When Doubt Attacks

BY JULIE DE WAROQUIER

I wish I had something as moving and powerful to say today as Sara Larson does. But I don’t, so go read her blog post (on doubt and writerly fears and such) instead. Maybe it’s the sort of pep talk you need right now, too.

A Letter to My WIP

To the so-called work in progress taking up space on my hard drive and laughing at me with one annoyingly raised eyebrow and the words check mate on its tongue,

I am on to you.

You think you’re real funny whispering about poor character development and sparse settings while I fumble through paragraphs and scenes you say are pure … excrement. I see how you refer me my favorite novels: Look, see! That’s how you write a complicated mystery! That’s how you create characters readers love! Listen to those words. Those are words people will want to read. Not like yours.

And I get it, I do. I’m 30,000 words in and you’re getting scared and so you’re trying to scare me. But I’m done pouting. I’m done hiding from you, nose in someone else’s book.

From now on, I’m the Supreme Ruler of All That Is Written* and you are the story that must do as I say lest I delete you out of existence and write Sad Bella fanfiction in your place.

Hugs and kisses and unicorns,

Tracey

*On My Laptop

In Which I Almost Die

On Friday night I almost died.

I’m not trying to be all dramatic about it. Okay, maybe I’m trying to be a little dramatic, but for good reason. I mean, if facing death doesn’t give a girl the right to theatrics, I don’t know what does.

So back to my almost-death. It was Friday night and The Man was out. I’m cool with being alone. My mother thinks it’s a character flaw, but I tell her I’d be a failure as a writer if I spent all my time communing with other humans. That’s when she usually glares at my dad and says something like, “This is your fault.” Which is true, because my dad’s introverted and I guess half of my genes come from him, apparently including my disposition.

Anyway, I was alone and in bed, bundled under a mound of covers and watching a terrible movie on Netfix because I’d already watched all of the good free movies. And that’s when I saw it.

I should tell you now that I have incredible peripheral vision. It’s actually funny because my overall vision isn’t so far from a blind person’s. It’s something I truly worry about when considering my life twenty years from now.

So I was staring at the computer screen when I saw a black dot moving in my peripheral vision. I looked.

I screamed.

Here’s where you should know that I don’t scare easily. I have yet to be scared during a horror flick, even though I went through a period in high school when my ultimate goal was to find a movie* that terrified me. Instead, I watched my friends frighten and found ways to further freak them out by setting up elaborate hoaxes which, looking back, probably lost me more friends than I gained. So you know that my fear this Friday was 100 percent, honest-to-goodness, totally-freaking-out FEAR.

Maybe I can’t finish this story. Maybe I have PTSD. No, I most certainly do have PTSD. But here I go...

I saw a spider lower itself from the ceiling toward the bed. When I noticed, the thing was about an inch from my blanket, hanging upside down on that stupid clear string/webbing/whatever you call it,** it’s little legs moving all over the place.

First, I screamed. Then I started hyperventilating.

And in a split second I had a surprising amount of thoughts. I wondered if this was what it was like right before you died. People say they think of the most random things, like whether the local meteorologist got spray tanned or something.

I grabbed a napkin that I’d been using and for a quick moment I thought, “This napkin’s dirty,” as if this spider had to be killed on a pristine paper towel. As if using a dirty napkin was any more disgusting than touching a spider through two layers of thin paper.

The thing was an inch from my blankets—AN INCH!—when I squished it between the napkin. I ground that sucker so good I’m sure it was one with the napkin. After I threw it out, I called The Man.

“Hello?” he asked when he picked up.

“Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness. I just had the most tramatic, most terrible, most—OH MY GOODNESS!”

Silence. “Trace, what’s wrong?”

“Something happened. OH MY GOODNESS something happened. I can’t—” I took about 347 tiny breaths but my mind was picturing that disgusting spider and my breathing was making me dizzy.

“Are you okay? What’s wrong? Are you hurt? Did something happen?” The Man asked, and despite my serious lack of sanity, I knew enough to respond before he killed himself trying to drive home and save me from a psycho killer or masked robber or some other two-legged menace.

“There was a spider. An inch from the bed. AN INCH FROM THE BED!”

Laughing.

“This is not funny. I was in a perilous situation! I might need years of therapy after this! I should just kill myself now to stop the mental image I have.”

Laughing. “But you killed it? So you’re okay. It’s all gone.”

“Yes, this one is all gone,” I said, glancing at the trash can to make sure the napkin was still in the same spot. I can never be too sure when it comes to bugs. Part of my mind believes they’ll come back to life and start crawling all over me.

“But,” I continued, still partially hyperventilating, “how do I know this is the first spider to land in our bed? Have there been others? Have they touched me? Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness. They touched me didn’t they?”

“No, a bug has never touched you. Your skin is repellant.”

“Now you’re being ridiculous.”

“Yes, I’m the ridiculous one.”

I shut my eyes, then opened them fast. I needed to keep watch in case any of the spider’s friends descended on me at that moment. The Man laughed off my theory, but I had a sneaking suspicion this spider was just some sort of lookout and when he didn’t return, his entire battalion would drop from the ceiling and—

I can’t even finish that thought.

“But what if when we go to bed tonight,” I said, speaking faster. “The rest of them come down and go under our covers and crawl on us and crawl into our ears and up our noses and in our mouths?”

Laughter. “They wouldn’t do that.”

“And then we’d be sleeping so we wouldn’t know they were touching us and CRAWLING INTO OUR ORIFICES. And then they’d implant their eggs under our skin!”

“That’s an urban legend.”

“And then in however long it takes to incubate a legion of baby spiders they will hatch and CRAWL OUT OF OUR SKIN! Ugh, I hate my imagination.”

“As do I.”

And that’s the story of how I almost died. It’s not that I’m delusional and think the spider was a black widow or some other equally as deadly arachnid. It was more like my phobia almost killed me. At least, I think it’s possible to give yourself a heart attack. I pretty sure I almost did. 

There was a point to this, but my story kind of got out of hand. Not that it’s not true—it is, all of it. But I expected the recounting of my night of terror to be a lot shorter so I could tell you about this awesome book I read while attempting to take my mind off of a possible assault from a brigade of arachnids.

So my next post will be about that book, which was awesome and hilarious and so much better than a surprise spider.

Now that I’ve laid out my fears for you, what are you most scared of?

*Except for Arachnophobia. I knew that one would give me nightmares for years.

**You didn’t honestly expect me to look up the correct term, did you? I mean, you realize I’d have to LOOK AT PICTURES OF SPIDERS!

2011 Roundup: Keeping Score

I love reading everyone’s end-of-year wrap-ups and seeing how far people have come in 365 days. (Like, say, Erin Bowman, who’s given me a case of chronic inspiration with her 2011 accomplishments.) So, in the spirit of reliving 2011 before your eyes, I present my class project:

What I Did on My Summer Vacation (And During the Rest of the Year, Too)

The abridged version: I revised a book.

The long, rambling version: On Nov. 1, 2010, I had never written a book. (Well, there were a few unfinished ones in my past). By Nov. 30, 2010 I had finished a book. By the end of January 2011 I had revised a full book.

If you’re keeping track, that’s Tracey 2, Insecurities 0.

And I spent the rest of 2011 revising and rewriting. Seriously. I’d say that’s Tracey 2, Insecurities 5. The crazy thing about me not being able to push through revisions at the same speed a write is that I’m an editor by trade. I mean, I’m comfortable hacking a piece to pieces. I rarely hold a crazy attachment to my words. (Maybe I’m just pure evil and take joy in killing my darlings.) Anyhow, when it came to this book, I froze up.

The very smart and very awesome Liz Briggs made several brilliant suggestions in her critique, which made me realize I had a hefty rewrite on my hands. I’m glad I did it. The book’s about three bajillion times better now than it was in its first incarnation. But the rewrite/revision scared me. If you were in my head you’d have heard: 

You can’t accomplish on paper what you see in your mind. 

You’re a terrible writer.

If this seems difficult, it’s because you’re an idiot. 

You’re not good enough.

It took a lot, A LOT, of strength to get past that fear of failure. During the first draft, I knew it was mostly crap and could be fine-tuned during revisions. I didn’t fear screwing up because it was pretty much a given. But revising? That’s where the magic happens, where books are really made. Anyhow, I can’t tell you how I got over my inability to edit but eventually I did. I wrote more than 50,000 new words. No joke.

And even though I need to go through and revise the new section, it’s done. More than anything, it taught me that I can accomplish on paper what I see in my mind. I can write. I’m not an idiot. I am good enough.

So that’s my accomplishment this year. Some time next year I’ll start querying. And maybe I’ll have good news come Dec. 23, 2012. But for now?

I believe it’s Tracey WIN, Insecurities LOSE.

What’s your biggest triumph this year, writing-related or other?

RTW: Well That Was a Mistake

Road Trip Wednesday is a blog carnival, where YA Highway’s contributors and readers post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on our own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody’s take on the topic.

This week’s prompt was: What’s the biggest writing/querying/publishing mistake you’ve made?

The one good thing about never having sent a single query is I’ve never made a terrible can’t-take-it-back mistake while trying to land an agent or publishing contract or whatever. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I won’t royally screw up when I do start querying.

Instead, my biggest publishing mistake happened before I’d written a single word. It happened when I let fear get the better of me. Instead of opening a blank document and typing until I reached the end, my thought process went like this:

I really want to write a novel. It’s always been my dream.

I can’t write a novel. I don’t know the first thing about it. I’ll fail.

Ugh, look at that, another book deal. It’s not fair! I want to be a published author!

Shut up and stop whining. It is fair—that person actually wrote a story. I just think about it.

But I have no idea how to go about writing a novel! Are there rules? There must be rules. Rules I haven’t heard about—just another reason why I’ll fail horribly if I try.

I’m okay with just writing articles. I’m published, does it really matter that it’s not a novel?

Of course it matters!

 This went on for, oh, five years. The biggest factor in me not starting the story that was in my head (or the next one, or the next one) was the fear of failure. I didn’t want to write a story that sucked. I didn’t want to find out that my writing ability was severely stunted when it came to fiction.

I waited way too long. Because the fact is, when someone wants something as bad as I wanted to be a published author (I’m sure you can all relate to the feeling), they don’t give up. So I was just delaying the inevitable. And in doing so, I was delaying the good things, too. I couldn’t get an agent or a book deal without the book.

So while I might not have querying battle wounds, I have a feeling it’s not entirely a good thing.

Oh, and in case anyone’s in the position I was not too long ago, you should know: There are no rules. Pick up a pen and paper or open a new document and write. That’s it. Tell the story that’s in your head. 

You can do it because there are no prerequisites to writing a book. You don’t need an MFA or other creative writing degrees. All you need is the ability to write and, more importantly, the ability to revise. And if you write and revise enough times, never giving in to the fear of failure, you’ll reach your goal.

You and you and you and you and you will all reach your goals. I’m certain of it. It’s just a matter of when.

What’s your biggest writing, querying, or publishing mistake?

Openings

There is nothing I fear more

Starting a novel

The hardest part

I may speed through most of my first drafts, but the part that stalls me

I can’t move on until I get my opening just right and that

Even worse than

Beginning a novel is

Beginnings suck.

Fear

Ah, fear. How useful it seems when some creep starts following you in the dark on a lonely street. Or when there’s a mouse in the house.

But at other times? It’s kind of in the way.

I’ve talked before about how fear stunted my growth as a writer. For years I was one of those people who said, “I’m going to write a book one day” and then never did.

Fear of failure. Fear of messing up. Fear of looking like a total goon in the process.

Now that I’m revising, I realize the fear has gotten worse. Fear that I can’t make this novel be what I need it to be. That it’ll never be as good as it is in my mind. That my characters and plot are boring, that together I have something akin to Walden.*

It’s stalled me. I’ll open the document and decide I can’t disembowel this manuscript in ten minutes or thirty minutes or an hour. And then I close it.

I had a breakthrough this weekend. Nothing huge, just a fix for a scene that added tension. But it reminded me that I should spend less time fearing and more time actually writing.

For anyone in that stage, there’s only one thing you can do—if you plan to get published, that is.

Tell fear to piss off.

Then write your book.

Tell fear to piss off.

Then edit it. Again.

Tell fear to piss off.

Submit.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

*I'm not ashamed to say I hate Walden.  

Freedom to Suck

The hardest part of starting a novel for me was letting go of my perfectionism and being OK with my utter suckiness. At the start—back when I was clawing my eyes out over the first chapter—I couldn’t move on until every word was just right.

But then I saw this video from the All Powerful Maureen Johnson. I thought, “Hm, wildly successful authors have sucky first drafts? Seriously?”

And then I watched it again just to be sure there were no footnotes that said “Ha Ha—loser! My first drafts never suck. If yours do, you’re not cut out to be an author! Ha ha ha ha ha ha.” I imagined that last part scrolling across the screen as Maureen Johnson repeated the word suckitude.

Good thing she was not kidding. Her writing sucks at the start. Other writers have said their writing sucks at the start. Natalie Whipple just posted something on this yesterday and guess what? Her writing sucks at the start. So why can’t I let mine? (Let’s be honest: It’s going to anyways.)

Maybe there are geniuses out there who sneeze onto a piece of paper and 20 years in the future eager lit students study it for their thesis. But most people are not geniuses. I am not a genius.

I will suck at first. I’m okay with that.

Are you?

Procrastination

Yesterday I mentioned that the first step to writing my novel was to procrastinate. If you’re my mom (and, let’s be honest here, with the number of readers my blog gets so far you probably are) you’re probably shocked that I procrastinated.

I rarely procrastinate.

The Man finds this terribly annoying. He’ll wake up at 9 a.m. on the weekend, veg in front of the T.V. or computer for two hours while I sleep (I love sleep more than air I think). I’ll wake up, plop down on the couch, and start rattling off my to-do list.

“I need to wake up!” he’ll say.

“You’ve been awake for two hours.”

“Don’t you need two hours to wake up?” he’ll ask.

No. I don’t. Why put off for later what you can do now?

And yet when it came to writing that book I’ve always wanted to write, I procrastinated. Even when I knew I HAD to write it.

Partly this was out of fear. (Psych majors are all yelling a collective Duh.)

Part of it was perfectionism—not wanting to take the test before I had studied.

But most of it was fear.

Do I think my story’s stronger for it? Yes.

Do I think it’s the most productive way to build a writing career? Absolutely not.

Do I think I’ve used my allotment of statements starting with “Do I think” for the month? Most definitely.