I Guess That's Why They Call it the Blues

WARNING: I'm suffering a mild case of the I'm Not at Conference Blues so this post isn't as upbeat as usual. Probably more because I'm getting bored blogging about the same book every day. :) But blues fits the topic and there's definitely something to learn.

To be honest, I'm getting a little impatient with these chapters in Writing from the Inside Out. They cover different stumbling blocks but the advice is the same. Good, but the same. Today's chapter is Fear and the advice is the same; we have to mine our fears to make our writing stronger.

Point taken and on to the next chapter. Really more of the same. The chapter is The Judge and the focus is our inner critic. I'm sure I don't have to tell you anything about inner critics. We know them all too well. To quote Palumbo, "You're a writer. Which means you're your own worst critic. Join the club." (p. 81) I guess the only advice is work with your inner critic to improve but don't let it stifle you.

Moving right along - Double-Barreled Blues. Honestly, this chapter is depressing. But that's the point I guess, of a chapter with that title. According to Palumbo, writers face two truths - first that the only advice we can follow is - to do the same thing - write, query, network, write some more, query some more, network some more - ad infinitum or until someone buys your work and then you do it again for the next one. That he says, also meets the definition of crazy (doing the same thing over and over without success). How depressing. Yes, I'm hearing some blues. But now comes the second barrel - that writing is the one field where the "belief, nurtured from childhood and reinforced in everyday life, in the validity of cause and effect," doesn't hold. (p. 83) Study and you'll do better on tests. Work hard and you'll get a raise. "Eat your spinach, you'll grow up big and strong." (p. 83)

I'm not sure I buy that it's all really that easy in the real world. Tell that to someone who has worked hard all their life only to lose a job when the company fails or the people whose savings were lost due to some unscrupulous person.

Still, though it's true that no matter how much you write, there's no golden promise that you'll sell, it's also true that if you stop, you'll never sell.

I read a wonderful blog this morning that's proof of that. Anna Standiszewski's blog on Writing The One" over on Adventures in Children's Publishing. It's a fabulous blog on the power of perseverance. Check it out.

Tomorrow's chapter is fun - Myths, Fairy Tales and Woody Allen, so be sure to come back.

And now, because I love to share music here and because a lot of people are feeling the I'm not at conference blues -





So how about you? Suffering not at conference blues or happy to be home and productive? What do you think about the advice I've been sharing?

Faith v. Doubt

Remember those Saturday morning cartoons - the character has to make a decision but there's an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other and they're offering conflicting advice.

Now transfer that image to you as you write and the angel and devil become the forces of faith and doubt. An easy choice, right?

Not so says Palumbo in the next chapter of Writing from the Inside Out. We want faith to win over doubt but he says it's a mistake to try to banish doubt. "Just as courage has no meaning without fear, faith has no meaning without doubt. They're the yin and yang of all aspiration." (p. 73)

I know that's true of my teaching. My doubts are what force me to be a better teacher. They're what I see when I evaluate a year or a lesson and look to see what I can improve. After all these years, I certainly have faith in my talent as a teacher, but doubt keeps me fresh, keeps me doing professional development.

It's interesting to me then, to see how that translates to my writing. Yes, my doubt there also makes me strive to learn more, to study craft, but it's also far more apt to paralyze me, send me into a spiral of negative thinking.

Just like that envy from yesterday, we're supposed to learn to access faith and doubt and use them. "The plain fact is, the more willing you are to mine the landscape of your own doubts, the truer and more recognizably human your own characters will be." (p. 73).

So, go forth and doubt yourself.

And have a great day.

Feelings of Envy

All serious daring starts from within. ~ Eudora Welty


So far we've discussed
Part One - The Writing Life
Part Two - You are Enough
and now is Part Three entitled Grist for the Mill

The first chapter is Envy and it couldn't be more appropriate this week as I envy all the writers heading off to Orlando for the RWA National Conference or the ones heading to LA next weekend for SCBWI or the ones who recently attended Thrillerfest or RomCon.

According to Palumbo, that's not a bad thing. I'm just supposed to acknowledge the feeling and determine how it affects my writing. Does it stop me? Do I see it as a moral failing or a negative reflection on my work? He says that it's healthy to see it as a confirmation of how important goals are that we'd feel envious of those who achieve them.


The danger of envy - or any emotion - is when you allow it to deplete you. I love that word. Deplete. Sometimes my writing depletes me. That's when I know I've put all of myself into it. But sometimes the realities of the publishing world deplete me. That's what I need to fight. Palumbo suggests that we learn to "measure ourselves by internal monitors; to enjoy the expression of our creative talents for their own sake" (p. 70) rather than fall prey to the all too common paralysis of envy.

Rather, I'm supposed to use that envy - embrace it and incorporate it in my work because feelings are information that will color my writing, make it accessible to readers.

I think this sentence is so true (long, but true).

To the extent to which a writer can access this information (all feelings), and own it, this is the degree to which his or her work compels the reader to keep reading - to continue exploring, in tandem with the writer, the commonality of their experience as fellow human beings. (p. 67)

If there's anyone out there this week, please share your thoughts. How do you tap into your feelings with your writing.

Have you attended any great writing conferences?

You're No John Kennedy

If I didn't scare you away with yesterday's post, I'm curious to know if this one hits home.

The title of this chapter is "You're No John Updike!" Palumbo makes the same connection I made when I first read the title. If you're of a certain age, you may have immediately thought of Lloyd Bentsen's famous reply to Dan Quayle when Quayle was comparing his level of experience with that of John Kennedy in the 1988 vice presidential debates. You're No John Kennedy.

Palumbo calls our tendency to compare ourselves to other writers the major obstacle to sustaining a belief in ourselves as writers.

It's really a common sense thing to know we shouldn't compare ourselves - either in quality or quantity, but it's also human to do so.

What makes this chapter thought-provoking is that Palumbo claims the only writer you're really in competition with is yourself. "Think of it this way: Maybe every writer can't be Proust, but every writer can be a better writer." (p. 63)

Something else to think about - he posits that the time you're most likely to fall victim to unfavorable comparisons with others is when you're most unhappy with what you're doing. So conversely, that's the time you need to dig deeper, find and give creative expression to what you really think and feel.

No, you're no John Updike, Dan Quayle was no John Kennedy and I'm no Nora Roberts, but we are striving to be the best writers we can be.

Good luck with it.

We're all crazy

~Part of an ongoing series discussing Dennis Palumbo's Writing From the Inside Out (Transforming Your Psychological Blocks to Release the Writer Within).



Next time you're inclined to say you have writer's block, think of this - the man credited with inventing the term writer's block (Edmund Bergler) said about writers - the reason they write is psychic masochism.

I went and looked up a definition of psychic masochism:

Psychic masochists unconsciously want refusal, rejection, humiliation, defeat. The genuine "wish to get" of infancy is now a defense. They believe they want normal pleasure, but a person "who unconsciously runs after disappointment cannot be consciously happy."**

Isn't that a happy thought to start your day?

To ease your mind, Palumbo is not a fan of Bergler. He includes him mainly to refute what he considers a commonly held opinion that "the creative impulse, with its accompanying emotional difficulties, is merely the product of a psychological disorder. " (p. 57) At the time he wrote this book, apparently it was in fashion to consider all artists bipolar. It strikes me that does a disservice both to writers and to people who genuinely suffer from bipolar illness.


Palumbo points out that certain artists (like Van Gogh) certainly suffered from some form of mental illness but he was also incredibly talented so to draw the conclusion that all artists are crazy reflects a narrowness of vision that betrays the "scope, imagination, and appreciation for the hidden ways of the artistic heart." (p. 59)

I don't know about you, but I prefer to think of myself not as a psychic masochist, but as someone who explores the hidden ways of the artistic heart.

Happy writing.




**Basic Neurosis, The—Oral Regression and Psychic Masochism." International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. Ed. Alain de Mijolla. Gale Cengage, 2005. eNotes.com. 2006. 22 Jul, 2010 basic-neurosis-oral-regression-psychic-masochism

Finding the reward in your writing

I know what happiness is for I have done good work. ~Robert Louis Stevenson

I love happy coincidences like this. Today's chapter in Writing From the Inside Out is about finding the reward in your work. Not financial or concrete rewards but the intangible satisfaction of having done good work.

As I write this blog at 6:48, I've already written over a thousand words this morning. I woke around 3:30 and after fighting insomnia for two hours, I finally got up, brewed some tea, and got to work. And it felt good!

That feeling is the topic of this chapter. Palumbo talks about how marketplace concerns can suck the heart out of a writer if we let them. To avoid the drain of the real world concerns, we need to allow the work, our practice of the craft itself, to become its own reward.

Marketplace requirements change with the seasons. Fads come and go. But good work, from which writers have for centuries drawn sustenance and power, is a kind of "secret of happiness" residing solely in the artist's heart.
And it's yours to discover, if you choose to, every time you write.(p. 56)

What do you think? Is he being unrealistic? Or are you able to separate industry concerns from craft? Is the act of writing enough for you?

What Really Happened

Yesterday we talked about getting out of your own way and letting the writing happen. This next chapter, What Really Happened, expands on that and is really interesting from a psychological standpoint. Palumbo goes back to the theme of mining your own experiences, but insists that we must be willing to let go of our own endings and create what works for the story. Just because it really happened doesn't make it a good story.

It's all about the story.

My husband was watching a Mad Men Marathon on AMC last night. I'd never watched Mad Men before, but he fell asleep and I got drawn into it. What really caught my interest was the conversation breaks with Matt Weiner, creator of the series. I loved that chance to peek into his mind and his thought process as he created each episode. His focus was always on what worked for the characters and the story.


During one of the breaks, AMC played a commercial that featured the cast of Mad Men as themselves, discussing the show. Jon Hamm said, "Story Matters Here." That reminded me of a comment I'd read earlier in the year by one of the creators of GLEE. When asked if he could get a certain star onto the show, he responded that it depended on whether she fit the story, that story came first. With such strong emphasis on story, it's no surprise that these two shows have over 34 Emmy nominations between them.


It's all about the story.


So back to Palumbo and how we use our life experiences in developing story. He offers something to consider:

As the impulse to use this incident for a story arises, something happens. Your imagination and craft - even your desire to use the incident - renders it no longer merely a memory from your past, but a story to be shaped. Events are changed, truncated, altered in sequence... In other words, what started as a poigant moment from your childhood has become a scene in your novel or screenplay and therefore fodder for the sometime ruthless demands of aesthetic and craft.(p. 51)

So why is this important?

Apparently writers are often loath to change details of something they experienced. Palumbo uses the example of one writer whose stories kept getting rejected because editors hated the ending. The writer couldn't conceive of changing it because, as she said, "That's what really happened."

This chapter is intriguing on a psychological level because Palumbo explores our reticence to change our experiences. Do we feel that we're betraying ourselves (or the people whose stories we are telling), if we use our(their) stories but change them?

I can't say I recall ever feeling this way. I'm probably more likely to write a scene the way I wish it had happened. Reading this chapter makes me wonder if I'm not falling into that same trap though. Don't I need to think like the creators of GLEE and Mad Men and write what makes a great story, not what I want to happen in it? If, as Palumbo states in the previous chapter, all writing is autobiographical, I need to consider if I'm trying to remake incidents in my life to fit my preferred outcome.

Food for thought.

For example, I've read many authors who say writing conflict is their most difficult task because they are peaceful people and they hate to have bad things happen to characters they like. Yet we know that without conflict, story fails.


What do you think? Do you put story first? Or is your subconscious making demands at the expense of your story?