, I'll be professional and Clarion wants us as writers before they we are seasoned professionals.  So I am going to take the plunge and learn from the masters this summer.

Of course this is all based upon whether or not my stories are good enough.  This is where you the few who are still paying attention to this blog come in.  I need people to help me hone my work.  If you would be willing to help me with it I would appreciate it if you would leave me a comment below letting me know you would like to help me critic some of the stories I come up with.  Usually I wouldn’t ask for help, but there are eighteen slots for Clarion each year.  And I need all the help I can get to figure out what I can do to make my stories the best I can.

As always thanks for reading.  And I’ll be back on Monday to tell you how I’m doing for NaNoWriMo and fill you in on where I am with the goals I have established thus far.  This is the OG, Peace Peoples!

The Writer's Lifestyle & the Laws of the Harvest

I remember years ago when I read Stephen King's On Writing the sentence I hated most in that book: "You must not come to the blank page lightly."  I realize now that he wasn't accusing me of that, but telling me what I shouldn't do, but for some reason when I read it I know I felt, "You haven't brought your best work to the blank page yet.  You're still just doing it lightly.  Stop and start over."  And it was that which made me so angry that I devoured every last word of the rest of his book.  It was a very good book, but I still didn't understand what coming to the blank page lightly meant until recently.

As I've been working on "Crimes of the Umbramancer," I realize there are times that I have come to it very lightly.  I've come to the blank page writing out of obligation.  I've come to the blank page writing out of need.  I've come to the blank page writing out of fear.  And you may sit there and say that that's not coming to the blank page lightly, but I would have to disagree, because I know that when obligation, need, or fear are the primary motivators of my writing that it sowing seeds for later writing.  And when the seeds sown are seeds that eventually drive people from writing, the writing is light.  It didn't lay seeds that could reach into the soil of life and build a lifestyle.  It didn't lay seeds that could reach the depths of the concrete jungle of publishing and build me a career.  It didn't lay seeds that could touch the hearts of an audience that would care about what I wrote.  I approached the blank page lightly.

By John W. Lawrence

During NaNoWriMo when I originally wrote the first draft, I never sat down one day and came to it lightly.  Instead I came with hope, love, and enjoyment of what I was doing.  I started out blogging that same way.  But it has been hard and I'm still learning lessons about what it means to come to things "lightly."  Recently I came across a quote that really got me thinking though, from a book called The Seven Laws of the Harvest.  I would like to share those laws with you in hopes that they help you as much as they have helped me since I ran across them.

Wild Rose Seeds

Let's start with the first law: We reap only what has been sown.  What does this mean for us as writers?  It has a lot to do with the emotional sets we choose when we go out to do any writing project. If you write out of obligation, what you are sowing is that you want to write out of obligation.  That can create positive pressure to write, but what if it doesn't?  What if you find yourself unable to write because you are obligated to do it?  I think this often happens to us young writers, because we want certain things to happen on a specific timeline.  We obligate ourselves to write instead of enjoy our writing.  We stop enjoying the process, the adventure, and the story and get caught up in all the details such as "I have to take that adverb out", "That isn't going to be realistic", or my personal favorite "This isn't good.  I should start over."  Stop sowing obligation and start sowing joy again.  We write because we love it.  Some of us will be able to make a living off of it.  Others of us will entertain our children with our stories.  All of us should be invested in making a life out of it.  And life is meant to be enjoyed.

White Wild Roses

The Second Law: We reap in same kind as we sow.  If you want wild roses you plant a wild rose seed, not a rose seed.  If you want a thoughtful research paper for a paper on genetics you do good thoughtful research on genetics, not research on how many hours it took you to get to the end of Halo Reach.  If you want to have a book loved and read by many, you spend the hours writing that book.  What you sow will be the same kind when you go to reap.  And you cannot reap the full benefits of something you did not sow.  When you cook the microwave dinner you don't reap the benefit of the feeling of having cooked a meal for your family, you reap the feeling of convenience.  It has been my experience that we sow what is easy and complain during the reaping season about not getting the rewards of sowing something hard.  If you really want something beautiful, you're going to have give hard work to make certain that it comes to pass.

The Third Law: We reap in a different season than we sow.  So many things in life come so easily. The internet equals instant knowledge.  Our microwaves equal instant food.  Our televisions equal instant entertainment.  But we so frequently forget that in those endeavors we are reaping the reward of what someone else sowed.  And when we buy into that thinking, we forget that to really get the best things in life we have to give them time, nurturing, love, and work to bring them to life.  Writing a good novel is like raising a child.  We sow the seeds and a child is born.  Then it takes eighteen to twenty years of work to make certain that child becomes a good person.  The season of sowing is eighteen years away from when you reap the full benefits.  A good novel requires the same kind of dedication and love.  (Just hopefully not eighteen or twenty years worth.)

The Fourth Law: We reap more than we sow.  Think of a single seed of corn seed.  If you plant this you will get one ear of corn that has at least 600 kernels.  So the yield you get for each seed of corn is at least six hundred fold.  An acre at 84 rows of corn will plant at least 22,000 stalks of corn.  And if you consider each stalk to only give you one ear of corn that becomes 13,200,000 kernels of corn.  So the return on what is sowed is huge.  It gives you good reason to practice.  And make sure you do all you can to take care of what you have sown.  Because when the time for harvest comes, you are going to be pulling in a lot more than what you put into it.  And that is a beautiful thing.

The Fifth Law: We reap in proportion to what we sow.  Back to the corn analogy, if you only sow a half acre of corn at 11,000 stalks and only get 6,600,000 kernels you got what you deserved.  You can only reap what you actually sow.  A master pianist didn't get that way because they played piano once when they were a child.  No, they had to practice and work at that talent until they nurtured it into a gift that could touch lives and enable them to find an audience to listen to their music.  Writing is the same way.  We reap in proportion to what we sow.  Our seeds are different so some of us may reap the benefits of writing poetry for our families.  Others of us may make careers out of our writing.  What makes all the difference in the world is the fact that we sow enough seeds to get the return we are looking for.

The Sixth Law: >We reap the full harvest of the good only if we persevere; the evil comes to harvest on its own.   Often times when we sow our seeds, we will discover that weeds come in and try to grow along with our harvest.  Even though this can seem bad, we can't stop this process.  The good and bad seeds both desire the same ground to use for their growth.  What we can control is where we nourish and strengthen.  If we spend our time nourishing and strengthening our good seeds until the time comes to harvest we will be able to take the good part and destroy the chaff.  As writers this means we have to invest in our story until we finish it.  If we spend all our time revising, editing, and in other words not getting to the end of our story we will lose it.  However if we strengthen it along the way and learn what we can from the process when we get to the end we will be able to remove all the ugliness we are able at the end.

The Seventh Law: We cannot do anything about last years harvest, but we can about this years.  So you failed last year to get your harvest to come to pass?  Or you didn't get the book written?  Well guess what?  That's okay.  There is this year.  Don't make the same mistakes this year that you made last year.  That is one of the best parts about this entire process.  You learn from it the entire time.  If you learn you reap the benefits of greater understanding of yourself and how you function.  You know what you need to do to motivate yourself to write.  (Like I motivate myself with saying I can have an orange soda each time I write.)  The past is there to learn from, the future is before us to prepare for, and today is for us to act.  Make this year the best you can make it.  Plant hope to become a better writer.  Plant love for storytelling.  Plant an enjoyment of sharing your heart with others.  And as you plant those things this years harvest will be different than last years.

To date this has been the best year I've ever had writing.  And I've loved the majority of it.  I just had to learn a lesson about what it means to come to the blank page with intent to make a story that I love, instead of writing out of obligation to anyone or anything.  Writing is my lifestyle.  I am getting better at living this lifestyle all the time.  And I know that one day, that investment is going to get me what I really want.  An ability to touch the hearts of people with the words I write.

This is two bits.

That's my two bits for this week.  I'd love to hear about your two bits.  Tell me about the kinds of harvests you have had writing.  Good ones, bad, or somewhere in the middle?  Hope everyone has a wonderful week!  I'll catch ya later!  Peace.