The Great Launch Tour Approacheth!

The commencement of the Great Launch Tour for After the Bloodwood Staff is approaching: relentless, ineluctable, alarming, exhilarating. It begins in Melbourne on December 10, and moves to Canberra on the 11th, Wollongong on the 12th, and Sydney on the 13th. There will be wonderful launch speakers, a reading from the book, and some entirely frivolous sparkling rosé. (The times and places, should you wish to attend, are available on my Facebook writer page, https://www.facebook.com/Laura.E.Goodin.Writer/.)

I’m finding myself overwhelmed at all the details that go into planning the launch: identifying a venue (not that easy this close to Christmas), booking and paying for the venue as well as any required insurance, arranging speakers and an MC, gathering bios, researching the appropriate acknowledgement of country (non-Australian readers, this means a formal greeting of the traditional custodians of the land — that is, the people who lived in each place before the arrival of Europeans — and an acknowledgement of their historical and current presence and the importance of their relationship to the place; it’s not comprehensive reparation for what they’ve experienced, of course, but it sure is better than ignoring them entirely), making sure someone is there to help sell the books, getting the food and drink and cups and stuff sorted, choosing which excerpt of the book to read, helping the publisher with media-release text and other publicity materials, setting up an event page, and sending out the invitations on Facebook or email. It is intensely involved.

Not that I’m objecting, mind you. Getting a book published has been my dream since I was seven. It’s taken a long time to realize that dream, but if there’s one thing this journey has taught me, it’s that the order in which you do things in your life is, essentially, irrelevant. If there are things you want to do, there is no prize for getting one done when you’re young or another when you’re old. No extra points for following an approved sequence. (And who has the right to establish one, anyway?)

I fully intend to make as big a deal of these launches as my circumstances allow. First, I’m at least as excited as you’d think about a lifelong dream coming true. Second, the way the world is at this moment, anything fun and optimistic is a relief to the mind and a balm to the soul. Third, the book itself tells a story of ordinary, flawed, frightened people with no special powers or prophecies at their disposal who stand up against evil, simply because it’s the right thing to do. I’ve told that story the very best I can tell it. Maybe it will help.

I hope you can come to one of the launches. I hope you feel moved to buy the book when it’s released on December 10, and I very much hope you enjoy it. If you do, I’d really love to hear from you (via Facebook, the contact page on my website, an email, or a comment on this blog).

Letting your book-child play with strangers

My debut novel, After the Bloodwood Staff, is in the throes of production. I am incredibly fortunate that My Publisher, Odyssey Books, allows its authors input into the cover design, and I just had a very exciting and collaborative discussion with My Cover Artist. She was eager to hear — and very respectful of — my ideas. Moreover, her own ideas were almost alarmingly synchronized with mine. This is looking a lot like one of those situations where artistic collaboration goes really well.

It doesn't always, of course. Writers, in particular, can have a hard time with it. We're used to utter control over what our characters do (I'm not one of those writers who say that their characters control them, but I'll say no more about that right now). So letting other people control the timing, the look, the edits, the marketing, the media relations — it can be intensely anxiety-producing. It's hard to accept that a different idea, someone else's idea, about our own work could possibly be better than our own. It's hard to come to terms with the fact that someone could bring insights to our work that even we, mighty and wise parents of our book-children, had not anticipated.

But for those who can manage it, letting others join in the fun of creation is exhilarating and a source of genuine artistic growth. If a reader tells you about the profound meaning they found in your work, and it's nothing like what you intended, don't argue! Rejoice that you could write something so deep and gloriously complex that it allowed a stranger to bring their own experiences to the work to reveal new meanings. Rejoice that you had the artistic generosity (whether you knew it at the time or not) to leave space for others' insights. Rejoice that your editor, your cover artist, your publicity manager, the people gracious enough to blurb and review your book, all thought your work worthy of their time, attention, and even love. Your book isn't yours anymore: it belongs to everyone who reads it and everyone who helps you bring it to your readers, as much as it belongs to you. Let their genius teach and inspire you to take more risks, learn more skills, trust yourself more.

It's risky; of course it is. There's potential for great pain if someone misunderstands, misappropriates, or misrepresents your work. But at the same time, there is such joy in the moments of discovery and creative rapport! How wonderful if your work is the basis and the reason for this joy! The next time you have the chance to relinquish a little control over your work, why not risk it and see what happens?

Why Butt-In-Chair Is a False God

I’d like to do my best to destroy yet another writing myth, one I consider to be dreadful, deleterious, and downright dangerous: the so-called "butt-in-chair" mantra. According to this principle, only those writers who grimly force themselves to joylessly stare at their screen/notebook while feeling the synovial fluid around all their joints gradually congeal, hour after hour after hour, are proper writers. Before you object, I will say that yes, it’s important to actually write if you’re a writer. But the whole butt-in-chair thing usually does more harm than good. Here are some reasons why.

• A fit writer is a better writer. Writing requires physical and mental stamina, which in turn requires moving your meat-self around in a way that feels vigorous. Professional martial artist, multi-published and award-winning writer, and general-purpose badass Alan Baxter says:
  
  "The sedentary lifestyle is trigger for most morbidity, and few lifestyles are more sedentary than writers’. Sitting literally kills us, so the longer we sit the less healthy we are. Our bodies are made to move. They function by moving. Your legs are literal pumps for your blood, backup to the heart itself. So we need to move to function properly. We also need to move to be emotionally and mentally well — the correlations between exercise and mental health are legion, and backed up by numerous studies. Given writers (artists in general) are often prone to mental-health issues (for where does art often grow from but pain?), movement is essential. AND, writers are solitary and exercise will often get us out and about among other people."
  
  It’s important, of course, to find an activity that brings you joy. I have Xena, Warrior Princess aspirations, so anything that puts me in the middle of a good swashbuckle will make me happy: fencing, horseback riding, climbing, hiking. A good story attached to what you’re doing can make everything more fun, actually. I utterly hate to run, but it’s becoming something I actually enjoy because I listen to the Zombies, Run! stories when I head out, and they’re pretty immersive. (I also got a lot of exercise playing Ingress for a while, and I’m told some writers find Pokemon Go (which is essentially the same game) to be useful.)


• Shame shuts down creativity. You can’t disinhibit the inner editor if you’re already in a judgy place, hating on yourself to humiliate your dusty ass into that chair. Researcher Dr. Charles Limb has been studying what actually happens in the brain during times of creativity, and he can show you which parts of your brain light up when you’re in "the zone" and which when you’re discriminating and judging — and they are different. (Here’s the hardcore version, and here’s the TED talk.) "But what about self-discipline?" I hear you wail. Okay, yes, of course, there’s a place for pushing yourself. But if butt-in-chair starts to be a fetish, it starts usurping the place that rightfully belongs to the joy and commitment you feel as a writer.


• Not everybody creates in the same way. I write slowly. I pace. I juggle (yes, literally, see this video). I pace some more. I go grocery shopping or fencing or whatever. When I literally can’t sit still anymore, I know that lots of words are about to come out, and they’ll be good words. Keepers. The words happen in different ways for different people. If I, for example, forced myself to sit still in the chair every time I needed the words to happen, they wouldn’t. And I’d be miserable and fidgety. Who needs that?


• You are the captain of your own starship. Anyone’s absolute rule — no matter how attractive it seems, no matter how much you hope this one will fix everything — erodes your own agency. Own and trust your gift! Experiment! Find out what works for you! Apologize to no-one for it! You are the adamantine Captain Janeway, you are the roguish and iconoclastic Han Solo, you are the brave and resourceful Debbie of Maddox!

Butt-in-chair, butt-out-of-chair, these things are irrelevant. Do you write with joy? Do you honor your uniqueness? Do you cherish your gift and seek to use it wisely and well?

All right, then.

Why you shouldn't believe in yourself.

“Believe in yourself.” Common — even ubiquitous — advice for writers. I think it’s bad advice. Terrible advice. Destructive advice.

Of course, some measure of hubris is mandatory for any writer. You have to be able to assume that people will be wanting to read your stuff (or at least be able to not care whether they do). More to the point, you have to be able to detach yourself from outcomes and just do your art. But I don’t know too many writers who are able to do that flawlessly, utterly, all the time. Most of us are heaving, hot, viscous messes of doubt and despair. But how can we keep going in the face of our profound certainty that it’s all no use?

I was having one of these Desolate Moments in the Great Writer Desert (“But how do I know I don’t suck?”), and Lee Battersby, one of my writing mentors, ran down a list of things I’d accomplished so far. When lined up like that, they were a bit of a revelation. Since then, whenever I’ve managed to get myself lost in the Great Writer Desert again, I do what Lee did: I gather evidence. I build a case, like any good academic or lawyer, that supports the thesis statement: I am a good writer. Evidence can include (in order of the age I personally observed it in my own writing journey): good grades in creative writing at school; genuine support from intelligently critical friends; acceptance into writing workshops; acceptances by small markets; acceptances by larger markets; success in teaching writing; acceptances by larger markets yet; strangers liking one’s writer page on Facebook; favorable reviews; selling a novel. EVIDENCE.

It’s evidence that gives you a reason to keep going. Not belief. Not faith. If faith is part of how you approach the world, as it is for me, by all means, have faith in the larger realities that permeate your writing and your life. But don’t make faith do a job it’s not designed to do. Faith can give you a reason to write. It won’t give you any information at all about whether you suck. Only evidence will do that.

The hitch is, evidence does not appear ab nihilo. You have to create opportunities for evidence to accrete. That means putting yourself out there for absolutely everything. Here’s a partial list of the writing risks I’ve taken over the years:

• Sitting at markets with a “Words While U Shop” booth (which I’m doing right this second; see image below).
• Applying for the Cafe Poet program with Australian Poetry.
• Writing and producing a 10-minute play in 24 hours*.
• NaNoWriMo.
• Applying for the Clarion South workshop.
• Giving readings and presentations and being on panels at conventions.
• Learning to write and perform in the slam style and — terrifyingly — performing at the home of slam, the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, in front of the person who invented slam, Marc Kelly Smith.
• Applying for a Ph.D. in creative writing.
• Submitting stories. Submitting more stories. Submitting them again. And again. And again.
• Approaching schools, community-education organizations, and writers’ centers about teaching writing.
• Starting the Wollongong Slam, now called Enough Said and run by a wonderful collective of brave poets.
• Letting intelligent people who will not patronize me or comfort me critique my writing.
• Submitting more stories, again and again.
• Saying yes when asked to write poems for a performance of baroque opera.
• Saying yes when asked to write an opera libretto.
• Saying yes when asked to write a scenario for a ballet.
• Saying yes.
• Saying yes.
• Saying yes.

Okay, sure, sometimes it feels like standing in front of a charging rhino. But really, is any of this stuff going to actually, as opposed to symbolically, kill you? I need to bring to your attention that NONE of these things actually required any pre-existing approval. Nobody is stopping you from applying for things, submitting things, starting things, signing up for things, sending things out, inviting people to play with words with you. And okay, most of the things I’ve risked have disappeared like smoke on the wind – for every item on this list, there are a dozen more that never came to anything. So? Only risk — showing up, signing up, sending out, standing up — generates evidence. So what are you waiting for? Are you tormented by uncertainty? Do you lie awake at night wondering if you suck? There is only one way to fix it: EVIDENCE. Now go get some.

Me and the famous Poet-Tree at the Makers and Thinkers Market in Brunswick, Melbourne, whereat I wrote this post.

*If you’ve never done 24-hour theatre, I strongly, strongly recommend it. It was some of the most fun I’ve ever had as a writer. It helped that I had a fabulous team of actors – do you have some actor or actor-wannabe friends? Get a group together and start googling “24-hour theatre” in your city or town. Don’t find any? START AN EVENT YOURSELF.