Julia Cameron—The Artist’s Way

Stephen King and Julia Cameron both speak, in their own ways, of creative monsters and the havoc they bring to the creative life. Creative Monsters are the people we let into our lives who shame us about our writing or who seed self-doubt rendering us creatively impotent. If we have more monsters than creative champions in our life, it can be hard to keep writing.

King writes: “I have spent a good many years… too many, I think—being ashamed about what I write. I kept hearing Miss Hisler asking why I wanted to waste my talent, why I wanted to waste my time, why I wanted to write junk… I think I was forty before I realised that almost every writer of fiction and poetry who has ever published a line has been accused by someone of wasting his or her God-given talent.”

By age forty King had sold millions of books, best sellers such as It, Pet Sematary and The Stand. It would be incomprehensible to believe that such a popular and successful author had been so susceptible to doubt and shame, if we hadn’t experienced the exact same thing ourselves.

We all have them, a monster or perhaps a whole crew who hang out in the recesses of our consciousness, on the periphery of our creativity, making us ashamed and doubtful of our talent.

How dare you write?

How dare you write that?

You really think that’s good?

Writer—pft. Who are you kidding?

You call that ‘real’ writing.

I’ve realised the idiom sticks and stones may break my bones ‘cos names will never harm me is a load of bollocks. Words do hurt and especially for writers (whose creative ‘mud’ is words). They leave an indelible print on our creative psyches. They destroy confidence, crush dreams, they come to us in our moments of vulnerability. They make has double and triple guess ourselves until we no longer know the way forward.

Like Cameron writes, they are injuries and  need to be healed if we want to reach our potential, or even just begin to explore it. Creative Monsters are mudslingers and it’s time to take ourselves down to the creative river and wash away the dirt. I know I love the feeling of cold, crisp water coursing over my body and how you can’t help but feel refreshed afterwards—body and soul!

But how do you do it? How do you find your way down to the river?

Deconstructing the Monster

It’s not only wicked witches who dissolve in water! The river looks something like this (actually, it looks nothing like a river!)

Write down everything you can remember about the incident, including  what was said or written, how you felt and what happened afterwards. How did you deal or not deal with the comments? What happened to your writing? Your confidence? Your ability to trust other people with your work?

Understanding how their words effect you and how they’ve become part of your creative reality, is the first step to moving on. This is an exercise I make everyone complete and share in the first part of my beta reading courses.

My, How Monsterous You Are

I spoke about my creative monster in my article earlier this month who told me point-blank I needed to go out and live in the real world. I was naïve and people didn’t really act like that out there.

I don’t deny I had lived a sheltered life—I’d spent almost all of my education in a Catholic high school and I hadn’t been adventurous as a teenager. But I read through his words and heard I was an imbecile, and I had had the audacity to write. What’s more, his words were instant creative castration for my vulnerable self.

From that moment on, my passion for writing waxed and waned. It still does! Mortification, is the only word I can use to describe the realisation I had earlier this month, when deconstructing my fears, that his words formed the core of all my worst fear.

Knowing the Difference

I still shudder to think I was so willing to take his words on board. Thankfully now I understand how to deconstruct criticism and to know the difference between the constructive criticism of your work and a cheap personal shot. The difference is simple:

Constructive feedback:

• gives you information on the strengths and weakness of your story, and uses examples from the work in support of the comments and insights.
• offers suggestions on how to correct or tweak the bits which are weak/confusing/disjointed/missing. In doing so it creates a road map toward a strong story.
• is ALWAYS specific.
• is given with a caveat that states this is one person’s opinion. It is not offered as intractable truth or fact.
• comes from somehow who is making a genuine investment in a stronger story, working in partnership with the author.

The other sort of criticism is simple to spot. It is always:

• general in nature
• personal by definition

Three years ago I let go of notions I’m wasn’t smart enough or worldly enough to write. I assumed the audacity to write badly, and feel okay about it. I built the confidence to try new things, to share my work and do what I needed to grow, mature and hone my skills. In short, I served something of an apprenticeship to my craft.

New Beginnings

Earlier this month I left go of the fear I was too naïve to write. I’m not ashamed of wanting to write or scared to make room so I can. In fact, I actually moved into my own writing space a fortnight ago—the first time ever I’ve had a dedicated space of my own to write in.

Now I’m busy running through a pile of edits to finalise three anthologies in time to start an extended writing sabbatical in June. I’m excited and impatient. The self-doubt which dogged me for years is gone (probably to be replaced with a new incarnation of it, but that’s another story). You could say I’m on the brink of my time as a journeyman to my craft.

And all the time I’m editing, I’m doing my best to be a creative champion. Endeavouring always to ensure I don’t give any of the authors I work with cause to drag my name up in ten years time as being the person who devastated their dream to write. It’s a good thing I’m scared of the dark. I could never be a monster!

Who are your creative monsters—today is your opportunity to expose them? What was the shaming charge leveled at you? What self-doubts did they seed? How has it fashioned the way in which you perceive yourself as a writer and your ability create?

So what are my greatest fears as a writer? There are many but here are the main two:

1. Failure

Ah, yes, the big one. What if my writing just isn’t good enough? What if my peers think it is good but on a more professional, wider, level it just doesn’t cut it? What if it really does just suck?

I think the fear of failure is the reason why I’ve talked myself out of entering competitions or hounding publishers. Sometimes I find myself taking constructive criticisms a little too personally. I need to grow out of this. After all, isn’t writing re-writing?

So how am I combating this inherent writely fear of failure? Well I’ve already submitted one of my stories to the Write Anything Form and Genre Challenge and it felt so good just to put myself out there. I’ve had some great feedback. Before I submitted it I showed it to some very good and very honest writer friends who convinced me it was good enough to put out there. And when I did put it out there I had great feedback from my fellow competitors.  I’m going to submit further entries, I am.

I’m also going to join a local writing group. I feel reading my work out and being in a room of complete strangers is just what I need – my way of biting the bullet. It’ll also give me some much needed confidence in reading my work out loud. So far I’ve read one of my stories out in front of a university end of year party. I sat amongst the crowd, bright red with my head down, despite the few glasses of wine I’d downed. I want to be able to stand in front of a room of people and be confident enough in my characters and my words to be able to say them aloud and let those people enjoy them too. I want to drop the fear of failure and stamp on it. After all, in the first instance I write for myself and no one else.

1. Silence

I worry that one day I’ll wake up and it’ll all be gone. I won’t be able to form a remotely creative sentence.  I worry that one day I’ll wake up and there will just be silence where there once was the chatter of characters.

As some of you may know, I’ve struggled to put pen to paper over the past year or so. But I’ve always had ideas. I’ve just lacked the confidence to put pen to paper and develop them.  Recently I’ve realised that if I don’t jot these ideas down, no matter how stupid and small they may be, then they probably will just stop flowing and perhaps there will just be the dreaded silence.

I think the fear of silence has subconsciously encouraged me to write more. Certainly, my production levels have been through the roof since this time last year and, as a result, I feel much more confident in my abilities as a writer, in my abilities to see things through until the very end. So I’m going to continue with this somewhat positive attitude. I’m determined to keep the dreaded silence at bay.

So there are my main writing fears. What are yours?

I’ll make this topic hit home with some real life examples. Let’s get inside a man’s head for a moment—mine: What does one get someone who’s just purchased their first home?

1. Five-Gallon (Nineteen-Liter) Bucket
   This is a home essential for a new homeowner. It’ll be used often for washing windows, floors, the car; used in the garden for pulling weeds from the flower beds, collecting twigs before mowing the lawn; a must-have for pulling up the old carpet and collecting hundreds of carpet pad staples.
2. Package of Light Bulbs
   Let’s face it—the world has changed from inexpensive incandescent to compact fluorescent light bulbs that cost $9 USD ($6 GBP) each. No doubt the previous homeowner packed up all eight from the basement’s hanging fixtures, and the ones a new homeowner left in the end-table lamps are now broken as a result of the move.
3. Flannel-Lined Leather Work Gloves
   With a new home, the homeowner will wear them to pull up the old carpet, carry out debris to the curb on trash day, and trim the shrubbery on the new property.

In a man’s mind, these are appropriate housewarming gifts because they’re practical. Much thought, consideration, and experience have gone into the selection of these products. However according to women, namely my wife, these are wildly inappropriate housewarming gifts. Instead, one should consider:

1. Scented Candle
   A fine and necessary method to remove odors left behind from the previous homeowners and their pets. In springtime, select a pale green or lavender-colored candle to reminisce of a dew-laden fragrant meadow, yet in autumn a burgundy or maple-colored candle is the more appropriate choice.
2. Non-Scented Candle
   Viewed equally important to its cousin the scented candle, but used instead for practical lighting, particularly areas of the home that currently lack lamps or bulbs (eg, the basement when doing one’s first load of laundry because the previous homeowner removed all eight of the costly $9 USD / $6 GBP compact fluorescent light bulbs).
3. Decorative Candle Holder
   Because it’s a no-no to simply place your scented or non-scented candle on an unprotected surface. Not only will this help better disperse mood lighting to any occasion via the subtle six-inch raised elevation, it also serves as a stunning accent piece during daytime.

Having had a week to compare and contrast the differences in thought between men and women simply in the selection of a housewarming gift, I realize that the volume of effort and research needed to write convincing female characters varies, and a few different tips and suggestions can be applied.

Is your female character a lead or a supporting character? Female readers may reject your entire work if the lead female character doesn’t think and behave like a typical female. For a supporting character, female readers may be more forgiving, but maybe not.

What’s the point of view (POV) of your story? Will you be writing only a woman’s dialog, or will you need to go deeper into a woman’s psyche in order to write the triple-threat: dialog, thoughts, and emotions.

Don’t be afraid to conduct interviews with women you know on how they would think and behave in certain circumstances you’ll be placing your female character. Also, enlist female beta-readers during your editing cycle.

If your female character will be speaking, thinking, or reminiscing about love or sex—well, you’re on your own.

The expectations (whether high or low) of others and my own, often  leave me with the feeling of finding myself standing waist deep in a bucket of gore in the midst of some big cat enclosure. It’s not pretty; there’s a whole heap of silent screaming and ineffectual cage scaling. They can smell fear, you know… big cats, other writers, readers and critics who love to tear apart the newbies who dare to encroach on their patch. Thankfully, I’ve not yet been subjected to feeding time at my own expense, but I see it happen to others and I worry that my time is only around the corner.

I have only been ‘out there’ with my writing for about a year now. I am very much an emerging writer; sending out flash fiction and short story babies into the big wide world, to be picked apart and masticated by unknown people and my peers alike. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the heart palpitations as I hit ‘send’ or ‘post’ and wait for some form of response (good or bad) from the ethers. But recently I’ve been able to accept that it’s an extremely brave feat to put up your hand and say those, at times, onerous words — I am a writer. What comes with such uncharted territory, is mine to learn from, to grow with and to hone to whatever shape fits me best. In this respect, maybe my heart palpitations are healthy; they keep me anchored to reality, feet firmly planted on the learning curve, ready to face the next lion that jumps up with designs of Laur-annihilation in mind.

That said, I count myself extraordinarily fortunate to have support from a community of like-minded writer, editor and publisher types who have the guts to tell me the truth about my writing and at the same time, offer hours of their own time to help me professionally. I am lucky to call several of them good friends. Knowing there are people who believe in you and what you do, is the best motivator for action; and herein lies my second greatest fear — the Blank Page.

*Insert dramatic score here*

Call it what you want; lack of inspiration, writers block, absent muse or Mt. Everest sized pile of dirty laundry — the blank page leaves me simultaneously sweaty palmed and righteously pissed off. I have ideas, damn it. I have characters that skulk around in the back of my consciousness. I have paper, pen, laptop and electricity. So why does it have to be so hard? I don’t know if it is the feeling of not being in control —

I want, no, I need to write, but it’s not coming out and I can’t do anything about it.

— Or, if it’s just blind, naked and goose-bumpy fear of what might come out —

What if it’s utter crud? What does that make me? Can I call myself a writer if what I pen never sees the light of day?

It’s around about this time that the Mt. Everest sized pile of dirty laundry wins over and the gremlin inside me cackles maniacally as I shut down the computer and slink away. I know I’m not alone with any of this. Every writer has at some stage or another been affected by The Block (and not the horribly scripted and tooth achingly bland TV show, although sometimes, ANY distraction will do), but until I discover what it is that works to unblock me, it continues to scare me.

We all have our demons, those dark creatures that emerge from the trees on the side of the road to shake warty fingers in the face of whatever project you might be on. I’d love to laugh at them or send them flying with a well placed round-house kick, but I’m not altogether convinced that this approach is the right one. I’m slowly learning that in order to best my fears, I need to confront them — head on and maybe even with a smile. If I learn to befriend them, find out why exactly they’re hanging around me like bad smells with delusions of grandeur (because let’s face it, a blank page and unmet expectations probably won’t kill me), then perhaps I’ll get better because of them.

I like what James Anthony Froude once said… “There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.”

When I started out writing, I felt I had to learn as much as possible from those who came before me. There was no Internet then. Being the last generation to grow up without it meant getting my information the old-fashioned way. I read books. Hit the library for whatever information was  there. And even then there wasn’t a cornucopia of meta-writing. That meant if you didn’t have direct access to another writer, you could try writing to them. But writers were reclusive folk surrounded by an impenetrable wall of agents, publicists, and so on.

Things have changed, in case you haven’t been paying attention.

Many writers, both for the screen and literature, have availed themselves of the Internet and what it has to offer. They can connect with their fans and that’s great. More than a few have passed through the halls of this blog and elsewhere on that same big, wide Internet and left nuggets of their own hard-earned wisdom for everyone else learning the craft.

The point I’m getting at is Stephen Kings and John Grishams of the world all at some point had to contend with the old-fashioned way of learning how to write. They developed as writers in an incubation period of exclusion. I believe it is necessary to let a writer develop their ideas in private because those ideas are, in their genesis, very private matters.

Everybody has their own opinion about what is the “right way” to write.

My father used to tell me there was always more than one way to skin a cat. One day I replied, “There’s twenty-three.” He gave me a quizzical look then laughed at the absurdity of the statement. Of course there’s more than one way to do something. You should always look for multiple ways to solve a problem, either in a story, a script or film.

It’s also wrong to put absolutes on how many there are to write. Writing is problem solving. Problem solving can also be writing.  I said what I said to my father as a jest, partially because I was a smartass growing up. In writing it’s the same. Don’t read one book on how to write and think it’s the end-all, be-all absolute rules. You’ll only look like an amateur when you say, “Well, so-and-so said in their book that you style your scene action like this…”

People seem to want rules. They want to know there’s some manual they can go back to. In writing, film, and otherwise, there is no real manual. Every film is different in just enough ways to make it not quite like the last one. When you get locked into someone else’s way of doing it, everything you make will look exactly like the last one. You’re no longer a writer but an assembly-line worker.

Build your toolbox of unique tools. Listen to those that have been here before you but don’t take everything as holy writ. And once you have your tools, go out and skin those cats.

Everybody’s different. And there’s a lot of cats out there.

Which is why you may have missed it.

Which is why it can cripple you.

You see, sometimes fear is sneaky. It doesn’t come in the form of heart-pounding terror that makes you run the other way. Sometimes it just makes you adjust your path. Just a little. Just enough to get past some obstacle that’s very tough to conquer, but oh so easy to circumvent. It’s easy to say that you’re not afraid… you’re just being sensible. But, if you really wanted something on that original path… maybe fear just got the better of you.

Almost every fear—I’m not talking phobias here, just the everyday, rational, garden-variety fears—boils down to the same thing: Fear of failure. Think about it. Fear of spiders is really just fear of being bitten… of the spider beating you. Fear of heights is just fear of falling to injury or death. And with any creative or artistic endeavor the possible ways to fail are too numerous to count.

In a sense, I don’t have just one fear when it comes to writing. I have them all. But if you boil it down to the essence, the only thing I fear is failure.

I fear that I will try to say something, but have nothing to say.
I fear that I will try to say something, but be unable to say it.
I fear that I will see a beautiful story in my head, but on paper it will be flat.
I fear that I will try, but have nothing interesting to say.
I fear that I will toil, and no one will like it.
I fear that I want to write funny, but no one will laugh.
I fear that I will try to write poignant, but no one will be moved.
I fear that my ideas will never be good enough.
I fear that my talent will never be good enough.
I fear that my words will never be compelling.

I fear that I will try—I will attempt something I so very badly want to succeed at—and fail.

But if I don’t try, I cannot succeed. And that is why I try again.

Did you?

Understand the place of fear

The emotion we label as ‘fear’ disables our rational brains, sends our muse packing and begins to build an enormous brick wall around our ability to communicate with our words. Triggered by a comment on our blog, a rejection letter, our ‘inability’ to perfectly describe a scene in a first draft or a perceived comparison with another writer, fear of rejection and fear of not being good enough, insidiously grows inside the writer’s heart. Fear is further fed by individuals desperately seeking perfection and continual comparison.

Fear draws from deep beliefs within an individual, which is then felt and experienced within the body. That feeling gushing though our bodies has been labelled as ‘fear or terror’ by some, but as an ‘energy boost’ or ‘rush’ by others.

Writers, perhaps more than any group of people, understand the power of words.

•  Which of those words would best serve you in the long run?
• Which would sustain or maintain you?
• Which could offer the most opportunity?
• Which would you describe with a smile on your face?

Wouldn’t it be better to “be thrilled” about speaking at a book launch or having your work read at a library, than “being mortified or terrified”? Why not have a “rush of excitement” when you submit a story to a competition, rather than a “stab of anxiety”?

As difficult as it is to understand, fear serves a valuable function for all humans. Once a stimulus has been ascertained as being a threat, our brain pumps adrenaline through the body to ready us for either a fight or flight.

Initially, we need to recognise that we are fearful of something and to reprogram ourselves to see other perspectives of that event. Our role then is to understand why we reacted to an event, comment or person which caused our bodies to respond so violently, and then to plan strategies to cope and over come these feelings.

Plan to face the fear

Threats don’t need to have gnashy teeth or breath fire. For the most, they are events, or people who, should they enter our environment, have the capacity to unbalance our carefully constructed status quo. Our brain tells us that things have a high probability to change. It then gleefully informs us that we have not worked out a plan to deal or cope with where that change may take us. It’s at that point the adrenaline reservoir is opened.

This may then be fuelled by past memories of similar situations or imagined futures. At this point, our brain cannot separate what is real and what is imaginary and adjusts the adrenaline to full steam. Writers are well and truly scuttled at this point as their rational brain has taken a holiday and allowed the imagination to set up camp straight after the reality filter has been ditched.

Fear is an assumption about the new future and of the negative things or drawbacks which an individual will experience. The best way to plan to face it is to look at it head on with my favourite acronym for fear.

F(alse) E(vents or Expectations) A(ppearing) R(eal)

Fear is born out of uncertainty. It feeds on the unknown and the possibilities which may eventuate. As soon as you can grab your rational thought process and shake some sense into it, begin deconstructing what is actual and known and separate it from fanciful or perceived events.

Once you have committed to writing down the events or thoughts which are causing this uncertainty, these (false) expectations are more likely to diminish than to grow.

Fight or flight?

Another acronym is F(*k) E(verything) A(nd) R(un)

This plan of attack keys into our most primeval conditioning. If an event or situation is too big and scary, we turn and high tail it out of there. Its been said not so famously “those who run away, get to play another day”. On a more serious note, this choice allows the individual to regroup and strategise their response for the ‘next time’.

However, when you avoid the things you fear, your fears grow until they begin to control every aspect of your life. As your fears increase, your self-esteem, your self-confidence, and your self-respect diminish accordingly. Avoiding or running from your fears will only prolong the eventual day that you need to face and address them.

If you recognize that the fear is there to protect you, you will be in a better position to question its validity for your current situation. Our fears are there to serve, protect and guide us. Being brave or courageous is recognising that fear, working with what you have and acting accordingly. Fear can be a great motivator, forcing us to focus on the most important things within our lives. Experiencing fear gives us the opportunity to question our beliefs about something and to reassign these beliefs based on our real experiences, rather than our perceived.

How to write

We bloggers divide ourselves into two categories: 1) those who write short, under-1000-word posts and 2) those who write in-depth, lengthy articles. I’ve chosen the former. I like pithy ideas that readers can consume in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee. As a result, I’ve learned to be frugal with my words. I choose verbiage that conveys more than one-words-worth of information and I leave tangential issues for another post. Because I realize readers are consuming on the run, I make sure to be clear–no misplaced pronouns or fuzzy concepts like ‘thing’ or ‘something’.

Prove my point

This part of writing transcends what print journalists and novel writers must do. Yes, they do it, but my readers expect me to support ideas with links to sources. If I’m reviewing a book, I can easily link to the author’s website for deeper reading. That’s something that can’t happen in paper writing. Sure, they can provide the link, but to put the paper down, open the laptop, copy that link–I mean, who does that? In a blog, I get annoyed if someone cites research and doesn’t provide the link.

What my voice was

I write thrillers. To pen a good thriller, you have to do what James Frey suggested in his exemplary guideline for thriller writers, including:

1. Have no bland, colorless characters
2. Have a hook at the end of each chapter
3. Be fresh in your writing
4. Keep the clock ticking and the excitement mounting

For me, that means keep my writing relevant and engaging with hooks that make readers come back for more. Literary fiction writers do it differently. My blog approach matches my novels.

How to work through the dry times

I rarely have writer’s block, but when I do, I jump into the blogosphere and see what my colleagues are writing. In my novel, I discovered that researching would water down the dry spells. The same thing works for blogging.

How to persevere

Three years of blogging and I’m still waiting to make it big. What’s that mean to me? I want that knock on my virtual door from Atlantic or USA Today asking me to come on board as a paid house blogger. Truth, that probably won’t happen and by now, I wouldn’t know what to do if I stopped personal blogging.

How to market my writing

I try lots of ideas to market my writing, but thanks to the blogosphere, I know what everyone else is doing. I can try as much or little of it as I want. For me, I found a comfortable baseline and add a few pieces every year (this year, it’s Pinterest).

One point worth mentioning is headlines. Usually, all you get from a reader is seven seconds–long enough to read the title, maybe the first line. If that title doesn’t seem personal and relevant, potential readers move on. There are over 450 million English language blogs. That’s a lot of competition. I better hit a home run with that title.

There are lots of opinions out there

Often, I share my thoughts on the pedagogy of writing. Sometimes, I’m surprised at comments I get. They might touch a corner of the idea I hadn’t thought of or be 180 degrees from my conclusions. It forces me to think bigger as I write, consider how people who aren’t me will read my words. That’s both humbling and empowering. I think I’m much better at that than I used to be.

There are a lot of smart people in the world

In a previous lifetime when I built child care centers for a living, I read lots of data that said people thought the education system was broken–but not in their area. They considered themselves lucky because their schools worked. Well, as I meandered through life, I realized that applies to everything. People are happy with what they’re comfortable with and frightened/suspicious of what they aren’t used to. Through blogging, I get to delve into those ideas with them because we feel like friends. I’ve found that lots of people are smart, intuitive, engaged in life, looking to improve the world. I’m glad I learned that.

How to be responsible

Yes, blogging is demanding. I have to follow through on promises made in my blog profile and posts. When I say I’ll offer writing advice weekly, I have to even if I’m tired or busy with other parts of my life. It’s not as hard as it sounded when I first started. If you’re a mom, you’ve got the mindset. Just apply it to blogging.

How to be a friend

My readers visit my posts and comment or poke me with a ‘like’. Maybe, on good days, they repost. Those are nice attaboys. I always return the favor by dropping by their blog to see what they’re up to, drop a line or two on their latest article. It takes time, but like any relationship, is worth it. I have online friends I’ve never met who I feel closer to than half the people in my physical world. I’ve seen them struggle with cancer, new jobs, unemployment, kid problems. I’ve learned a lot about life from them.

Thank you to my virtual friends who have taken time to get to know me–you know who you are.

I’d love to hear your ideas.

That has become greatest writing fear. What will others think of my writing? Will they consider me up to the mark? Is this a fear more common with writers who work collaboratively? After all, there is more at stake here than just one’s own reputation?

The fear of not being up to the mark is not always a negative thing. Sometimes it can motivate me to produce my best work. More often than not, however, it is paralysing and results in, at best, some mediocre writing.

What do I do to try and counter this? Sometimes nothing. Those are the dry periods in my creative life? One thing I have discovered recently is the need to not put myself under pressure. A large part of this is the ability to just walk away from things when I need to. I know I’m not going to produce anything worthwhile by just staying in front of the keyboard anyway. But if I get away, I can come back with renewed enthusiasm. And that usually helps.