Tag Archives: Writing

Writing is Believing

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stacked books

Life is full of wonderful beautiful things. We know this through our discovery of the world around us.

We see them walking through a park, hear them at a concert and smell them at our favorite restaurant. Then why is it so hard to believe in our writing?

There are many reasons for our lack of belief. but the main ones I’ll list here, then I’ll make you believe.

  • We’ve been told by someone we trust that our writing is horrible.
  • We think there is some kind of magic those who’ve been published possess.
  • Your family doesn’t support you, this is the hardest to deal with.
  • You don’t believe in yourself.

Let’s begin with the First disbelief: It’s not that your writing is horrible, it may be that the person you’ve let read it doesn’t understand your story.

My wife doesn’t enjoy reading sci-fi or fantasy, she’ll read some of my stories and just stare at me. That’s how I know I need different eyes on the story than hers, because hers aren’t the correct lens to view the story and I have to find someone else.

You have to find someone who enjoys the same type of story you’re writing or there will be issues with whether they like it.

Second disbelief: There is no magic pill. There is nothing to change your writing from having grammar issues to not.

When I first started writing I bought a lot of books on writing. I did this because I believed in the myth that there was a magic pill or book to help me. What I learned is this, The only thing that will improve writing is to write. The more you write, and nearly more importantly read, the better your writing will be.

There is no magic book to help you. You can learn a lot from those books, but mostly you’ll only be frustrated and envious of the book’s author, which is never good.

Third disbelief: Having a support staff is wonderful, but sometimes there isn’t one.

When I was writing short stories and angst ridden poems in my teens, I never showed them to anyone because I didn’t want to be judged by my peers, parents or teachers.

Unless it was for my writing class, no one saw it, not even a girlfriend. That last part was mostly from learning that those you date will use things you’ve told them against you in the harshest ways possible.

I didn’t have many friends in high school, and even less in middle school, but those I did have had no interest in my writings. Showing them to my parents would have been a one way ticket to a therapist’s office, not a good thing.

Fourth disbelief: Your lack of faith in yourself is always the thing which holds you back from doing so many things.

You worry about the consequences. About the after..

Look at what you do as if there were no After.

We should think about life as right now. What you’re doing right now, what you’re writing right now is the most important story in the world.

Remind yourself of this daily, either through meditation, prayer or notes pasted around your dwelling.

These subtle things will keep you wanting to do the things for you. They’ll remind you of a couple of things, 1, You’re important…2, What you write is important and 3, You’re important.

Finding yourself and not doing what the world wants is what makes each of us unique.

Keep being unique, never let anyone change that and keep writing…

 

 

Crawling from the Chasm of Doubt and into the Pool of TM.

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When we think about truth, we usually think about the opposite, lies.

What if the opposite of truth weren’t a lie, you just didn’t know the truth to begin with?

This is how I came to understand my life before TM. The fact that I’ve improved my life, relationships and writing through TM isn’t the big thing, it’s discovering the lie we’re told as kids.

The lie says this: We have to follow the things those before us did. We must have the family, job and spiritual life of our parents h. At least that’s what I believed growing up.

In truth, we’ve always been in control, but the things we didn’t know about who we were are great enough they were overwhelming and thus creating a chasm of doubt you’ll struggle to climb out of your entire life, not mention the loss of creativity due to trying to climb from the chasm.

Each day we wake up and decide what to do with our life.

What if you could get past the lie and create a world all your own and dive into a deep, calming pool twice a day? A pool filled with radiance you’d never felt before.

This is how TM (Transcendental Meditation) feels.

I wake up an hour earlier than I did before TM, I go to bed earlier and I have more energy than I did in my teens.

One the biggest, and most obvious to those who know me is the feeling of your mind being at rest all day. There are hiccups, but for the most part nothing bothers me.

I go through my day job with such energy people have asked what I’m taking. None of them know what’s going on, and I like it that way. I like to keep them guessing.

My creativity is higher than its ever been. I can recall my dreams, and nightmares, with clarity; something I’ve never been able to do before.

Writing is no longer as difficult as it once was, the editing side still is. The first draft comes faster, I get in a rhythm earlier and I hit “The Zone” earlier than I have with anything I’ve written before.

I’m taking more time to enjoy my wife, kids and my wonderful 16 year-old dog.

Honestly, there a million ways to describe TM, but until you try it, you’ll never understand.

If you have any questions about TM, ask them here or find me on Twitter.

Writers, stories come from anywhere.

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French Quarter

While I stared at nightlife along cobblestone of the French Quarter, a man stopped in front of me. He wore no smile, he bore no burden, he only looked at me, nodded his head and kept going.

My wife was nowhere to be seen, my fedora, which I began wearing again resting softly against my scalp, pulled at me, as if it were saying follow him.

I stumbled along the cobblestone, my shoes scuffing as I nearly fell a few times in pursuit of the man, he turned a corner, I followed. Then, when I nearly gave up, he turned, tipped his top hat and began walking again.

Through alleyways, in front of churches and finally I was on Bourbon Street. The man, the gleam of his top hat catching the light of the gas lamps lining the street, glowed eerily, but I pressed on.

I was nearly out of breath when I caught up to him, grabbed him by a dirty sleeve coat, and asked him, “Why?”

He looked at me quizzically, “Young sir, you’ve been chasing me through the quarter, I thought you were mad, or inebriated, but standing next to you, I know you’re neither. What could I do for you?” He said.

My eyes must have looked like fire as I stood underneath a gas lamp of the quarter, “I only wish to thank you.” I said.

“Thank me?” He said, his large eyebrows crawling into his scalp.

“Yes sir, you’ve given me plenty to write about when I return home.” I said.

“Than this has been a good trip indeed.” He said and vanished into nothingness.

Stories can come from anywhere, remember that.

Writers, put down the controller and write.

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Each of us fall behind our goals.

We stay up too late playing video games, watching movies or we read later than we planned because the book was just that good.

With the invention of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, among others, we’re bound to get sidetracked from the things we need to get done.

This is why a plan of attack is necessary. You must have a plan or there is less possibility you will achieve your goals.

The first thing you should do is decide what you’re going to do tomorrow and do it. Follow a path that leads you away from the temptations I mentioned above.

I’m not saying to do away with the fun stuff and give up on the things you enjoy, everything in moderation.

But when faced with sitting down to write or playing another round of Wii Golf, put away the controller and write.

There is no other way to do it than to put the things away or have your spouse, other half or partner hide these things when you need to write. This is truly the only way to keep your mind on track.

Sometimes it’s necessary when you can’t keep your focus on what matters to have someone take over the reigns from you and control the things you can’t.

Once you’re able to take control, there will be no need for anyone else to.

Back to your morning and following a path.

You should have planned your day out the night before and if you have day job it is best to plan around that.

Once you have your plan for your day job, plan your day and your writing around that.

Once you have that, your day should go along without incident…

Finding the Life-blood of Writing Through Failure.

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Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat. ~F. Scott Fitzgerald

Stumbling through the world we find our place. It can be at a table, desk or it could be standing all day waiting tables; either way, we’re finding.

Through our stumbling and our constant search, we may come to an impasse, a place where everything has fallen down around us and we discover that we’re stronger than we believed, or that we may be lost in a cycle of failure.

Failure is normal, and regardless of what your parents say, failure is good, we can learn from failure.

In failure we can find the things we’ve done wrong previously. We can discover far off discontent that we never knew existed. But only through the times we fail can this come to fruition.

Falling on our faces, dirt in our ears, sand caked in our hair, that is the failure which brings about the change we need for ourselves.

We’ve entered the time when our life or writing are the lifeblood of our souls.

Life-blood, that’s a hell of a thing. It’s the thing which drives us, pushes us and makes us commit to the life of a writer, the long nights, dreary weekends stuck in the house and the celebratory days when we get published.

Our life-blood pours through us, it connects us to each other and makes us strive to write better through the failures, through the droughts of lost words and at the end of it, we discover.

In this discovery, we find ourselves, not the failures we thought we were, and certainly not the people our parents believe us to be.

It’s not our failures which are added up, but our successes.