Posts Tagged ‘emotions’
© 2011, Vicki Hinze
WARNING: This is a no-edit zone…
Having written for over two decades, I thought I’d run into just about every kind of environmental impact on writing possible.
First it was writing around three kids and their schedules, then add a 120 pound dog who thought she was human and required tons of attention—and brought me lovely little gifts. Like the time I was at my desk writing on the computer and ignoring her. She whined, got ignored and so she went outside and came back in with a dead frog, which she plopped in my lap.
Then after my dad died, it was writing around three kids, the dog and my mother. My office was upstairs then, and all afternoon it was the battle of the bands below me. Mom liked country music, one son classical, and the other a blend of rock. If it wasn’t the battle of the bands, it was the battle of the televisions on competing stations.
Lesson learned? Like heat, noise rises. I wrote anyway. Tuned it out and wrote like a maniac.
Eventually, I noticed that I was writing to my emotions. So to work within that little quirk, I worked on four different projects that were in four different stages of development. That way, I could write to my mood. No snickering; odds are good you do it too. The question is to what extent. That was Lesson 2.
When my eldest son left for a stint in the Army, I was devastated. I wasn’t ready for him to go, much less to go overseas for a year. I wrote the saddest scene of my writing life and cried the whole time I was doing it. Oddly, that scene didn’t require one word to be changed from first draft to publication. (I think that’s because I was wholly invested and focused so intently on the pain. I just let it flow through me and out onto the page. Your child going into a war zone will do that to you. Yet no writer can do too much of that. It’d drive them nuts. So I pulled back, seeking balance.) Lesson 3 learned and intact.
When my Special Ops husband left for only he, Uncle Sam and God knows where, I wrote strong, strong suspense. Every fear I ever thought about having rose from my deepest recesses and spilled onto the page—and it took all four projects to distribute that much fear without overdosing the characters. Husband and son in the zone simultaneously. You bet there was sadness and fear. That heralded in Lesson 4. Characters will tell you when they need a breather, or a little comic relief, or a break in intensity. And you’d best listen to them or the characters go numb, anesthetized, and neither they nor the readers feel a thing.
When my daughter’s heart was broken, I knocked off so many guys in my books, if I hadn’t had four projects going, I’d have run out of characters. Men didn’t fare well during that heartache and healing. Truthfully, I’d still be a bit miffed, but she has a wonderful husband who adores her. The men in my books thank him often. Lesson 5 in that. You can back off and attempt to be objective, but all you are and what you think comes with you, the writer, to the project. It shows up in obvious ways—character reactions, responses to events and situations—and in subtle ones—the details the writer chooses to include, or not include.
As the years passed and the kids left to start their adult lives, I thought I’d run through all the lessons via life. But I haven’t. It’s quiet here now, and has been long enough to have forgotten the lessons learned.
At least it was until March when we began several huge remodeling projects. (They’re gorgeous and I love them). One is on one side of my office and the other one is on the other side of my office—a wall away. Those are done now and yet another remodeling project is underway. A new deck—just outside my office window—above and below. And the hammering and sawing, while making me happy because the deck is going to be fabulous, has me noting that a lot of bodies are piling up in this book.
For grins, I went back and looked, and sure enough, the count started rising when the hammering did. So I ditched what I’ve done since then and started again. Lesson 6 has been received. Even if consciously you’re not aware of an environmental impact on your writing, there likely is one.
It’s worth checking—and noting the lessons.
Blessings,
Vicki
EACH DAY YOU CHOOSE…
ARE YOU A PERSON OF CHARACTER OR A CHARACTER LACKING HUMANITY?
We’ve heard since the cradle that no man is an island. No woman is, either. Every day we interact with others: friends, relatives, coworkers, strangers. And with each encounter we are presented with both challenges and opportunities–and the choices are ours to make.
These aren’t necessarily enormous choices, though they can be. But what is really on my mind at the moment are the little things. Those everyday choices that present themselves unexpectedly and require decisions on our part that won’t change the world, but certainly can impact us and our feelings about ourselves as well as those within our sphere of influence. READ MORE
SELF-SABOTAGE AND SELF-FULFILLED PROPHESY
SELF-SABOTAGE: THE ART OF SNATCHING DEFEAT OUT OF THE JAWS OF VICTORY.
SELF-FULFILLED PROPHESY: THE ART OF WILLFULLY STRUCTURING EVENTS TO MANIFEST A PROJECTED OUTCOME.
It isn’t enough that we have to battle the rest of the world, we have to battle ourselves. And often we are not only our greatest critic, we are our worst enemy. We treat everyone else in the world–including strangers on the street–with more dignity and compassion and respect than we treat ourselves. Why is that? Why is it that everyone else deserves more and better and kindnesses and considerations that we feel we don’t deserve?
A huge part of it is due to upbringing and what we have adopted or has been forced upon us as appropriate conduct and social behavior. We’ve all heard some form of:
Be modest. Be humble. Be unassuming. Don’t get a big head. I made you, I can break you. You owe me. If it weren’t for me, you’d be nothing. I don’t care what you think, in my house, you’ll do as I say. Pretty is as pretty does. Never brag, it’s bad form. Don’t blow your own horn, toot your own whistle. You do you think you are? If I wanted your advice, I’d ask for it.
Loser. You can’t do that. You’re too __________ (fill in the blank).
Think back through your life. This goes back further: (color inside the lines; be seen, not heard; don’t cause a stir). What putdown or well intended behavior sapped the confidence right out of you? Made you feel small and insignificant? Hopeless? Helpless? Clueless or unworthy? Like a victim?
These types of things happen to all of us. Often, they were well intended and not meant to impact us they way they did, but they do. (Remember that saying about the road to hell being paved with good intentions? Well partly, no doubt, it got to be an often-repeated saying like this.)
Words carry power. We know that. And that definitely includes words spoken to us about us. Ones that impact us strongly, we carry with us. They help form and shape our opinions, our esteem, our behavior and our beliefs. We believe we can, odds are we can. We believe we can’t and we never will–and we will make that true because we believe it to be true. That’s self-fulfilled prophesy. And often to make it happen, we embrace self-sabotage.
An Example: An author has been writing one type of book for years. The market for that type book is dwindling and her editor recommends the author write a different type of book and makes several suggestions. The author refuses–and when contract renewal time comes around, author is told publisher will not be offering a new contract.
Author refused for any of a number of reasons. Didn’t like the type of books suggested. Had no interest in shifting to a new type novel. Feared change. Feared losing her existing reader base. The point is, regardless of the reason the author is now without a publisher.
A more blatant example: An author goes to a conference and at a luncheon complains to a table full of people about her publisher. An editor for that publisher is sitting at the next table and overhears her house being raked over the coals. Said editor reports this tongue-lashing in a public forum to author’s editor. How how enthused is said editor to work with said author?
We all take wrong steps. We try something that doesn’t work. We write something that doesn’t resonate. We plan and set expectations based on the information we have available but that information proves faulty. These are mistakes, yes, but not ones where we have through our own arrogance or ignorance or fears or other personal issue-based actions, shoot ourselves in the foot and cut ourselves off at the knees.
The discretion errors are most frequent. Or, I should say, the lack of discretion. Over the years, I’ve seen more authors sabotage their careers by exercising a lack of discretion than anything else. A little story to keep in mind:
Author A wrote for an Editor at a publishing company.
Author A had some very nasty things to say about another writer to Editor.
Editor spoke very little and formally–cautiously–to Author A because Author couldn’t be trusted to be discreet.
Author A was offended by Editor’s distance and had some very nasty things to say to Editor about it, then promptly went to the Editorial Director and asked to be assigned to a new Editor.
The request was refused.
Author A left the Publisher and wrote for a New Editor at a New Publisher.
Before Author A’s first book with New Publisher came out, her New Editor left the New Publisher for employment at a third Publisher.
New Publisher hired a replacement: Editor from Publisher.
So now Author A is with Original Editor at New Publisher. The Editor she said some very nasty things to and asked to reassigned away from.
Small world, publishing. And Editors move around to move up. Author A is in a tough spot. One she put herself in because of her lack of discretion. Net: self-sabotage. Can she recover: probably only if she looks for and secures a New New Editor at a New New Publisher.
Life would have been so much simpler for Author A had that author just be discreet.
Self-sabotage isn’t only seated in esteem and confidence and negative issues. It can also be seated in fear. Like the fear of success.
People driven by a dream will just about kill themselves to hit benchmarks that define for them success. They’ll climb the ladder, struggle and sacrifice and put in super-human effort to get up to the next rung. Their goal is in sight. They’re almost there. Almost to the pinnacle that has occupied their hopes and dreams and cost them so much and now–now they’re—
scared to death and decide they may not really want it, or that they definitely do not want it.
Suddenly unthought of facets come to life:
✦If I make that sale, people are actually going to read what I write. They might hate it, have ugly things to say about it–about me. I could be embarrassed, humiliated, rejected.
✦If I make that list, people are going to expect so much out of the book. What if it disappoints them. What if they bad-mouth me and it? My family, friends, everyone I know will hear all about it. I’ll look like a fool, an idiot. I could be hurt. My kids could be hurt or embarrassed or humiliated. Rejected.
✦The last book did so well. What if this one bombs?
✦I am going to be judged. I could be found wanting and/or rejected.
See how these things all tie back to self-esteem and image? Your perception of who you are and your place in your world, and in the worlds of others?
We all want to be loved and accepted. We all want our work, which is an extension of us, to be loved and accepted.
And it’s hard to open ourselves up for not being loved and accepted. But the simple fact is this:
Some will love and accept us.
Some will hate us and reject us.
And some will be indifferent.
Of all these things–think about this–indifference troubles us most.
Why? Because it jerks our chains and feeds those little nags in us that says we and what we are doing are insignificant.
You can go into broader analysis, but in my experience, when you do and then you dive deep, it takes you right back to this place. Maybe you need the journey to feel sure of that. Maybe you can take the word of one who has journeyed and taken that journey with many others. Regardless, you do need to grasp the reasons we sabotage ourselves and take constructive steps to resolve the underlying issues. Understand them. And stop doing it so that you can fulfill your potential.
How do you do that? There are many ways, I’m sure, but one I know works is by knowing what you need. And that will be the topic in Mistakes We Make, Part 8.
Blessings,
Vicki
© 2007, Vicki Hinze
WHEN OTHERS FEED ON HURTING YOU
CONTROL YOU
We all have our soft underbelly; the one we avoid confrontation with whenever possible. We’ve been there before, and we know how much it hurts.
Whether we call it someone stabbing us in the back, stepping on our toes or driving nails through our hearts, we get the feeling, and we’ve dealt with the many side-effects.
Joy, like life itself, is a fragile thing. And it seems we’re all blessed (or cursed) with at least one person in our lives who is hellbent on making sure that they steal ours. Whenever things are going well, or even when we’re in an unsettled state but we’re cooping well and still finding joy in our lives, in comes that person to steal our joy and make us miserable.
Maybe the thief isn’t getting enough attention. Maybe s/he’s secretly unhappy and can’t stand the sight of anyone else being joyful in their imperfect life. Maybe s/he thrives on upset. Or feels that tearing others down builds them up. It could be the thief is a control freak and feels threatened by you, so s/he makes it his or her business to not let you be too happy to keep you humble. Or the thief could just not give a damn. So what if you’re hurt? It’s not his or her fault if what s/he wants negatively impacts you. Or–and this is the worst possible case, of course–the thief takes joy in deliberately hurting you and stealing your joy.
Yes, sad as it is to say, there really are people who thrive and blossom and find happiness in making other people miserable. Particularly people, who for one reason or the other, don’t like them.
When someone steals your joy once, you’re inclined to be forgiving and consider it an accident. But what if the thief does this over and again? Always at significant moments, or over events that are significant and meaningful to you? What do you do then? How do you cope?
OBJECTIVE ASSESSMENT. When you’re on the receiving end of joy stealing, being objective is all but impossible. Still, we have to do our best or remain a victim.
Try to determine why the thief is stealing your joy. Only when you grasp their motivation can you deal with the problem constructively.
UNDERSTAND THE STAKES. In these type situations, most often there’s something at risk. Something that puts you between the rock and the hard place. Whether it’s your job, your reputation, or someone you love. And you have to understand that cause-and-effect, action-and-reaction is hard at work.
So think through scenarios. If the thief does this, you do that, where does that leave you?
What do you have at stake and are you willing to lose it?
Sometimes being the victim doesn’t enable you to avoid the penalty. You’re caught in an emotional blackmail or hostage-type situation. When the thief does this, anything you do results in the loss of x. So before you do anything, you need to understand and accept that you well might lose. Are you willing to live with that loss?
CONFRONTATION. We typically hate it. Some of us are better at it, more diplomatic, less emotional than others, but normal, healthy and stable people don’t relish confrontation or conflict or the upset both carry along with it.
Yet when our joy is being stolen, we have little choice. We can step up and deal with the confrontation or allow ourselves to be victims and robbed of joy.
One or the other. We must choose. And we must live with our choices.
They’re never easy ones because of what is at stake and the risks of what we can lose. More often than not, it means a great deal to us or the thief wouldn’t be trying to steal it. So we must weigh the situation carefully and then choose.
CONSEQUENCES. As unpleasant as confrontation and conflict is, if we’re able to work through it and come out a better place, it’s worth the effort. Whether or not we’re able to get to that better place isn’t just our choice. The thief gets a vote, too. And when s/he weighs in, that vote can take many forms. Anger, denial, outrage, justification, the false attribution of motives that are supposedly yours that are alien to you–any or all of those reactions are as apt to arise as a peaceful, imperfect solution to the problem or even a resolution with which you can be at peace.
The consequences could be alienation, distance, separation or divorce. The loss of the job. The loss of a loved one.
Steep consequences are possible. Very possible because reason and logic are skewed by emotions in these situations and because our perspectives are a complex network of experiences and events–some of which are related to our interactions with the joy stealer and some that go beyond that relationship and into other areas of our lives. Things that happened with other people, back when we were kids. Professional things. Personal things.
The sum of all our experiences shape our perspective and the lens through which we see the thief and the joy s/he steals.
CONTROL. The bottom line is that we can’t control others’ actions. We can only control our reactions to their actions.
We can choose to confront or withdraw. To accept or distance ourselves from the thief. To try–often for the umpteenth time–to be blunt and honest with the thief, about the pain they’re inflicting in the hope that they will choose not to deliberately hurt us again. Or we can accept that the thief, regardless of motivation, is going to continue to hurt us and steal our joy and walk away.
In the end, we choose how much control and power over us we give the thief.
It is rarely an easy choice. Rarely simple or free from many shades of gray.
It is seldom a choice we look forward to making or one we wanted to be placed in the position of having to make. Yet if we do not, then doing nothing–willingly being the victim–does nothing to resolve the joy-stealing, only adds baggage to it.
So we assess the situation, no matter how much we wish we didn’t have to do it.
We understand the stakes, no matter how much we wish we never had to put things this dear to us at stake.
We endure the confrontation, even if it makes us sick for days or weeks afterward and our hearts yearn for peace.
We steel ourselves and accept the consequences for the course of action we’ve chosen to take, even if enacting it brings certain grief and mourning.
We control ourselves, our actions, making hard choices because we know that while avoiding them would be easier, living with avoiding them would not.
And we endure this, suffer through the upsets and losses we incur stopping the thief because when we look at life, its fragility and brevity–we are here but a moment–we know this truth:
If we are living without joy, we are already dead.
And that penalty is far too costly to pay. ❧
Blessings,
Vicki
Vicki Hinze
c2006
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