Conflict: Shortcut to Great Writing

Join me on November 5th for a fun workshop on Write Short to Succeed.

(Details below)

Here’s a possible exercise we might be doing in my workshop at ICAN’s upcoming

Second AnnualTreasure Valley Writers' Fest at the Cloverdale Reception Center, Boise, Idaho, Saturday, November 5, 2016, from 1:00 pm to 7:30 pm.

This exercise is inspired by the newest title in my Hows and Whys series, Writing Conflict, to be released soon.

Conflict is the key to unlock great writing. Finding the conflict is also the easiest way to write anything. Every good piece of writing comes from the conflict in the story, article, whatever.

Examples: an article about fixing your toilet yourself, what’s the conflict? The conflict is in you need your toilet fixed! Can you fix it yourself? Even a recipe has inherent conflict. Will you be able to replicate the dish? In a romance story, girl lost boy, will she get him back?

In fiction, people often confuse conflict with other elements in the story. Conflict is not a fight between two people. Conflict is what led to the fight.

To find the conflict ask these questions:

What’s the problem? (Sewage all over the floor, need something new for dinner—not the sewage, broken heart that might never be fixed)

What’s the goal? (Fix the toilet, make dinner, get the guy back)

What’s the need/desire? (To have a working toilet, to eat, to be with the man you love)

What’s the emotion? (Frustration at the broken toilet, hunger, grief/anger at losing the boyfriend)

What gets in the way of obtaining this goal? (Can you fix the toilet yourself? Do you have the ingredients to make the dish? How does the woman get the guy back?)

An argument in a romance story between the girl and her boyfriend is the end result of conflicting emotions: she’s mad at him, but loves him, but hates him, but wants him to be/do/act like....you get the idea. During the argument, there needs to be conflict. Does she really want to get him back? Is it impossible to get him back? In fixing the toilet, do you have the proper tools? In a recipe, do you have the right ingredients, or can ingredients be substituted? Conflict raises more questions.

Here are some scenarios for you to find the conflict in:

A weight loss article

Two women in a bar, co-workers after work on a Friday night

An article about travel

A person visiting his/her grandmother in a nursing home

A memoir about a relative born during a time of war

Have fun with this and remember there are lots of ways to add conflict to your writing.

                                                                                      

Questions? Please comment and I’ll do my best to answer (and hope I can answer, hmmm...more conflict?).

 One successful result of writing short, Mild West Mysteries.

Successful Writing Secret: Conflict in Description

My newest title, Write Short to Succeed inspired by my class: Hows and Whys of Writing Short, click on the link above to sign up for the next one night class on May 3, 2016.

We authors are always learning and stretching our writing muscles. So when I attended a conference recently, I was surprised by how many new authors struggled with a particular concept:

Conflict.

Conflict needs to be in every part of an author's work. This includes description. Description? Yes, description. Ummm, I can hear new writers saying, isn't description just describing stuff? Nope. Or at least it's full of conflict if it's a success for the author.

Easiest way to explain this is to provide an example using a very well known cliche: 

It was a dark and stormy night.
Okay where is the conflict here? Well, in the fact that dark and stormy nights are difficult and dangerous. However, it's much better to not rely on such obvious elements to create the conflict. Instead, how about:

It was a warm, bright, sunny and horrid day.
The twist with "horrid" creates a conflict. It raises the question of why the day is horrid.

It was a warm, bright and sunny day. Despite the warmth, she couldn't stop shivering.
Can you spot the conflict? That "she can't stop shivering" is a contrast that raises questions?

Or how about:

It was a warm, bright and sunny day. She hated such days. Too pleasant by far.
Her emotional response creates conflict. And perhaps a touch of characterization.

Or a different type of description:

No conflict:
She was a pretty woman. Everyone always told her so.

Conflict:
She never knew how pretty she was. When people told her how lovely her face, she never believed them.
Again, her emotional response raises questions, why won't she believe how pretty she is? This creates conflict and some characterization.

Conflict raises questions, makes the reader wonder why there is this conflict and makes the reader wonder how the conflict will be resolved. Conflict keeps the reader reading!

An exercise:
Spot the descriptions in other author's writing. Read through them with an eye to whether or not they possess conflict. If not, why not? How could a description have more conflict? Or if it does have conflict, how?

Authors, questions? Answers? Are you conflicted?

Rejections, Schmections, They Often Don't Mean a Thing!

The logo for our publishing company, Barbarian Books.

When my partner and I first opened our publishing company, I figured I wouldn't learn all that much about the publishing world. After all, my career spanned decades and I've sold to/dealt with all sorts/levels of publishers.

Wrong, so wrong. It's different being on the other side, especially in terms of truly understanding what publishers actually mean when they say things like, "Rejections shouldn't be taken too seriously." As an author, I'd think, "Yeah, right." As a publisher I think, "Yeah right."

After recently teaching a class about the publishing world, I realized how seriously most authors take those horrid "sorry, but we won't take it," and how desperate they were for "feedback from the publisher so that they can fix the problem."

There's three reasons authors don't get feedback from publishers. I've loosely ranked them from least important to most important (and you may disagree):

1.  Publishers simply don't have time for personal rejections.
Barbarian Books is a quite small publisher, with a very limited focus as we publish genre fiction in eBook format only. We still get 100 to 200 submissions a month, with about 10 percent of those worth consideration, which is a lovely high percentage, but means we're considering as many as 240 manuscripts a year. 
All submissions, 1200 to 2400 a year, must be processed and responded to as well. As one of my author friends noted, "That's a full time job in and of itself." We don't have an employee who only does this job.
We don't have time for personal rejections. There are a few exceptions when we'll send a rejection with some notes about the manuscript. This is always when the submission needs, in our opinion (see the most important #3), a little tweaking, just has minor problems, because... 

2. It's not the publisher's job to teach authors how to write.
This is a hard one for  newbie authors because of the belief that the publishers are a resource in the process of writing, instead of being where an author sells their finished product. Publishers are businesses, not writing instructors. They are only looking for well-written, well-edited manuscripts to sell.
I think part of the confusion is from the oft quoted, "When you have learned how to write, written, edited, and had beta readers critique your manuscript, then submit it. If several publishers comment on the same problem then perhaps you should address that as a problem in your work." Many new authors only hear: If several publishers comment on the same problem then perhaps you should address that as a problem in your novel.
Now, this doesn't mean that you, as an author, should obsess and try to make your work perfect. (The difference between perfect and done is the subject for another post.) It will never be perfect, even when published. And there are a great many pitfalls to even attempting to do so, of which one of the biggest is...

3. Often, it's a completely subjective rejection and there's nothing to fix.
This harkens back to rejections not being taken seriously. If a manuscript is at the level of being well-written, with a writer who knows all the basics and beyond, then most if not all of a rejection is subjective.
For example, I love mysteries. I've always been a reader of mysteries and now write a mystery series. I have very strong likes and dislikes when it comes to mysteries that are completely personal and totally eccentric. So I have "rejected" some mysteries simply because they are not to my taste!

So dear authors, please try to avoid endless angst over the rejections you receive.

Questions? Comments? I'd love to hear what you think!

Truth Doesn't Suspend Disbelief, A Writer's Tip

On Tuesday, May 5th, I'm teaching another of my one night classes on Navigating the New Publishing World which will be held through Boise Community Education at Boiselearns.org. Since the last class went over for 45 minutes! I'm writing a few blog posts about questions that come up often in my classes and workshops that are not really on topic but that many new authors struggle with.

New author when told that her fiction is unbelievable: "But it's a true story that I wrote as fiction! It really happened! That person really did that! That coincidence was real!" Etc.

Here's the hard, awful truth when writing fiction: Truth doesn't suspend disbelief, ever. Unbelievable things happen all the time. Huge coincidences occur constantly. If you are writing nonfiction, no problem. With fiction it doesn't matter if  it's true, it only matters if it's believable.  If a reader doesn't suspend disbelief, even for the tiniest true detail, it's all over for the piece of fiction. Bumping a reader out of a story, even for an instant, is the kiss of death.

Now, I hear you all saying that we authors take inspiration from real life all the time. There's the rub. Inspiration only, not the true event/coincidence/whatever that is unbelievable.

Readers, do you have any examples of when you stopped reading because it was "Oh come on" moment?

Dirty Secrets Self Published Authors and Publishers Never Tell, a Taste of My New Class

Reading my award winning flash fiction.

This coming Tuesday, March 10th, from 7:30 to 8:30 I'll be teaching a one night class in Navigating the New Publishing World for the Boise Community Schools. It will be at Timberline High School in Boise, Idaho. The fee is $8.95, cheap! Details and sign up here: Navigating the New Publishing World.

So this is a bit of a teaser for the class, but also two of the main secrets new authors need know while path finding a way through this amazing new biz of publishing. 

First secret: The huge majority of well-selling self-published authors are those authors who already have name recognition, a distinct brand, a platform and a large fan base. Such an author may have been traditionally published, popular in another media, or excellent at marketing, or in a very few cases, just plain lucky. But for almost all new self-published authors the way to sales is a difficult path.

Second secret: If you have sold your manuscript to a publisher, you have lost much of your control of that manuscript. The publisher is the one who edits to their standards, provides a cover and publication date, and sets price, including when/what and where to have the title on sale. True, many small indie publishers now allow authors to have a lot of input on much of this, but it's not the same as having total control. 

 

Though these two "secrets"  may be discouraging, the truth is that authors have more opportunities than ever before for success. We'll talk about those in class.

Now, I suspect that some of my author friends may be of a differing opinion, or may want to add to what I've said here. Please comment away!

How to Make Bottle Cap Pin Jewelry. Easy, cheap, and fun!

(I hope to see you all at my FREE bottle cap workshop this Monday, July 14, at the Ada Victory Library at 4:30 pm to make bottle caps! Everyone takes a bottle cap pin home!)

 A selection of Christmas bottle cap pins, some with just the image, others with Christmas items. The trees, holly, gingerbread men, stars and snowflakes are in the scrapbook section of any craft store and inexpensive. The images are free downloads. Take a bottle cap with you to store for size. Next year, different images and inserts!

Bottle cap items can be wonderful as gifts for all sorts of occasions. A baby shower? Give a bottle cap pin with the photo of the new mom as a baby! Maybe pins for all the attendees! How about making a bunch of Christmas bottle cap ornaments? Give out a bottle cap magnet for a Halloween treat! A project for your child's class? The limit is your imagination.

It's possible to do bottle caps the old fashioned way, cut out the image with a pair of scissors, recycle used bottle caps if not bent, glue and then use clear varnish on the top, but most of these supplies are inexpensive and if you're like me you'll keep coming up with new uses.

Materials (check Beadaholique or Amazon, links are to Amazon, the punch and Glue Dots are available in office and craft stores too):

50Mixed Color Bottle Caps (or collect your own throughout the year and it's FREE)

CraftScrapbook Jewelry 1" Circle Epoxy Stickers For Bottle Cap Pendants 

EK Success Papers Shapers Nesting Punch 1" (or any brand, as long as 1")

Glue Dots Super Strength Multi-Use 1/2" dots (or use super glue, but you have to wait longer, however, sometimes the glue dots "let go" after a couple of years)

Images: use photos, images from magazines and greeting cards, draw your own, stencil, use stamps, stickers, glue small objects that fit within the 1" circle, there are inexpensive bottle cap images for sale, or use your imagination!

How to:

Take your 1" paper circle image and press it against a Glue Dot. Press the circle into the bottle cap. Place a 1" Circle Epoxy Sticker on top. DONE Then attach whatever to the back, whether it be a pin back, or hanger for pendants, or magnet. DONE.

Here's how to attach a pin back (so that the pin is on correctly): Take a piece of paper and line up your bottle caps on the paper with arrows pointing which way the image is up, like this:

Then flip over the bottle caps and glue the pins to the back--easy!

Do you have an idea for bottle caps to share?

Colors Like Memories, A Review and Being God

Colors Like Memories is by Meradeth Houston, a YA fantasy about a member of the Sari, which are angels made up of babies born who never breathed before death. Julie, the Sari, struggles with her own overwhelming grief as she tries to keep a teen from suicide.

I read Colors Like Memories as a great break while I was prepping my workshop "Being God" for the Fandemonium conference. And reading it helped tremendously with the prep. Meradeth creates an excellent fantasy world with the right balance between the elements of the "real" world and the fantastic. Julie has abilities (and wings, I love wings) but she also has to eat and sleep--and has other human failings that are more important, the primary of which is that she's stuck in grief. Another excellent balance in the novel: the world was created with just enough back story and details for it to come alive, and not so much it bogged down this wonderful tale.

Reading Colors Like Memories reminded me to teach that one of the most important guidelines for being a god and creating your own world was to only provide necessary information at the point where the reader needs to know that information.This is true with whatever style of fiction you're writing.

Plus, it was an excellent read.

So, dear writers, what other ways can we be good gods (and goddesses) of our worlds?

Sell! Sell! Sell! Outside the box.

Eclectic Collage II, the just released anthology I have a story in.

Loy Ann Bell, the president of the Twin Falls Idaho Writers League and me at my talk. Wearing purple was not a requirement.

 Another anthology I'm in that will be released in October.

Since I've got three (!) new anthologies (including Untied Shoelaces of the Mind) that I have a story in coming out or have just come out, this post is about thinking outside the box when it comes to marketing. Sure, you need to do what everybody else does, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon Author page, etc. etc. but it's also smart to do stuff that others might not do. You might discover other surprising connections. Here's a few ideas:

Most pages now have "like" (facebook) buttons on them, this includes Amazon Author Pages, blogs and websites. "Like" away everything you, well, like! Including your own work. )Even if you don't like your own work.) When you find a blog/website that you like to share, share it!

The publisher of Eclectic Collage, Jane Freund of Freundship Press says that the world has changed, bookstores are no longer the (only) place to sell books and may be the least effective to sell books.She's right. In a bookstore, you're title is one among many. Think of other places that might be interested in selling books. For example, my brother has a tea shop in Texas.The tea shop sells other little items. People who drink tea also read. What better place to place my titles? My mystery novel, "Starke Naked Dead" comes out next year by L&L Dreamspell. The main character is a jeweler. I love jewelry and jewelry stores. Am I going to be asking at some jewelry stores if they would like to have my titles? Have a signing?! You bet.

Book reviews--everyone says you need to get a lot of book reviews, but as my mom always said, "You have to give to get." All writers love to read. So review, often. It not only helps out other writers, but it's a great way to get your name/brand out there. (And of course be honest and straightforward with every review, no matter what. An excellent example of a good reviewer is Jim Murdoch at his blog The Truth About Lies. His reviews are interesting in and of themselves.

 And last, but not least, Kathy McIntosh of Well Placed Words suggested this great idea. In Boise, there's a Community Education. People volunteer to teach classes in....everything. This type of community service is common. Kathy's suggestion--teach a class in something! Great way to connect in a lot of different ways!

So, dear readers, any more "outside the box" suggestions?

Next my newest venture!

Sunday Places--Classes

Hi all,

This week has been one of computer problems and taxes. Hence, my absence from the Web. I'm baack...this time with some classes to increase writing skills.

First, the online classes:
WritersOnlineClasses.com offers inexpensive (usually $30.) on a wide variety of subjects with excellent writing coaches.
WriterUniv.com offers different classes (again usually $30).
The Romance Writers of America's Suspense and Mystery offers classes ($30--this seems to be a standard).

Writing advice, much of it fantastic, abounds on the Internet. A couple of my favorite sites:
WritersWeekly.com has a wealth of articles interesting to the writer (and markets).
Margie Lawson's newsletter contains great lessons and contests to win her lecture packets.

Now, before I'm knocked off the Web, I'm headed over to visit some of my favorite blogs, some of which are listed in my sidebar (more soon).

Any classes or sites, dear readers, that you'd like to add?

Pro or no?

All the diverse responses from my posting about pay for creative people sparked a fire in my mind regarding the question of professional versus amateur. Many of the professional groups I belong to have a two-tier system where you have to have sold X amount to belong to the "pro" level. Yet every group has differing criterion and calls the levels different things. From "Pre-published" to "Associate" (sold a bit but not enough) to "Affiliate" to "Full" (Pro) member, the list goes on and on. And of course they need some criterion for membership. But still...

So: What does it mean to be an amateur? Or a professional? Can you be both at the same time? (I believe you can.)

After long thought I've decided what comprises a pro for me is more what they do. What a pro does:
Realizes, accepts and embraces that anything creative is also hard work.
Is willing to continue to learn and question and challenge the work.
Understands that criticism can be the best tool.
Understands that all judgment is subjective.
Understands that rejection is part of the process.
And most important, the sign of a professional in the creative world: Keeps going.

The last means no matter what. No matter the setbacks, the rejections, the lack of recognition or pay, the difficulty of getting up and creating each day. Keeps going.

So, dear reader, what do you think of my list? Do you agree with my criterion? Does something need to be removed? Added?

Post Conference Part One: Time is Money

Let's all pretend this is Monday's posting, as promised. Don't all creative people struggle with high expectations of what will be accomplished in a short time? Don't we all expect to come back from such an event invigorated and ready with tons of energy to leap to write or whatever? Do you experience this type of over-expectation?

Since I received a "yes" (go ahead and send pages) from several agents, I'm excited to send those out. But as my good friend Kathy of Well Placed Words mentioned to me, we forget that even good stress is stress and while the fatigue doesn't last as long as from stress, all the excitement and focus and work is tiring. And everything takes longer than is expected. Unpack, do laundry, catch up from days away...meanwhile it's frustrating not to work on writing.

So, dear readers, does this resonate? What do you do when over-expectations get in the way?

Of Groups and Conferences, Pros and Cons

A couple of weeks ago, I attended the first meeting of the Idaho Writers Guild. Fascinating and fun, but also amazing how much dedicated and professional talent there is in Idaho, the state with the least population of all 50. After a couple of hours, I returned home energized and invigorated about my writing career. On August 6, tomorrow, I head out to the Willamette Writers Conference for four fun-filled days of pitching agents. Or at least fun for me.

There are writers out there who despise attending any event or joining any group. Often true introverts, these authors point out that conferences and groups take away a lot of valuable writing time and energy. This can be true. The last few weeks I have been taking time to prep my manuscript, my pitch, my wardrobe, etc. and probably doing much more than I need--I'm a writer and being neurotic is required.

However, that time, for me has done several useful things. It has re-initiated and reinvigorated my enthusiasm for my craft and w.i.p. I've had myriad epiphanies about my work, both current and future. I've made a large number of wonderful, supportive contacts, fellow authors and other creative people. People who feed my creative spark, sometimes into a roaring blaze. And will meet many more this weekend. I always return from a conference energized to work and work harder, faster and more effectively than before. So for me, some group participation and some conference attendance are useful tools.

One point, don't make the groups and conferences and workshops become the writing. It's easier than you might think to replace the difficult work of writing, just plain writing and writing, with the far easier and entertaining activity of a group or whatever. It feels like you're working, progressing. And to a certain extent, that's true. But nothing replaces write, write, write. I suspect this is true of other creative disciplines as well, hence the "disciplines".

So, dear readers, what do you think about attending conferences? Joining groups? Does it help you? Or the opposite?

And I'll be back on Monday with a report on my experiences.

Summertime, summertime and shift happens

This is what summer is supposed to be like: lazy and relaxed.

But not this summer. Unless of course, you're my cat, when it's always summer. While visiting Swu on Swubird's Nest in the comments, he asked where everybody went this month? Well, I don't know about everybody, but I know where I went. I went frantic.

Perhaps it's worldwide, this overwhelm of everything. I know that amongst my friends and family, including my blogger friends, everyone seems to be in the same busy, busy, busy state. For example, I've filled every weekend in August! All with what I want to do and will love doing, but still, enough already.

Yet, I suspect and hope that this is a symptom of a healthy shift. When major change happens, it can be frenetic, especially right at the beginning of the change when the most energy is needed to shift. Most of the ultra-busy I know are that way because they are re-evaluating and then re-inventing portions (if not all) of their lives. In good ways.

Perhaps the answer then, is not to resent the lack of the summertime lazies, but to embrace the energy of change. Of course, it'd help if I had time to get the dishes and laundry done...

What about you, dear reader? Do you see major change in your life? If so, is it good or bad? Or neither? How do you get the laundry done?

Next post: of groups and conferences, platforms and product

Becoming a better writer

How to become a better writer?

A big question I've been struggling with over the last few weeks. After attending Donald Maass' excellent High Tension Workshop, I worked to use what I learned. But working with my w.i.p. turned out to be difficult. It's a novel. It's long. It's complicated. It seemed like I was adding yet another couple of layers of complexity as I had to be consciously adding what I'd learned. It had yet to become subconscious. This felt overwhelming.

Until I figured out that I needed to "step out" of my w.i.p. and practice what I learned on a short story. Less emotional attachment, much, much shorter, and I picked a story that was character driven instead of plot driven to use the new tools. This helped, considerably.

Attending workshops, classes and conferences is only one part of honing a craft. Then figuring out ways to APPLY what you've learned is the second part of becoming a better writer.

What do you do to improve as a writer?

Glorious Distractions

Some delightful birthday flowers from my great friend Kathy of Well Placed Words.

Ah, glorious distractions of the summer! Glorious because they are so much fun. Some of mine include: birthday parties (many friends and relatives and myself), a niece's graduation, a different niece's visit, a convention, Fandemonium, where I taught a workshop on storyboarding, a film conference, my first, an upcoming workshop on writing manga and new fitness classes for mid-lifers to teach (my other day job, check out Delightfit for more).

Whew! All fun events/activities that I wanted to do and enjoyed doing. However, all distractions from the w.i.p. Distractions that sometimes assisted my current work, more about that in the next post--but also created a struggle to "stay in the work."

No time. No energy. The one thing I found helped, a bit, was to make certain I worked for 10-15 minutes a day, every day on my w.i.p. Not necessarily turning out pages, notes (even on scraps of paper if I was away from my laptop) worked as well.

Still difficult. So, dear readers, what do you do when awash with glorious distractions? How do you avoid getting possibly remote from a current and now uncurrent work? And what have your glorious distractions been this summer?

Maass Intensive, Switching Formats, Marketing and Contests

These seems like a lot of subjects. It isn't. It's the same subject. And it goes like this:

Donald Maass' High Tension Workshop was for novel writing. That doesn't matter. Why? Because it translates to all kinds of writing.

It's useful to switch formats. Trying something new and different can increase your ability in your regular writing. It's a challenge. It's also a way to re-energize your regular writing.

Writing for good contests (real prizes/awards, no entry or low entry fee, with a reputable publisher/group) can be another way to challenge and stimulate your writing.

If you pick a good contest to submit to and win a prize, this can help the marketing of your other work. And sometimes your other endeavors.

Which all brings me to a touch of BSP: I entered Tokyopop's "The Dreaming Writing Competition" and won First Prize! This is useful for a couple of reasons. First, my new w.i.p. is for YA Fantasy and writing a Manga style short story is related. Second, I'm teaching a class at the True North Creative Learning Center in August about--you guessed it--writing manga. Again for the YA market. Plus, I get cool artwork!

So readers, what do you think? About switching formats? About contests, pro or con?

Be a Switcher: Switch Creative Endeavors

Switch creative endeavors? Why? Why, when you work so hard to improve your writing, painting, photography or whatever, would you switch?

For a couple of reasons:

It's a mini-vacation, one that doesn't take you out of creative focus. A break that is refreshing and renewing and still keeps the juice flowing. Creativity is the same, no matter what you're creating.

The major benefit is creativity begets more creativity. Doing something different ramps up what you were doing before. Weird, huh? But think about it. I know that for myself, when I take photographs or make jewelry or write a film script instead of working on my novel, I get tons more inspiration for my w.i.p.! I suspect that working on something else frees up the subconscious to work on the main project.

Have you tried this? Do you have more than one creative passion? If so, what's been your experience?

Graduation

The hyacinth are in bloom which means...

...that it's time for graduation ceremonies. Okay, maybe that was a weak link to a pretty photo, but certainly the color is celebratory. Which is what I'll be doing for the next week, celebrating my niece's graduation!

So, I'll be back to blogging around June 6, no doubt with a post about what taking a short break from creative endeavors does for the creator.

Anybody else celebrating a transition?

Ownership

This post is inspired by my good friends and fellow bloggers posts, Kathy's post at Well Placed Words about Letting go is hard to do and the Muse's post at Inspired day by day on Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

It also follows the previous posting about knowing when to stop editing. The comments by Jim Murdoch and Swubird got me to thinking about "ownership." What is ownership? In writing, it's "owning" every word--in other words, it's being too engaged, too close, too much owning your writing. Every word is your hard won baby. It's tough, ownership--and not useful overall.

How to get rid of the dreaded "owning"? One way: write lots more. Hard to care about a word or sentence or paragraph when you've got thousands and thousands of them. Another: put a piece aside for at least 3 weeks (or more). Or perhaps the best way is exemplified by my mom's words (who was the wife of an artist and the mother of a writer): "Once you create it, it isn't yours anymore. It belongs to the reader, viewer, etc."

Do you catch yourself "owning" some of your work? If so, why?

Success Inside Out

Here's my good friend Kathy of Well Placed Words at lunch after the High Tension Workshop.

Donald Maass is an excellent teacher. This post is about perhaps the most important aha moment for me that occurred in the entire workshop: Success comes from the inside out. Now before you groan and say "Well, duh," think about these questions:

For you, in your creative endeavor (other artists, take note) how do you see yourself successful? Go beyond the obvious of fame and fortune. What would truly be success? A fan letting you know how the work impacted his/her life? The knowledge that you are "following your bliss" when you create? Embracing your passion? Or is it even more intangible? Why do you torture yourself with whatever your creative work is? What would happen if you stopped?

What do you NEED to be successful? Again, go beyond the obvious answers, money enough to quit my day job, my kids to be older, etc. Those are wants--but a need is something else. A need is perhaps a need to overcome what makes you use excuses for not following your bliss in the first place. Is it a fear of change? What would happen if you succeeded? What would your life be like then? Do you embrace what the change would mean?

So, dear readers, what do you think? What other questions might you need to ask yourselves? What can you do to have success from the inside out? What has worked for you in the past--and maybe isn't working now? Or is working? Let me know.