Month: September 2023

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved…the ones who never yawn and say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.” – Jack Kerouac

Being perfectly yourself is a common thread in A Year of Living Consciously, and it’s one I return to frequently on the blog. It took me a long time to figure out what it means to live in my skin and I’m still figuring out how to best express myself in life and in my writing.

Fitting in is a fool’s errand. Social and business rules require us to compromise or engage in activities or work that may not entirely suit us. The world doesn’t like a person who refuses to make any accommodation to the group.

However, there’s a line between getting along and changing who you are to satisfy the masses.

Be yourself. Be gloriously yourself. Indulge your interests and peccadilloes. Lean into your experiences and opinions. Appreciate what you’ve witnessed and learned. Stand out from the crowd. Find the glowing element inside you that hasn’t been poisoned and battered by life and bring it forth. Celebrate it and show it off.

Burn.

Integrity simply means a willingness not to violate one’s identity. – Erich Fromm

I strive to create with my integrity intact. I freely acknowledge that my definition likely differs from yours.

For myself only, writing with integrity means:

• Continuously learning and working to improve my skills
• Reading and learning from the best
• Not settling for the easy idea or the cliché
• Writing only what interests and excites me
• Not going with the crowd
• Telling the truth as I know it, even if its portrayal might make someone uncomfortable

In today’s exercise in A Year of Living Consciously, Gay Hendricks discusses a communication approach to avoiding arguments and creating intimacy.

According to Hendricks, when you speak arguable concepts, you create an argumentative atmosphere. For example, saying “You never listen to me!” is an opening for disagreement, if the other person believes they do listen and can name times they did.

In contrast, if you want to create an environment of intimacy and communication, you should try to speak unarguable truths. In counseling, this generally refers to “I” statements. “I feel ignored” is undeniably truthful. Another person cannot tell you that you don’t feel ignored. They may try to reassure you or convince you otherwise, but your feelings – even when they are irrational or fleeting – are truthful.

So, blah blah blah…what does this have to do with fiction?

Expressing unarguable truths is another way of saying “show, don’t tell.” An unarguable truth is concrete, specific, descriptive. It avoids vague language.

Here’s an opening sentence: “It was a beautiful day.” That seems factual, but in addition to being weak, the statement is vague and open to interpretation. In other words, it’s open to argument.

One character may believe the day is beautiful, but another may not. Beauty standards – even about something as boring as the weather – are subjective. Our experience is influenced by our mood. A sunny day may feel gloomy if you just lost your job or are about to attend a funeral. The same is true of readers. A reader who is allergic to sun exposure may find overcast or rainy days beautiful, which may not be what you intend. If you want to describe a beautiful day, skip the subjective and hone in on the specific.

Consider this opening: “Kelly enjoyed the feeling of the noon sun on her face.” As a sentence, that isn’t very clever, but it is more specific and unarguable. The statement establishes time of day, weather conditions, and the character’s experience of it. The reader is not left to interpret the meaning of a subjective term like beautiful. The writing still needs work, but you’re starting with much greater clarify.

As you would with a person in real life, communicate with your reader using concrete, specific, unarguable terms. State what you intend, with language that avoids vague, subjective terms. When in doubt, read a sentence of description or narrative and ask “Could someone disagree?” If the answer is yes, consider whether you should re-write the line to make it absolutely clear.

This week’s Real World Astrology quotes Mary Frances Berry, an anti-apartheid activist.

“The time when you need to do something is when no one else is willing to do it, when people are saying it can’t be done.”

I can apply that in multiple areas of my life and thoughts right now. It’s always the right attitude at work, though I wish I could pass the baton once in a while. It can also apply to my feelings about the gay community these days, as well as one or two candidates running for president this year.

I don’t ever want to get too deep into politics here, so I’ll leave it vague. But there are times when you have to stand in the river, even when there’s a good chance you’ll get knocked down.

books. They thank their amazing parents who encouraged them, the loving spouse who supports them, the mentors who provided skillful advice, and the talented writing peers who read their drafts and provided insightful feedback and tips, even before the manuscript goes to an agent or editor.

That’s nice.

The rest of us have to get by with a lot less.

But that’s ok. We can do it. Instead of focusing on what you don’t have, focus on what you do. You have yourself and most of the time, that’s all we need.

If you’re reading this, take a minute for some self-care right now, whatever that looks like for you. Pat yourself on the back. Say something positive about your work. Give yourself some unconditional love.

If that’s hard for you – and I know it can be – give yourself as much as you can. If you want to get into the flow, think about another creative person you’d like to encourage or compliment, and talk to yourself with that same voice.

What is your definition of success? You’ve probably put some thought into that, even if you haven’t documented it somewhere. Some writers are simply happy to create, even if no one reads their work. Others put their stories, poems, comics, or memoirs online for free or via a tip-based service like Patreon or Substack. Some of us want to hold our books in our hands and are willing to DIY, while others want the validation of a traditional publishing contract. Some writers won’t be happy until they hit a bestseller list or sign a deal for the film adaptation.

You have your vision. It may be in your head or you may have written it down. You might have a spreadsheet tracking your progress or a vision board to keep you inspired. You’ve put thought into your dream, but have you come to terms with achieving it? Are you comfortable with success?

Some people are not. I’ll cop to it. We know what a successful creative life looks like on our terms, but we still shy away from fully realizing it. There are a lot of reasons. Your creativity may be marred by past shaming or criticism. You may fear growing apart from people who don’t share your same ambitions or drive. You might worry that being successful will show up your friends or family, because no one likes a braggart. You might simply believe that it will never happen for you, and have decided it’s less hurtful to not try at all.

Even when we achieve the results we desire, we may have trouble enjoying them, for the same reasons. We downplay our achievements so that we seem humble. We avoid talking about our milestones because friends and family ignore or mock them. We refuse to celebrate or enjoy our successes so that our friends don’t feel bad in comparison.

Do any of these fears hold you back? These are natural too. No one wants to fail. No one wants to be ignored or mocked. No truly successful person ever wants to make their friends feel less-than or to lose friends over career achievements.

On the other hand, are these fears well-founded? You don’t have to share your successes with people who won’t celebrate with you. Find folks who cheer you on! Will your friends really think you’re a bad person if you succeed? Will they stop hanging out with you? Doubtful. Do you have to act miserable to show that you’re still humble? Indeed not.

It’s natural to have fears and concerns that hold you back from fully embracing success. However, those fears don’t have to bind you. Ask yourself: Is there another way of addressing those fears without hobbling yourself? Can you be successful and avoid these scenarios that live in your head?

I bet you can. You’re a creative person. Write a different ending that allows you to be successful and loved at the same time.

Whatever type of fiction you write, you’re likely to depict your protagonist in at least one relationship, perhaps more. Relationship usually but doesn’t have to mean romantic. We also have platonic and familial relationships, or co-workers or pets. Unless you’ve made the creative choice to write about a single isolated human, your hero will have some sort of connections. Even in an extreme circumstance, however, it’s human nature to seek out connection. Even Tom Hanks had Wilson the volleyball on his deserted island.

As with all things, humans have different approaches to connection. Some of us focus on merging two lives into a cohesive unit, not in an unhealthy way, but to create a supportive family relationship. However, some of us prefer to maintain our autonomy. A person may not mind sharing, but they maintain their self-image as a singular human. While some people might find this standoffish or less than romantic, it’s a natural and valid inclination.

How does your protagonist approach relationships? Does he focus on merging or individuation? Does she see herself as a solitary unit that interacts with others or as one part of a cohesive whole?

What conflicts arise if someone in their intimate circle has the opposite yearning? What does this dance look like and can either of them make allowances for the needs of the other? How does this relationship change over time or with a character’s moods?

In the early days of a relationship, one character may desire merger, while the other insists on taking it slow and maintaining their autonomy. In time, that dynamic can change, as the first character may struggle to assert their independence while the other, who initially wanted distance, slowly narrows their intimate circle and starts to nest.

What happens when two characters begin a relationship with the intent to merge, but one begins to develop a need for autonomy later?

Using these two valid yet contrasting human drivers – the need to maintain our individuality and our yearning to share ourselves with another – can help you create characters that seem more true to life, add depth to their emotional makeup, and stir friction and conflict that feels natural.

Treated myself to a book spree. Probably shouldn’t have, but what the heck. That credit score isn’t going to lower itself! I hadn’t been to Atomic Books in ages, and I had an itch to read some DIY zines. Of course, once I was there, it didn’t take long for me to mosey back to the fiction and graphic novel sections. The great – and insidious – thing about small indy stores like Atomic is that you’ll encounter heretofore unknown books that you’re unlikely to spot in traditional retail spaces.

Here are two that blew my mind a bit:

W the Whore by Katrin de Vries and Anke Feuchenberger

This collection of three German graphic novels follows the travels of W the Whore as she “navigates the tedious rituals of womanhood, the unsettling mysteries of male desire, and the strangeness of motherhood, while passing through a familiar but hostile everyday landscape.”

The art looks to be reproduced from pencil drawings. The earlier work is purposefully grotesque, primitive style with twisted perspectives and anatomy. As the story progresses, the art becomes more traditional, fluid, but still exaggerated in parts, distorted and disturbing. For fans of the underground, wimmen’s comix, and offbeat storytelling.

Worry Doll by Matt Coyle

I can’t remember the last time comic art made me gasp aloud. I put this in the basket without even reading the story blurb. I’m not sure I even have the vocabulary to describe it. If there’s not a word that means photo-realistic, surreal, sophisticated, eerie, skewed, grotesque, and beautiful, perhaps we need one.

And the story? A group of sentient dolls embark on a nightmarish road trip after fleeing the scene of their owners’ murders. Told in a series of prose poems.

Like I said – there’s not a single word that encompasses this work, but it’s the kind of book that makes me feel like a kid again, discovering something exquisitely brand new.

“You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should have behaved better.” – Anne Lamott

A common quandary for writers is how much our fiction should be inspired by our real lives. On this blog, anything you’ve experienced or witnessed is fair game for a story, but your mileage may vary. You may not want to invade someone’s privacy or open yourself to charges of libel, if someone believes that your fiction hewed a bit too close to their reality.

At one extreme, writers refuse to write about serious events in their lives, due to those privacy issues or sheer terror of being confronted by an embarrassed parent. At the other, some memoirists put every dirty secret on the page. Former child actress Jennette McCurdy famously did that in her popular memoir I’m Glad My Mom Died, a Hollywood disemboweling second only to Mommie Dearest.

Most of us fall somewhere in between. We aren’t shy about stealing scenes from real life, but stop short of naming names. Even memoirists and writers of autofiction soften, avoid, or obfuscate difficult memories or relationships unless they are vital to the story. I lean into the camp that prefers revelation to secrets, but even I’m wont to change a few names.

But completely avoiding our histories is nigh impossible, because our families are our first stories. Your parents and grands and ancestors were already involved in their own drama before you came along, a tiny supporting player in the story of their lives. In time, you took a larger role, pushed some characters out, and took charge of your own narrative.

What story was happening within your family when you came on the scene? How did you affirm or disrupt it? What role were you expected to play? Are you still acting it out?

Over the past year of this blog, I’ve hinted that my family wasn’t always the happiest. When I was a kid, I thought everything was better before I was born. To believe the stories my parents told, their lives were more active, more free, less constrained by time and money. In the back-then, we had a large extended family who we saw often, gathering for family dinners and birthdays and holidays. We had a grandmother and great-grandmother who loved us kids and loved to laugh.

By the time I came along, we didn’t have those things anymore. We saw our father’s extended family briefly at Christmas and my mother’s not at all. We didn’t laugh as much. Everyone seemed tense, angry, on edge. There was a lot of yelling, almost always over trivial mistakes or misunderstandings. We didn’t make any new stories. The only time my parents smiled was when they talked about the past. Happy was something we were, not something we could be.

The youngest, I blamed myself. It was easy to see the demarcation between the congenial version of my family in the past and what I knew to be true in the present, and I assumed my birth had drawn the line. I had come along too late in my parents’ lives, too late to be real playmates with my older siblings. My parents should have started their 40s with all their kids in school, old enough to dress and feed themselves and be let alone for a bit, and then I arrived, the disrupter. My mom’s health was poor for several years after I was born, which obviously threw the family off-kilter, and which was clearly my fault. No wonder everyone seemed annoyed with me, would rather spend time alone in their room or the garage or the basement, the doors closed.

As I’ve gotten older and my siblings and I have compared notes, I’ve learned, of course, that none of this was true. Whatever connection or conviviality my family experienced had deteriorated long before I was born, for reasons that had nothing to do with me or my siblings. My parents and their families had their own drama that didn’t involve us. We were background characters in the narrative, lucky to be given names.

No child makes a family unhappy, but that was the story I thought I heard, and that’s the role I assigned myself: the boy who ruined everything. I was torn between a desperate need to please and a desire to shrink until I became invisible. I craved both attention and solitude. I wanted my family to reconstruct the myth I created in my head, to be fun, and if they couldn’t, to leave me alone. I didn’t get either of my wishes.

If your writing involves family dynamics and drama, consider what story was going on around your protagonist when they entered the scene. Did they arrive into a comedy or a drama? A war story, a travelogue, or a tale of deprivation? Were they assigned a role or did they make up their own? Did they interpret the story correctly? Did they pick the wrong part? Are they still playing this role in the present?

When telling your story, consider the meta-story that your characters play out in their own world and how that influences their personality, desires, and choices, as well as how they interact and perceive each other. Within the story you’re telling, ask what stories your characters are telling about themselves, their families, and their interactions.

If you peeled your characters down like an onion, who would they be underneath all the expectations, coping mechanisms, and survival techniques that they’ve developed over the years?

The weight of other people’s expectations and opinions of you is a heavy load. Some of us start to feel this burden as kids, when we become more self-aware and perhaps self-conscious.

In my family, we all crossed over sometime around the 2nd grade. In kindergarten and first grade school photos and the sadly rare family photo, my siblings and I mostly look like normal, carefree kids. Our postures are relaxed, our smiles big and genuine. But by the 2nd grade photo, our spirits appear dampened. We smile, but not with our teeth. We stretch our lips into something close enough to a smile to satisfy the school photographer, but you can see our hearts aren’t in it. There’s something dark and pinched in our eyes. I’ve noticed this change, too, in photos of my nieces and nephew at the same age. The Curse of the Remains: somewhere between 7 and 8, we become tragically aware. Reality intrudes.

But whatever happened, or whatever knowledge we gained in those years, had nothing to do with us. I guarantee we didn’t change much from year to year, other than in the normal way children grow and mature. What we learned were what other people thought, including what they believed or expected from us. We started to absorb whatever unhappiness plagued our adults.

That sponge-like quality can continue through adulthood. Think about how your self-image may be moulded by what your boss, spouse, or neighbors believe or feel about you, or how a parent can be devastated when a child disrespects or talks down to them, or is embarrassed by them.

This is another layer of emotional insight and turmoil that you can add to your fiction. Consider which other characters interact with your protagonist. How do they view your hero? What are their opinions, beliefs, or perceptions of your protagonist and how does this affect them?

Is your protagonist aware of these perceptions? Are they burdened by them? Do they need to break free of them? As your protagonist goes through the process of becoming, consider whether they need to embrace who they are as an individual, outside what others think of them. Is your hero inspired by someone else’s opinion or is this a burden they need to shed?