Are You That Person at the Back of the Room?

That guy at the back of the room, the one at the edge of the party, the one in the bar who only talks to people who approach him? That guy isn't aloof. He isn't unfriendly.

That guy is me. I have been accused of being aloof and standoffish.

Could be you, too. Right? (Guy or gal, this is NOT gender-specific.)

I am shy. Most people don't guess that. I'm pretty much an introvert, although after a drink or three, you might beg to differ.

I don't like rejection (who does?) so I avoid putting myself out there.

At a party, I'll zero in on the person or two I know and hang with them all night. I don't work a room. Never could. I've no doubt missed interesting folk.

So have a set myself up for failure? Actually, no. I don't stay home and entirely avoid the situation.

Approach me, say hello, even toss a slight nod my way, and I'm ready to chat. A smile given gets a smile returned.

Know what?

Many, many people are the same. Just like us. Oh, they look friendly and outgoing in their immediate group. Remember what I said about zeroing in on the ones you know? Comfort zone. So you, we, look at them and think what a clique, bunch of snobs, stuck-up.

Of course, sometimes that is true. We do run the terrible risk of putting ourselves out there, saying hello first, introducing ourselves, whatever, only to find no interest, a down-the-nose glance, and a turn away.

It's happened. I didn't die. Sometimes you win.

My point?

Let me relate it to writing. I'm not convinced my stories or my book are great. Sometimes, not even really good. But I kinda do, and other people have thought so. When it came to the publishing world, the odds kept me from participating with serious intent for most of my younger life. Oh, I wrote. Plenty. Stories. A novel. I queried, some, not a lot. I expected rejection and got it, and it didn't kill me. I got a solid bite from an agent who rejected the manuscript. And a small publisher, when I decided I really didn't care about landing an agent and a deal with one of the Big Five, where I'd no doubt be buried alive, anyway. But I didn't stay home from the party.

Then someone said yes.

Sometimes you go to the bar and nurse a beer and go home alone. Sometimes you nod back when someone nods your way, and you go home with a hottie who may a great one-night toss, or may be a forever real thing.

Don't assume you won't win. Maybe you won't. But maybe you will. Maybe you'll be misunderstood, your reticence taken for arrogance. But maybe you'll connect. Don't be afraid.

One thing is sure. You never will if you don't go out and try. As "they" say, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.

Oh, and that other person, the one not talking, across the room, at the bar, the party, the one who looks so up-in-the-air? That person may be just like you. Like me. Smile.

How Do You Measure Success?

Have you done what you set out to do? No, really. Have you?

If what you set out to do was to top the NYT bestseller list for six months, chances are, you've failed. If it was to have your brilliant work optioned AND green-lighted for a major motion picture, well... Short-listed for the Pulitzer? No? Please step out of the arena.

Bob Dylan once wrote, "She knows there's no success like failure, and that failure's no success at all."

In each case above, with a few rare exceptions, the goal, the expectation, almost guarantees failure. So back up, friend.

If you're a writer, didn't you set out to write? Didn't you begin by learning basics of the craft? Did you do that? Sure you did. Can you write a decent sentence? Build a character arc? A story arc? Did you get all that under your belt? Uh huh. That's a success.

Did you actually complete the short story you started? Success.

Did you revise it and hone it and make it better? Yay for you. Yes. Another success.

Did you show it to someone other than your mother/wife/husband/dog? A crit partner? A beta reader? Yeah, now you're humming along. That's brave. That's success.

Did you write another? Major success. It's probably better than the last one, too, isn't it? Check.

Did you set out to write a novel and actually begin it? Did you outline the whole thing? Or grab what felt like a good idea and jump off the cliff with it? Doesn't matter how you began, only that you did begin. Did you? That's huge.

What's even more huge? Finding your way all the way down the road you set in front of yourself. Getting to the end. It never happens without detours, unexpected twists, roadblocks, delays, traffic jams, and, thankfully, stretches of sweet, clear speeding along. But did you get to the end? High five. Champagne.

Of course, since you're a writer, you know it isn't finished. It needs revision, editing, and that will, no doubt, require several passes. But you did it, didn't you? It may not be perfect. I don't think any artist ever believes her work is perfect. Perfect is for the gods. But did you expose it to other eyes, consider critiques, and revise? And revise again, until it felt good to you? And then get brave enough to let it go?

Every day we have successes, but instead of enjoying them and wallowing a moment in the warm light of gratification, we look ahead at bigger things, often things we may never attain, other people's ideas of success, ridiculous expectations, and we miss the fact that we are doing something we love, bit by bit, line by line, character by character, story by story.

Are you a writer, and are you writing? Are you doing something that (when you're not gnashing teeth) makes you happy, deep inside? Do you know what courage that takes and how fortunate you are to be creating worlds and people to fill them?

Sure, it would feel great to have your novel optioned. Land a three-book deal. The Pullitzer. Hell, why not the Nobel? But, on the slight off-chance that those don't happen...

Look at what you have done, what you have accomplished. What you are accomplishing every day. Every well-crafted paragraph, chapter, story.

I'd call all those successes. Wouldn't you?

So lift a glass! Celebrate all your successes.

Of course, I may be crazy, but isn't that part of the job description?

(Originally written for a Speculative Fiction blog on AgentQueryConnect, revised.)

Many thanks to Angie for her invitation to talk about what inspires my writing.

Short answer: the magic of words.

 I began reading early, and early discovered the power of words to transport me, to show me the world in new ways, to take me to places unknown. I didn't begin churning out stories as a kid, as many seem to do. I absorbed and observed. I read, not just for the stories, but for the magic of the words themselves.

I've always read slowly. To me, a joy of reading is in the rhythm and color of beautifully constructed sentences, of images that startle me with their clarity, that cause me to read a sentence or paragraph over again just to immerse myself in it. I always will stop to smell the roses.

My early years as the son of a Presbyterian minister whose father had been a missionary to Korea, where my father was born, exposed me to a world of music, art, and spirituality. I played piano, and later, guitar and other folk instruments. I learned the power of art in its many forms to move people. And I learned, as I grew through school, that I had a talent with words.

For a brief time, I taught high school English, and my greatest reward (maybe the only one) came from seeing my kids awaken to their own power with words. I assigned controversial topics for essays and drew stories out of them. Convince me, I said. Make me believe.

Somewhere along the way, in college (isn't that where it always happens?) I began to question dogma.  New possibilities, worlds beyond worlds, unseen forces teased me to look, to wonder.

I wrote songs. Love songs. Songs of social protest. I used the power of words to influence, to move, and to entertain. I wrote poetry, unstudied, free, spontaneous, and the world around me became a live canvas from which to draw.

I'm moved to write because I can. Because the world is a huge, fascinating, terrifying place. A place of ecstasy and sorrow, of heroism and cowardice, of generosity and love and cold, hard malice.  And I've come to feel that we who write have a power to inspire the better aspects of our humanity while seeing all the colors and shying from none. We can entertain. We can offer distraction from pain. We can paint with words. We can show the strength of love in the unlikeliest circumstances.

If, with my use of words, I can transport a reader to a new place, make her look up from the page in an "oh, wow" moment, or cringe in horror, or laugh, or cry, then I've worked a bit of magic.

The pen may well be mightier than the sword. In good hands, it's a magician's wand.

About Dinosaurs and Why We Write

A month today since my last entry. I hear many writers say they write because they must, because they can't NOT write. I don't have that problem, obviously. I write because I love to write. I love to put words together for many reasons, none of which have to do with a compulsion to write.

I like to tell stories. I like to paint pictures with words, pictures that make someone else feel a scene as I intend. I like to create (or recreate) emotions. And all that is so amazingly banal. Every writer wants those basics. Craft. No, I write because I like to influence, change or open minds, find commonality. I question and want to shake fixed beliefs and systems and get others to question, or see differently.

I write because I want to make a difference. I admit it. I want to influence people, not to think like I think--that may change from day to day--but to think, period. Not to accept anything as truth because someone has said it is. Yes, that would include priests, politicians, and ministers, imams, and rabbis (and my own father was a minister.) And that brings me to dinosaurs.

I live within driving distance of The Creation Museum. Someday I will go see it, when I think I can keep a straight face, because my experience with the people who might frequent the place is that they often have little sense of humor. But come on, folks. Given the abundance of scientific data, how can these people actually believe that dinosaurs and humans (homo sapiens, of course, since there can't have been any other types of humanoid bipeds in earth's history) existed side by side? Did Noah just forget to take them on the ark? Or did he simply, defiantly disobey God's direct command? Or, wait...might there not have been dinosaurs on the planet at the time of the flood?

It was in the paper today that the creator of the Creation Museum is going to build a life-sized replica of the ark. I wonder where he got the plans and specs? I mean, of course, other than the Biblical cubits of length, breadth, etc. Been a while since I've looked at the specs. But damn, it's going to be tight for the brontosauruses.

And yet, as the military's report on Don't Ask Don't Tell has finally been released, saying what most knew it would say, one man refuses to listen, and he is in a position to allow the change that will happen to move forward. No, he says. It doesn't matter what the people think, what the soldiers think (except those who agree with him), this is wrong because, because, because he believes it is.

Dinosaurs do live among us. I stand corrected.

Now, I don't want my blog to be about politics. I want it to be fun and interesting. But I realize that I don't necessarily agree with the mogul who said, to paraphrase, "If you want to send a message, call Western Union." I don't want to preach or be preached to. I don't want to write polemics. And yet, I do want to influence. I admit it. Pry minds open. Offer questions. Question every assumption. I believe that people with talent to write should use it for the betterment of this small world. Sure, mysteries are great, and comedies, and horror stories, and romance, and dystopian literary journeys into a bleak future. Entertainment for the sake of entertainment is pure wonder and joy. I'm all for it. But between the jokes and the twists and the unique turns of phrase, we need to speak out.

Where are we going, when all movement stops while we each obstruct the other? We'll never all agree. How boring would that be? But must we fight? Must we live in fear? Do we tell stories only to distract? To allay the fear? Or do we look for some truths? Not the ones fed to us. Imagine no religion, John Lennon said. Imagine. Imagine all the people...  Well, we all know. I think that's why I write.

Why do you?