Thinking About the Fear of Failure

Sorry, I’m running a bit late today

It’s been a busy morning. I’ve prepped four signed copies of The Kringle Conspiracy for the mail today — I have friends that want my signature. It took extra coffee to get me on task today, because I had nightmares about getting the wrong signed book in the right envelope. I swore, with that, I would complete the task first thing before I psyched myself out. Task completed; now to mail them.

Which brings me to my topic

How is it we let fear of failure get in the way of our dreams? It’s common enough that Harvard Business Review has an article on how to overcome fear of failure. So do others, but I like HBR’s version because it fits with my world view. (wise words or confirmation bias? You decide.)

Here’s their list with my musings:

Refine failure. This fits in with the SMART model of goal-setting. I covered the other day — goals should be attainable. I set a goal of “getting traditionally published”, and given the market, that might have been aiming too high for a first-time author. I still have that goal, but I set other goals like “self-publish one book”, and I feel satisfied with self-publishing The Kringle Conspiracy and its sequel coming out in November, Kringle in the Night.
Set approach rather than avoidance goals. This is the difference between “avoiding rejection” and “get published”. Or, for another dichotomy, “losing weight” vs “making healthy habits. If I accentuate failure, I start the journey to success cranky and hopeless.
Make a “fear list“. This is one I hadn’t heard of, and I’m going to start doing it. The technique is: 1) write what you’re afraid of, 2) write what you’ll do to keep it from happening; 3) write down what you’ll do if it happens. I’m thinking about how I might use this in my life.
Focus on learning. This one I love the most — because I believe my purpose in life is to always be learning. Those messy first drafts became polished novels with the help of experience. I managed to stumble through self-publishing. I’ve gotten tons of rejections, but it’s okay because I’ve learned. Success or failure, we will hopefully always learn.

The question

Drop me a line — how do you deal with favor? And which of these pieces of advice do you think will work in your life?

Just Do It

I’m having trouble writing this blog today.

I’m struggling with inertia when it comes to writing the blog today. Inertia is, so far, winning. To the point that I stare at this vista of screen space and … blank.

I try to write this blog as a show and tell — I show you what I do today and tell you the practical underpinnings. Not “You should do this” as much as “I’m trying this and this is how it’s working for me.”

At this point, I can abandon the blog till later — a practice we call procrastination.

So what do I do about my blog-writing woes?

I’m going to address this in terms of procrastination advice, which goes beyond “just do it” (thank you, Nike) and into practical advice. Procrastination breakers I’ve learned are as follows:

Break the job into smaller parts — this gives you motivational boosts in small doses when you need them
Put a reward at the end of the task
Do five-ten minutes of the task, promising yourself you’ll quit if you’re still unmotivated.

So, how’s it working?

You might notice I have headers. Not just because it makes it easier for you to read, but because it makes it easier for me to write. This is my breaking up the job into the smaller parts. (Yay, I’m done with two parts so far!)

My reward at the end of the blog? Another cup of coffee, because I can be motivated by caffeine, always. Coffee, tea, it doesn’t matter.

Doing five to ten minutes of the task — I always work like this, and for some reason I never quit tasks after that 10 minutes. Why? Because once I’m into the task, my brain wakes up and I end up finishing the task.

I’m almost done with this blog, and I didn’t know if I would abandon it at the beginning of the writing. Now time for coffee!

Now for you

Tell me what your go-to procrastination!

Just one more thing

I finally have my professional website updated for the spring and highlighting the Christmas in July deal I have for The Kringle Conspiracy. There are blog entries there too, but they’re more professional writer type things — book plugs, cover reveals, logos, that sort of thing. You can find my professional blog here.

Stop by and say hi!

Productive Day Yesterday

In-between grading final exams

I spent much of yesterday sitting around waiting for final exams in my Happiness class. (Yes, I teach a Happiness class). But I didn’t wait idly (or watch House reruns).

I instead worked on some Canva products branding my contemporary/fantasy romance side. (I still need some logo for my contemporary fantasy line)

So, this was fun

Here’s the logo:

I chose this logo because:

I use small initials to initial items, and so this is my “signature”.
It’s simple — I wasn’t into florid floral patterns
That heart.

Here’s an advertisement:

I highly recommend Canva

I’ve been doing all this work on a web-based design program called Canva. I have exactly one course in design under my belt, and that was 37 years ago. (I didn’t go further in design because of my profound hand-eye coordination problems).

What should I do for my fantasy persona?

Urgk — I don’t mean my persona as a karate-wielding grandma. I mean my professional logo, etc for my fantasy books. I’d like to use the initials again, but what do I dot the j with? Let me know what you think.

Inertia

My summer is about to begin

The only thing standing between me and summer is one final due today at noon. All I have to do is grade it, turn the grades in, and I am done with this school year.

The trouble with free time

What do I have planned? Not enough. I have sixteen interns to supervise over the summer, and I have a lot of time to do things. But the problem with a lot of time to do things is that it’s too easy to do nothing. The old saying is that work expands to fill the time. My experience is the opposite: Nothing expands to fill the time. I watch reruns on my computer, surf for hours, and engage in ‘horizontal snoring meditation’ (i.e. naps).

The best use of my time

This is a question I’m going to keep asking myself over the summer — “Is this the best use of my time”? This question, if I’m being honest with myself, is the best motivator. Sometimes horizontal snoring meditation is the best use of my time; other times, it’s a waste. Many times, writing or the like will be the best use of my time. But this should keep me from too much dawdling.

Setting goals

I need to set some goals for the summer. Goals should be SMART. Which means:

Specific
Measurable
Action Oriented
Relevant
Time-bound

Goals help motivation by giving focus and standards and deadlines. I have not made my goals SMART yet, but here’s the beginning:

I will work on writing/plotting at least 2 hours a day
I will finish a short story or poem once a week

These may be overly ambitious, but I need to push myself or else I will get sucked into the void.

My work cut out for me

If I can stick with the goals (and if they’re realistic) I should have a fruitful summer. We shall see.

Pushing Myself to Write

The goal

I’ve been pushing myself to do one writing-related thing per day (this blog doesn’t count). I’m pushing myself because I am not currently enamored with an idea; no project obsessions here.

I thrive on project obsessions, so when they’re not there, I tend to panic. Which is why I’m doing the daily writing gig — to jog me into that state of flow where there’s nothing except the writing and me.

“How’s that working for you?”

I wrote and edited a poem, so that counts for something. I’ve revised two cover letters and sent in queries of two books (one small press, one large). I haven’t come up with any big ideas yet, but there’s a whole summer to work on things. I have an idea for this fall’s Kringle story, but I won’t work on that till NaNoWriMo in November.

I really need to write some short stories, flash, and poetry. Those will give me submittables for Submittable. As I’ve said before, I’ve been advised to stop writing novels for a while and start with smaller story submissions.

What I want to work on this summer

More stories in the Kel and Brother Coyote arc
Some short stories and flash based on prompts Richard gave me
Work on my own list of prompts — I’m actually playing with this this morning and need to write these down:
- A middle aged housewife fights a fae infestation
- The denizens of Hell unionize
- A little girl inherits her grandfather’s dragon

That should keep me busy.

Hope and the Writer

Sometimes I feel like Sisyphus

Getting (traditionally) published seems like an endless bout of submit, rejection, revise, repeat. Like Sisyphus with that rock he kept pushing up that hill. I admit that, when I get a rejection, I feel like that boulder has rumbled over me. But then, after a few minutes mourning, I appreciate the opportunity to try again.

Then hope sets in

I can’t stay sad for too long when there are revisions that can be made (to my document or to my query materials), submissions to make, and new possibilities that I have to check out. What pushes me forward is hope — hope that I have a better product, that someone sees promise in it, and that I will finally get the chance to show my stories to other people.

Hope carries me

Hope carries me past the rejections, past the self-flagellation, past the desire to give up. With hope, each round of submissions is new as I try something else. Perhaps I will give up and self-publish, but self-publishing doesn’t push me toward excellence as much as trying to get traditionally published does. Hope is a heady sensation, like the sunlight on a June day, whispering “Maybe this time … “

P.S. for May 2, 2021

I tried to do nothing

Today I was supposed to do nothing. Instead, I revised two query cover letters and submitted two novels and two stories on Submittable.

Then I lazed around

So it’s okay; I got some rest.

Lazy Sunday

I can’t reach escape velocity

My mind is simultaneously antsy and lazy — I should be DOING something! I have an exam to grade! I could be creating advertising materials for my book! I should be — my brain can’t focus. I feel like laying in my bed all day watching House episodes on my phone.

The tired part — end of the school year

I understand the tired part — I just got off a full semester without any Spring Break, after a year of severely restricted activity due to COVID. I made it without more than one or two sick or mental health days all year (due to the ability to teach over Zoom). With finals all that are left, I find myself slumping my shoulders and relaxing.

The antsy part — in need of flow

It occurs to me that the antsy part is the craving for flow. Flow is a psychological concept that refers to the state of being completely captivated in an activity that uses your abilities at an optimal level. Writing is a flow activity for me, as is editing. Designing (with my limited abilities) is another. Most of my flow activities happen at a computer and fit in with my writing, which is probably why I write.

No challenge is optimal when I’m just coming off a brain-numbing school year. I’ve been challenged out. I’m still dealing with three exams to grade this week and unhappy students.

Antsy part 2 — in search of accomplishment

Another part of my always needing to do something is the feeling of satisfaction I get from accomplishment. I delight in making things happen. I love finishing a chapter, a novel, a cover letter. I get motivated by the finished product as well as the process (the flow). Again, my mind is having none of that.

How to take care of myself

This is a time where perhaps doing nothing (or next to nothing) would be the best thing to do. It’s hard for me to do, because I’m always trying to wrap myself in flow activities and completing projects when I’m not working. Although I’m addicted to flow and accomplishment, maybe I could use something more relaxing but inspiring like daydreaming or meditating. Or maybe I should just read reruns of House and see if I can diagnose those disorders.

Imagination Living Beside Reality

When I was a child …

When I was a child, I was an imaginative sort, and my imagination lived beside reality. I knew the tree wasn’t sentient when I spoke to it, but at the same time I had an attachment to it as if we had a relationship. The tree wasn’t and was sentient. I was and wasn’t a human.

I didn’t put away childish things

As I grew older, I discovered creative writing and received lots of encouragement from my English teachers. I mostly wrote poetry back then, prosy poems that tried to communicate emotions, and to this day I’m not enamored of my poetry.

But I wrote stories. My stories tended to involve imagination living beside reality — Santa Claus as a young toymaker in a small town (see my romance novel for how that worked out),an anthropologist who discovers a collective of otherworldly beings (which has been written and now needs a home), an unstable woman who meets the ghost of the boy she killed in a car wreck — or did she?

What I developed in college and later was the concept of world-building. I had to show people that there was a reason why the trees were talking telepathically, why the titans struggled with their too-human longings and why the humans struggled with their sudden preternatural gifts. The basis of my writing is the tension between the hidden and ordinary worlds, the stories hidden in plain sight.

My world today

My world is one where I keep my foot planted in both worlds. No matter what genre I start in, two things will show up: 1) that other world hidden in plain sight; 2) relationships between people who are coping with that “other” world, whether they be from the hidden or ordinary worlds.

I would love to share this world with you

Please let me know in the comments if you would like to know more about my writing!