I Think I Can

I've been bad. I haven't posted here in quite a while. It's not for lack of things to write. It's more a matter of finding time. I've been working really hard to finish my current novel. Lately, I've been making myself write at least a thousand words a night. This doesn't sound like much, but in the world of children's books, it's quite a bit. With young adult novels topping out at 60,000 words, and middle grade at 40,000, you could conceivably write 7 or 8 books a year. If it only it were that easy.

It does get easier though, if you're consistent. Some nights, I find myself hitting a thousand words in just over an hour. Of course, these are draft pages and will need revision, but it makes me wonder just what we could be capable of if we are able to silence the inner thoughts that rebel against the creative process.

My three year old approaches anything she does with the belief that she can do it. Sure, she gets frustrated if it doesn't work out the way she planned, but she keeps at it. The concept of failure doesn't really seem to be something in her universe. I think the dreams we had as children are something that life crushes out of us as we grow up and into the world. For the creative process to be successful, we have to reverse some of that damage. Otherwise, we will find ourselves losing courage at the first sign of rejection.

As the noble Little Engine That Could said, "I think I can" is the first step to achieving your goal. Personally, I think he should have said. "I know I can" but as we all know, a good story needs an air of uncertainty.

So, as you write, allow yourself to be that child who thought he or she could be an astronaut, an actress, or an explorer. Allow yourself to believe you can, and if you doubt, ask yourself one question. Do you know anyone who ever achieved their goal believing they couldn't do so?

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Surviving a Self Doubt Sneak Attack

The other night, I was riding home from my critique group when I was blindsided with an attack of self doubt. For a moment, the idea of a bunch of adults getting together to share their writing with the hope someone will want to read it enough to pay money for it seemed silly. Not only did it seem like such a far-fetched dream, it also felt incredibly naïve. After all, there are tens of thousands of writers out there. Who were we to think we were good enough to compete with that?

For a moment, I felt a bit of anxiety about my chosen profession. Firefighters are always needed. Doctors, police officers, social workers, teachers, nurses…the list of professions that have proven value goes on. Writers seemed unnecessary to me, at least in that moment of self doubt, until I thought a little deeper. While many professions have immediate impact on the lives of others, stories shape and define us in countless ways. In fact, stories do more than entertain; they reflect and influence our entire existence. Think for a moment of what life would be like without stories. When you got up in the morning, there would be no paper to read. There would be no books to curl up with; no movies to see or television to watch. Even most video games contain an element of story. What would be left for us to do?

I don't mean this to suggest that writing is the highest noble calling. There are numerous occupations that are more so. But there will always be a desire for story, no matter how the format they are delivered in changes. If you write a quality story, one that's subject will appeal to a wide group of readers, you will find an audience.

Speaking of quality stories, my wife received two movies from Netflix this week which, quite by accident, centered around writing. The first was Stranger than Fiction, in which the main character discovers he is actually a character in a novel. The question is, does he control his own fate, or does the narrator? The other was Music and Lyrics, in which an '80's pop music star rejuvenates his career when he discovers a lyricist who helps him see why the lyrics are the heart of the song. These were both a lot of fun, and I found them inspiring. In fact, the second one helped me write a new beginning for one of my books. Obviously, I highly recommend both of them.

The reason I mention these movies here, though, is that inspirational stories help you survive attacks of self doubt. I know some writers keep poorly written, published books on hand to pull out when they feel insecure, but for me, that just tells you it's okay to be mediocre. Inspirational stories help you aspire to greatness. Which would you rather be? A mediocre published writer, or a great writer who hasn't been discovered? I'd much rather aspire to the latter, especially since truly great writers usually don't remain unpublished forever.

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That They Might Have Joy

One of my favorite stories of all time is Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. For me, there is nothing more powerful writing-wise than a redemption story. This year, though, I've realized the story is deeper than that. While Ebeneezer Scrooge is a horrible person, filled with despair and bitterness at a world he perceives as a hard, cruel place, he is also very much a part of us. Just as he has his ghosts of past, present and future, so do we.

Our pasts include many things both good and bad. Few of us can say we don't have regrets. We may have treated someone poorly, or missed an opportunity because fear and self-doubt held us back. Our present is a mixed bag as well. Some good things, some bad, some a bit of both.

But the future, that's the spirit Scrooge feared more than any other, and therein is the lesson of the story. The future is the one spirit we should not fear, because much of it is entirely within our control. Obviously not everything about our future can be changed, but we do have some say in it. And with the things we have no say in, it does no good to dwell on them, either. All that does is bring the problems of the future to the present, and increases the time we have to deal with them.

The past is not to be feared, either. The past simply is what it is. More importantly, the past has contributed to who we are now. As writers, our past is the key to unlocking stories that will touch many lives. How we hurt someone, or the mistake we made in letting someone go, even the loss of loved ones close to us, these experiences exist to be drawn upon and laid bare in our writing. This helps readers in the present make choices that won't haunt them from the past. It also comforts readers who have had similar experiences, letting them know that even though they are not perfect, neither is anyone else.

The present, that's the spirit I fear the most. Making the right choices, solving current problems, dealing with the stress and trials of everyday life; these are the things that sometimes haunt me. The solution varies depending on the problems you face, but problems are meant to be solved or accepted, and that's what it will take to make them go away.

In the end, Scrooge had still wasted many years of his life, locked in a bitterness as cold as ice. He had given up the one girl he had ever loved because he feared the world's cruelty. But in the end, in the present time, he decided that Christmas would be something he would keep in his heart all the days of the year, and that made all the difference.

I know the goals and dreams I have has a writer will happen because I will accept nothing else. I refuse to see a vision of my manuscripts lying in a grave while a spirit points a cold bony finger at a headstone. Whatever it is you fear, challenge it. Whatever problems you have, either solve them or accept them. But do not wallow in them. Remember the words of Thomas Aquinas "Men are that they might have joy" and keep Christmas in your heart all the days of the year.

Happy Holidays!

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Hodge Podge, Silver Lining, and Other Cliches

Sorry about my long absence from blogging! Our life is in a huge state of flux with trying to sell our house and starting a new job.

I was thinking about what writing topic I could blog about, especially when I've had such little time to write. A few things have come to mind, but aren't enough to blog about on their own, and they aren't really related to each other, so this will be a bit of a hodge-podge (where did that expression come from anyway?).

First, this year has been like one big long episode of ER, minus the emergency room and medical stuff. In other words, it's been full of personal drama that escapes being labled a soap opera because no one is dying from a rare form of disease, and no one has been caught sleeping with someone they shouldn't. I won't bore you with the details, but I've discovered one of those great life lessons that you can only learn by experiencing it. The lesson is, as you start to make progress and positive change in your life, many of those around you will become resentful. Some will even be outright angry. At first, I was more surprised than anything, and thought it was just an isolated incident. I mean, surely the people who care about you want the best for you, right? By now I've come to realize that isn't true. For some, they only want what's best for you as long as it doesn't make them feel threatened or jealous. The silver lining is that I now know who in my life I can truly count on, and I've learned much about human nature that I can apply to my writing.

The other thing I've learned is more directly related to writing. It's about voice, one of the most difficult and elusive elements of fiction writing. Since the voice in my last book is what landed me an agent, and hopefully will land me publisher, I figured I pretty much had this voice thing down. I was wrong. Of the two projects I'm working on now, voice is working in one, and not in the other. The difference? The project where the voice is working is a fairy story I'm writing for my nieces and nephews, with them as the main characters. The other is not based on any real people, and therein lies the problem. If you don't know your characters, you can't write in their voice. Sounds simple enough to fix, right? Just write down the character traits, age and interest of your characters and you've got it.

I wish it were that simple.

I got lucky with my last book. The voice came first in that case. It was just a line I had written as part of a writing exercise. That one line set the tone for the whole book. But as I thought about it more, I realized that this one line didn't suddenly and magically give me an entire novel. All it did was allow me to write the first chapter, and that allowed me to form the voice.

So what does it take to make your character's voice come out? I think it varies from book to book. In the previous case, a line gave me enough of start I could flesh out the rest. In the fairy book, I knew the characters really well, because they are based on real people I already know and love. So, for the last week, I thought about my main character in this new story. I thought about what his dreams are, and what they were before an incident changed his life forever. I thought about the rest of his family, and how they interacted with him, how they dealt with the incident, and how he felt about them. I also realized that his situation in the book, how he deals with loss, was similar to my own situation right now. Both of us were in the midst of suffering a loss of people we cared about. Then, last night, I had him start writing in a journal his dad gave him as a cheap alternative to therapy, and tried to incorporate some of the feelings I've had recently, and his voice came through loud and clear.

Which brings me back to the silver lining I mentioned before. There are people who will hurt you, envy you, and try to hold back from becoming the person you want to be. They may not know they are doing it, but it still hurts nonetheless. But your voice, your reality even, is not based on what they say or do, but how you react to them. You may choose to let them hold you back, to protect your relationship with them at all cost. But, I think you will find, as my main character is finding, you can't please both yourself and others, when the things you both want contradict each other. And those who really care about you will want you to be happy, even if it means a sacrifice on their part.

So, if you are struggling with your character's voice, think about the experiences you share with them. We are all just the sum of our experiences and choices, and characters in fiction are no different. It may be that some of the hardships and disappointments you've had can turn into something special in your writing, giving you that silver lining you've always heard about. :-)

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Fear- Life's Greatest Thief

Starting a new novel is much harder than it sounds. This will be my fourth novel, not counting a couple that were never finished, and I keep thinking it will get easier each time. But this time it's harder. Maybe because this time I know someone else besides my wife will be reading it.

When I told my critique group members that one of the emotions I was feeling after getting signed by an agent was Fear, no one was more surprised than myself. Why on earth would reaching this milestone cause fear? You'd think fear would lessen as my career progressed.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said "fear defeats more people than anything else in the world.." I couldn't agree more. Fear kept me from having children until I finally mustered up the courage to become a father. Maybe the upside is that I'm a better father because of waiting, but it also means one of my children never got to meet their paternal grandmother, and the other was only two months old before she died. Fear robbed me of the joy of watching them together.

It's much the same story with writing. Fear kept me from seriously attempting to write a book for several years. Once I beat that, it prevented me from sending my work out for a couple of more years. And now that I'm making real progress, it's rearing it's ugly head again. It's a clever thing, fear. It knows what scares you. It knows just what to say to get you out of that chair and do almost anything else rather than allow you to live up to your full potential. Whether or not you believe in the devil himself, there is indeed something assailing our spirit, holding us back at every step.

So last night, I sat down at the computer and forced my fingers to start to work. I typed "Chapter one" and wrote a paragraph. It wasn't a bad paragraph either. It's nothing that would set the literary world on fire. But it was decent. More importantly, it was courage. With each key stroke, that awful little voice that tells us we are nothing, that we are crazy for believing anyone would ever want to read something we wrote, that we aren't worth being loved, or that we can't lose weight, or that we can get a better job… that voice grew quieter.

Fear will always be there, lurking in the dark parts of our soul. But there is one remedy: courage. And how do we find our courage? Courage is, quite simply, choosing not to listen to fear. It is action, whereas Fear is inaction. So, face it head on by doing exactly what it doesn't want you to do.

I doubt that I will ever be able to eliminate fear, but I can do the next best thing. I can rob of its power, until it becomes a laughing stock, a faint shadow of a once great and terrible monster. John Quincy Adams wrote that courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish into air. The beautiful thing is, that talisman exists in each and every one of us, just waiting for us to find it.

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At the Sign of the Crossroads
originally posted: August 15, 2007

Do you ever feel like you've hit a crossroad in your life? A place where a myriad of changes and choices lay before you, crisscrossing like jet trails in a summer-blue sky? I'm at that place right now. It's exciting, it's adventurous, and it's scary. Each road ahead of me is shrouded in mist, and will be until I start down the paths I have chosen.

I'm leaving a job I've been at for ten years, with a company that has been around since 1881 (nope, not a typo. 126 years!). I'm going to a new job with a company one-seventh the size and who has been around for just twelve years, not to mention moving my family to an entire new state.

My writing career is at a crossroad as well. I know the book that is currently in my more than capable agent's hands is a really good book. I say that, not to be cocky, but most writers can tell when they hit the mark, and this one did. But publishing is a waiting game, and things move so slow in this business that to call it glacial would be too kind. In the meantime, it is one more path in the fog, waiting to be taken.

Crossroads in life are monumental, which means they are also stressful, scary and often bittersweet. Today, I'm packing up my office, listing to Five for Fighting on my iPod and feeling melancholy. Ten years is a long time. One-fourth of my entire life. To leave that behind is not easy, no matter how certain I am that it is the right choice. Just because it's right, though, doesn't mean it is painless.

It's times like this that it's easy to feel small and insignificant, and at the whim of forces we don't understand. Times like this keep you lying awake at night, wondering if you are doing the right thing for your family, and trying to find your faith and courage in the deep, dark valley of night. The silly thing is, the weapon against this uncertainty lies in our own ability to embrace truth. And the truth is that there are always choices.

In my case, the truth is simple. My writing career is not dependent on the whim of editors. Regardless of how long it takes and what the response is, I can keep writing. The more things you release into the universe, the more that will come back to you with the result you want.

The job change is also just a choice. And the truth there is I needed a change. My new job feels right to me. I'm excited about the people I will be working with and what I will be doing for them. And the truth is we will learn a lot from each other.

Choices are what bring us to these crossroads, and choices are what will remove the fog and lead us down the path. When I remember that I always have a choice, it frees me from uncertainty and allows me to be excited about the new opportunities before me.

Quotes to ponder
"It is our choices Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." - Albus Dumbledore

"The way of the Creative works through change and transformation, so that each thing receives its true nature and destiny and comes into permanent accord with the Great Harmony: this is what furthers and what perseveres."
Alexander Pope

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Evergreens
originally posted: December 19, 2006

It's been a while since I've posted. Between the birth of my second child, trying to finish a novel and the holiday season, I've found it necessary to scale back on many activities, such as sleep, exercise, and anything that could be construed as fun. The result of this is a manuscript I feel good about, more so than my previous efforts. I'm still making some revisions, but at least I've been able to stick my head up and see what is going on in the world around me.

Obviously, the Christmas holiday is rapidly approaching. It's my favorite time of year, and I've forced myself to slow down and enjoy it. I'm glad I did, because something wonderful is happening.

Ever since I was old enough to understand it, Christmas has always been a magical time for me. It carried a feeling that on Christmas Day, this one isolated day in time, all was right in the universe. But in December 1992, that illusion shattered for me when my father committed suicide.

My father always hated Fall and Winter, because the world seemed so cold and lifeless. That's why he loved Evergreens, because they stayed green all year. Christmas was always his favorite holiday; the one bright spot in a dreary season. On Christmas Eve, we'd drive up to Leadville where my dad was raised, and find ourselves standing breathless in the rarified air, entranced by the sight of millions of stars, until the cold forced inside to the warmth of my grandmother's coal stove.

But that was a long time ago, and my father and grandmother are long since gone. Two years ago, my mother joined them. It's odd to think of myself as an orphan, since I'm now an adult. But an orphan I am, and I feel it especially at this time of year.

Which brings me to the something wonderful. It began when we put up our Christmas tree. My two year old stared at it in awe. She could hardly tear herself away. And as the neighborhood lights started going up, she insisted we take her out nightly to drive around and look at all the lights and decorations. In her eyes, I see what I haven't seen in many years. The magic and wonder that is Christmas. And for the first time in many years, I'm starting to see it too.

There is a tendency in most of us to become jaded and fearful of what life can do to us. But there is always hope in the mind of a child. That hope is what makes me want to write for them. To nurture their optimism and encourage their dreams. And as long as we pass on to them the wisdom, love and memories of those who have left us, our loved ones will never be truly gone. They will be evergreens.

Happy Holidays to all.

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Colin Murcray is a budding children's book writer. Unfortunately, so far his budding is similar to a Century plant. He is an acquiring editor for a technical book publisher and a regional advisor for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. He enjoys golf, fly fishing and racquetball, none of which he does very well.