The Uncomfortable Truth...

You’re reading this blog about writing and the first question that comes to your mind is, hey what did this guy publish? What makes him the expert? Why does he deserve my attention? All legit questions. Any hack can set up a blog these days and call themselves an expert. You could flip from here and find me dolling out advice about hair care for men, and then do a double take when you spot me claiming to be an expert on voir dire (jury selection). A good rule of thumb is to never trust what anyone says online about anything ever. Even the way people look is subject to scrutiny because of Snapseed, TouchRetouch and all the other apps that turn anyone into an online plastic surgeon. Luxury grocery stores, that’s right, I said luxury, have been doing it for years and the rest of us are just catching on. All those fruits and veggies at Whole Foods are glowing like they’re in a Pixar movie, and for something buried in dirt its whole life, a bright shiny exterior just isn’t natural. But hey, if you’ve never exaggerated, if you’ve never lied about anything in your life then go ahead, the rest of us will wait patiently while you throw the first stone.

Yeah, just what we thought.

I’ve exaggerated about a lot of things, which is a topic for another blog, but I won’t exaggerate here.

If you’re interested in writing and currently on a twelve-hour bus ride with nothing else to read and even worse, someone shoved a key inside the phone charger in that seat of yours just to mess with you, reading this may be your best option. I mean, I know you don’t want to strike up a conversation with the smelly soul next to you. That person is on a busy after all. And you know that browsing for other sites will just zap that battery further until you’re looking into the abyss - a black screen or the back of the head of the rider with the better seat than you.

It’s funny how we consider what’s the best use of our time when it comes to reading articles or blogs or doing kind favors for people, but when it comes to going on Facebook and seeing how the narcissists are going about their day, we never question if that’s a worthwhile use of our precious minutes. It’s not, of course, but it’s like comfort food, so we mold ourselves into the couch, oblivious to the ticking clock and see what everyone we went to high school with is exaggerating about now, all these years later. In a way you feel comforted that this person you haven’t spoken with in decades and snubbed you junior year actually gives a damn what you think now and is hoping you like their post.

Back to us and that question about your time and if this blog is worth it. I honestly have no idea. It depends on what else you might do with the next ten minutes and if what I put down in the next few seconds is any good. If you’re in the cell phone lot at the airport, what have you got to lose, especially if you’re interested in writing or know someone who wants to write. If you haven’t read a book since that 5th grade book report Mrs. Mathis made you do, this may not be for you. If you’re at a dinner party with friends it might be worth it. It depends on how much you like the people closest to you.

Everyone would like to write a book. Okay, I lied. That is an exaggeration. Most people, let me rephrase, a lot of people would like to write one. Some people would rather have their fingernails pulled out with needle nose pliers. I’ve had plenty of people tell me yeah, I’d like to write a book. I had one guy interrupt me while I was writing to tell me that writing a book seemed like torture. That was bad news for me because rather than focusing on my writing I got so pissed that he interrupted me that I immediately started thinking of ways to annoy the hell out of this guy when he was photoshopping his yellow teeth after uploading some new post on Facebook.

For the people who do want to write a book, maybe they believe they’ve got something to say or they’d just like to see their name on the cover. Maybe they figure, hey, I’ve already got a laptop and subscription to Grammarly so I’m halfway home.

The Uncomfortable Truth is that most of what anyone writes won’t see the light of day. Their work will be like the veggies I talked about earlier, without the color and shine. Their writing will remain buried, not underground, but on a hard drive that they’ll take out and tinker with from time to time. You may see your name emblazoned on the cover but you’ll have to open the file folder on your laptop to get that glimpse. But that’s no reason to stop before you ever really get started. Anything worthwhile usually requires a long, arduous pain soul sucking voyage. Most of us, and I don’t care what area it is, most of us see the finished product. The professional athlete on the court or field. The Olympian making it look so easy. We don’t see the sacrifices they’ve made for years and all the food they’ve eaten day after day that most likely sent them to the brink of insanity. Driving by a pizza place or a bakery might’ve driven them mad, but the notion of reaching that goal of goals, which might never come, kept them going. There’s a beauty to the effort and the hope of one day achieving it. It’s what keeps people going in sports, writing, music, relationships during the hard times, and all areas of life really. We all know it, but on a day to day basis none of us ever really considers it and that impacts our moods, what we strive for, and how hard we strive for it. Sure, writing can be daunting. Flipping through Stephen’s King’s, The Stand, may you leave you scratching your head and wondering how in the world he came up with all those words. After all, the book is over 1,000 pages!

I drove by a construction site the other day. It was raining outside and deep brown puddles dotted the muddy, uneven ground. I immediately thought that if I was showing up to work there I’d roll up my sleeves, toss my shovel over my shoulder, and quit. I just wouldn’t know where to start. But with big projects like starting a new book or building a building, you take it a story at a time. The smart readers will get the play on words there.

Chapter after chapter can be easy when things get rolling downhill. Or it can be hard to sort through all the bad ideas that seemed brilliant when you first put them down, but at second glance you realize stink.

It hurts when someone takes a verbal knife to your work, but it’s part of the process. It’s the Uncomfortable Truth. Rejection is easy to deal with if you keep out of its way, but what do you stand to gain? Not much. Nothing can happen if your hiding back there, you know where I’m talking about now. But there’s no glory back there either. Just the shadow of regrets that loom large. I’ve got some regrets but the rejections, I’ve stacked those really high.

In fact, the odds of me becoming a huge bestselling author, getting my books made into movies and shaking hands with the Tom and Brad as they bring my characters to life on the big screen were, at time, as sure as me never wearing flip-flops anywhere outside of the gym shower. I just don’t care for flip-flops. But now, I’m in center of the ring going toe-to-toe with my doubts, doing my best to keep them down. Knocking them out is impossible. Doubts are like the Terminator and I’m not even saying that as a joke. They’re relentless, so you must outrun them and accumulate enough small successes to keep you going. Why do you think the whole, ‘Act As If’, slogan was born?

My rejection letters number somewhere around the salary of a first-year associate at a New York law firm. But why should 70,000 (slight exaggeration) rejections deter me, or you for that matter? If you have something to say, something you just need to put down on paper, that’s really all that matters and despite the odds and all the rest of it, go for it. Get those feelings out and hope that those words you wrote with so much enthusiasm are in the right order and sound good when read consecutively.

We learn much more from our mistakes than from our successes. I’m sure you’ve heard that somewhere. The second part of that though, isn’t spoken about as much. It’s the fact that we’ve got to take the time to look at our mistakes, analyze what we we’re doing and adjust, otherwise we’ll make the same mistakes repeatedly.

Writers have a terrific built-in excuse to keep making the same mistakes. The excuse is so good, it appears so foolproof, that it’s disguised as the perfect approach. It’s simply to keep on writing. We know the path we must forge, damn what anyone says! If you get rejected repeatedly what’s the easiest thing to keep doing – you’ve got it – keep writing. Keeping your head buried in your laptop is what feels good and right. That old expression, just keep your head down and plugging away. Yeah, okay, but what if you’re headed in the wrong direction or everyone is passing you and you’ve got blinders on and never noticed? The whole head down things feels productive but you’ve also got to take a good hard look at what went wrong and where you can improve. Are you leading your story too much? Is it too descriptive? Have any another set of eyes read what you’ve written? It’s easy to be certain that your work is awesome when no one’s read it. The Uncomfortable Truth again. And no, posting your frustrations on social media won’t help. It’ll feel good to have someone come and rub your belly with their reply but it won’t get you any closer to your goal, whatever that may be. Having some non-confrontational person read your work and stroke your ego won’t help either. Don’t be a baby. Don’t look for the warm bath to sooth your feelings. Get in the ice bath where its uncomfortable but wakes you the hell up. You’ve got to look at the facts. I’ve got my facts learned damn good now. Writing this blog is something I probably should’ve started years ago when I had my head down with that assembly line mentality, cranking out chapter after chapter. It felt good, and the momentum of the story carried me along. I’m sure you know the feeling. Sometimes you feel like the story is progressing so well that you’ve just got to see it through. I get it. You want to keep the characters talking and living, see where they end up. But it’s important to explore all avenues because you never know which one may open up.

The funny thing is as writers, we don’t want to stop. We love the process, the development of the story and if you’re writing fiction, spending time with “your people.” That’s what makes great writers great - their passion. But it can also be their downfall. There comes a time when you need to slam the laptop closed and burst the bubble you’ve been living in. Get your work out there in any form. Online. Aa s free book on Amazon. Let others read your chapters and carve you to shreds or give you the praise you’ll devour. Join a writer’s group maybe, where others can critique your work. That can be good or bad because writers are competitive and you don’t want people tearing you apart out of jealousy, or because they see you as a threat. You want people who have your best interests at heart. If you can’t think of anyone to help then maybe you’ve held yourself hostage in that bubble too long. Now go forth, put your work out there and keep your day job. For the time being it’ll be the only way to truly prosper.