Tag: solutions

On Second-Guessing My Ability

This picture has nothing to do with today’s topic.



I second-guess my writing talent all the time. I live with a constant critic who has no trouble getting into my head (as it is already in my head) to tell me that my writing isn’t enough — not interesting enough, not good enough, not publishable enough. The voice insists that I am writing the same stuff I wrote back in sixth grade.

Despite this, I’m not adverse to critiques. In fact, I relish getting better. But I’m still afraid I’m not good enough.

I hear this is not uncommon to writers, that most writers feel a constant sense of doubt, and that we wouldn’t want to meet one who doesn’t. But I need to shake this sense of self-censure (and self-censorship) for my long-overdue re-editing of Gaia’s Hands. I have to believe in the book to make it better.  

So, how to believe? Cognitive journaling might help — counteract all the mind-reading (“the critics hate it”) and fortune-telling (“I’ll never get published”) and name-calling (“I’m so talentless!”) and awfulizing (“my stuff sucks”). 

I joke about a magic spell, because I feel like my writing career is cursed. Of all the things I pooh-pooh in my life, curses are not one of them. I half-way believe in curses, even as I suspect they’re an externalization of one’s failure scripts. I’m looking at how to break the curse.

I suspect, though, I will have to live with it and create despite it. And someday, when/if I get published, I will celebrate all the harder.


No Excuses Today

I can’t avoid writing any more.

I had excuses the past couple days — “I’m tired from writing my final”; “I’m tired from driving down to Kansas City and back to visit my intern” — good excuses, both of them, But, honestly, I need to get back into the scheme of things.

Another excuse I’ve made to myself is that I’m used to working at the cafe, because it’s out of the house, it’s novel yet familiar, and there’s coffee (admittedly there’s coffee at home, but it takes work). I haven’t been able to work at the cafe lately because of the need for two screens at this point in editing. I need one screen to look at the  marked-up Word copy of Prodigies and the other to make changes to the Scrivener copy (I keep my work on Scrivener because I can print out manuscripts and the like as needed.) We have an office, a claustrophobic affair with two big screens, but it’s easier to avoid working there because I can quit right after I’ve started without having to pack up, pay my tab, and drive home. (Those items are disincentives to leaving, believe me.)

Richard got the idea to utilize my old (and unused) iPad as a second screen for mobile editing. It’s a great idea, as it turns out — even though the screen is small, it will show enough information for me to work with. The software to do this, which must be installed on both the iPad and the PC, is called Duet Display and the details are here: Duet Display. 

So I have no excuses today. I only have a meeting in the morning, and then I’m free. I have a system to work with to help with the dual display need, and I have a place to go.

Now to steel myself to the fact that I need to stack all chances against the poor residents of Barn Swallows’ Dance and kill a few. 

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Note: I have gotten a couple of rejections since yesterday, but I’m okay with it. They weren’t big things, and one of them was hastily written to meet a theme. I’m still waiting on big stuff.