Last week’s challenge: “Stock Photo What-The-Palooza.”

(Once more, sorry this challenge is up late — vacation last week with poor Internet access had me unable to post the damn thing properly. But here it is! Don’t throw things!)

This week’s challenge is:

Write a story in 100 words. (Technical term: “drabble.”)

I don’t care what genre.

I want it to be a complete story. Beginning, middle, and end.

Not just a vignette — not just a snapshot of a scene.

And I want you to write with the explicit goal of making us feel something.

Joy, pain, fear, sorrow. Something. Some emotion.

In 100 words only.

You can write it at your blog, link back here — or, because the stories are short enough, feel free to write them write into the comment section below. (But do check your length. Again, stories of no more than 100 words.)

Crack the whip, word-herders.

[Edit: turning comments off. I figure nothing good is gonna come after 450 comments.]

A young man felt spurned by women and shot people because of it. He drove up and fired a weapon out of a BMW and committed murder, leaving behind a video and a manifesto about his rage against women. He felt rejected by them. He was reportedly a follower of MRA (Men’s Rights Activism), which is a group of men who are upset because they feel they have an unequal set of rights in a few key areas, which is a lot like a rich guy who is mad at a homeless guy because the homeless guy is standing in his favorite patch of sunlight. (The term “men’s rights” is roughly analogous to the phrase “white power,” and equally creepy.) Yes, we can talk about gun rights and mental health issues because neither are properly addressed in this country. But we also need to talk about the entitlement of men and the objectification of women.

Most of the men who read this blog are, I hope and assume, not entitled piss-bags who think that they are owed affection by women, as if that’s the role of women in this life, to be willing and charitable receptacles for our urges. To be punching bags and accessories. To reiterate and sound the horn just the same: women don’t owe you anything. Whether you’re an alpha male or a wanna-be alpha, some faux bro-dude bad-ass or some repressed alley-dwelling CHUD, it matters little. I don’t care who you are; your maleness does not entitle you to anything.

You may have been told otherwise.

Culture wants us to think that. That being a guy comes with a rider like we’re Van Halen demanding a fucking bowl full of green M&Ms or some shit, but I’m here to tell you, that isn’t true. It’s a myth. You’re entitled to nothing, and yet, ironically, you’re born with this pesky thing called privilege. And sure, someone out there is already mad I’ve invoked that word, that being a dude is hard on its own and privilege is an illusion and blah blah blah something about divorced men and prostate cancer, but just remember that the men go on dates thinking they won’t get laid, and women go on dates thinking they might get raped, punched, maybe killed. Remember that as a man you can say all kinds of shit and add “lol” at the end of it and nobody gives a shit, but as a woman anything you say might be interpreted as antagonistic and end up with rape threats or death threats. Remember that any seemingly safe space — train station, bookstore, social media, city park — is an opportunity for a man to catch a train or read a book, but is also an opportunity for a woman to be the subject of threat or sexual violence.

Remember that men get paid more, get to do more, get to be more.

I understand that as a man your initial response to women talking about misogyny, sexism, rape culture and sexual violence is to wave your hands in the air like a drowning man and cry, “Not all men! Not all men!” as if to signal yourself as someone who is not an entitled, presumptive fuck-whistle, but please believe me that interjecting yourself in that way confirms that you are. Because forcing yourself into safe spaces and unwelcome conversations makes you exactly that.

Instead of telling women that it’s not all men, show them.

Show them by listening and supporting.

Show them by cleaning the dogshit out of your ears and listening to their stories — and recognize that while no, it’s not “all men,” it’s still “way too many men.” Consider actually reading the #YesAllWomen hashtag on Twitter not to look for places to interject and defend your fellow men, but as a place to gain insight and understanding into the experiences women have. That hashtag should serve as confirmation that women very often experience the spectrum of sexism and rape culture from an all-too-early age. Recognize that just because “not all men” are gun-toting, women-hating assholes fails to diminish the fact that sexism and rape culture remain firmly entrenched and institutional within our culture.

Because if your response to the shooting is to defend men (or worse, condemn women) instead of speaking out against this type of violence and attitude, then you best check yourself.

This isn’t the time to talk about nice guys. Or friend zoning. Or men’s rights. Or rejection.

This isn’t the time to ride up as standard-bearers for the realm of menfolk.

You have privilege, so use it. You’re not a white knight, but if other men try to objectify women or talk down to them — step up or walk away. If you have a son, teach him about consent and drive home the point that the 100% of the fault in a rape case is on the rapist, not the victim. Help other men — you, your children, your friends — reach a place of empathy.

This isn’t about you. Don’t derail. Don’t pull that mansplaining bullshit.

Shut your mouth and don’t speak over them.

Open your ears and listen.

Open your eyes and see.

Thus endeth the lesson, gents.

I Kill the Mockingbird is a middle grade novel about Lucy Jordan and her two best friends, Elena Vallejo and Michael Buskirk. The three – all book lovers – have just finished eighth grade. As they face the summer before high school, they contemplate the tricky changes happening all around them including Lucy’s mom’s recent victory over cancer, the death of a beloved English teacher, and Michael and Lucy’s budding romance. They’ve also got more pragmatic concerns like the assigned reading list distributed on the last day of school, which includes To Kill a Mockingbird.

“What if we could make everybody read To Kill a Mockingbird this summer?” Lucy asks her friends.

In Lucy’s opinion, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is the greatest book of all time. Michael thinks the classic is about “a little white tomboy who worships her father in a town filled with whacky racist Christians and lynch-mob farmers.” Meanwhile, Elena is sure that Charlotte’s Web is truly the best novel ever written. Just the same, the three friends agree to work together on a scheme to honor their dead English teacher by making as many people as possible want to read the Harper Lee novel.

Soon – thanks to a bit of “literary terrorism” plus Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, and a life-sized Santa Claus doll dressed up as an ax murderer – the conspiracy to promote reading, dubbed I KILL THE MOCKINGBIRD, is not only successful, it’s out of control. Wil Wheaton, Neil Gaiman and Chuck Wendig are tweeting about it. Books are disappearing from stores and libraries around the country. The cops might be on the friends’ trail, and a Mockingbirdpalooza is about to break out in the park downtown.

I Kill the Mockingbird is a comedy about friends, first kisses, so-called great literature, social media, patron saints, and the weird, wonderful and unexpected ways that books change our lives.

***

1. Laughter is to story-stuff as Geiger counter is to uranium.

With I Kill the Mockingbird I wanted to write a comedy. I was constantly on the look-out for the funny. But every time I found a laugh, I could also scratch the surface and see loss, pain, fear, general existential horror, and cruel insanity. Good times. Good times.

Mostly, I veered away from the dark stuff. Still, all that risk, chaos, danger, and darkness… those are engines which drive stories. Harry needs Voldemort. Hitchcock needs Mcguffins, Kirk needs tribbles. Robert Downey Jr. needs himself. Mars needs Women… Okay, one of these things is not like the other, but in writing I Kill the Mockingbird, I learned that comedy can be a story-stuff Geiger counter for me. If it makes me laugh, then my story’s engines are almost always nearby.

2. Boil away the banter.

I love dialogue. Or should I say:

“I love dialogue.”

It’s fun and active, and it’s my favorite way to bring characters and scenes to life. One of the most enjoyable parts of writing dialogue is the back-and-forth rhythm of it. It’s like tennis or ping pong or badminton. A long volley – aka “banter” – can be satisfying and amusing too. But volleying doesn’t tell a story. There has to be a point.

In my earlier novels, I tended toward scenes with two or three speakers because, frankly, it’s easier to manage. In I Kill the Mockingbird, a typical scene generally features three or more characters. For me, increasing the number of characters in a scene exponentially increased the dialogue challenges. Lines started bouncing around like Mr. Moose’s ping pong balls. I struggled to keep all the words moving forward in focus and on pace. I found myself writing a lot of banter, which feels like dialogue, but it’s not. Dialogue moves a story – not just a conversation – forward. Banter is weaving and bobbing and puns and knock-knock jokes. It can be funny, witty, clever and well-written. And it’s not enough.

During revisions, I figured out a simple strategy for boiling away most (but not all) banter: I tried to make sure that each line of dialogue could only be spoken in a given situation by a specific character. If a line could be placed into the mouth of an alternate character and still work… then something had to change or go. The strategy eliminated a lot of word volley. It also forced me to create characters with more depth and often led me to more interesting places, relationships, and ideas.

I’m still a sucker for good banter. My editor tries to control me. Mostly she succeeds. Still, I do love me some knock-knock jokes.

3. Tools don’t matter.

I want a Macbook Air and a moleskin notebook and a hand-turned oaken pen with a nib pounded out of mithral by elves under the Misty Mountain. I want two gigantic high resolution monitors and an ergonomically correct chair plus a standing desk over a top-of-the line treadmill. I want an 8-foot by 10-foot sustainable cork bulletin board to hang on my wall where push pins made from shark’s teeth will hold color-coded index cards covered with hand-scrawled notes and ideas. I want a billiard table. I don’t play billiards, but Mark Twain had a billiard table in his writing study/billiard room so therefore I should have one too. I want a writing study/billiard room.

I’m not kidding. I really want that stuff. And at least once a month, I shop for it all. I convince myself that if I only had the right tools, the correct set-up, plus various high-end accouterments THEN I would be a better writer, a better husband, a better father, and a better human being.

I know it’s stupid.

I want it anyway.

While writing I Kill the Mockingbird, we sent our first-born to college. The second-born, a teenager, is not cheap. She’s worth a thousand times what she costs, but she’s not cheap. Meanwhile, our cars needed major repairs. A dog required major medical. Our house is a house so there’s always something. In the meantime, my laptop died, and the home pc tottered on its last legs. New computers plus moleskin, pool table, corkboard, shark’s teeth, and mithral nibs were just not in the budget. So I resurrected an old netbook, taught myself to install Linux, and learned how to love the free and awesome LibreOffice. My daughter helped me to construct fabulous bulletin boards out of super-cheap foam panels and spare fabric (I told you she was worth it.) My pens are often “found” (thank you, day job.) I buy notebooks at the dollar store.

As it worked out, writing I Kill the Mockingbird did not require the best tools. Half the time, my tools aren’t even very good. Usually, pen plus paper plus access to my manuscript (I often carry a paper copy around) is all I really need. Other times, LibreOffice and the netbook are enough.

All that said, I do hope to purchase a new laptop this year. And if anybody has some spare mithral and an elf lying around, feel free to send them my way.

4. My editor knows more about making books than I do.

My editor knows more about making books than I do. I was already aware of this, but I’m learning it again thanks to several recent and very kind reviews of I Kill the Mockingbird. In more than one, reviewers point to scenes which they think work especially well. In every case, those scenes work largely because my editor, Nancy Mercado, helped me to focus on where I was trying to go. In one case, a reviewer pointed toward a scene that is NOT in the book and gave thanks that I didn’t go there.  Well… I did go there. But then, thanks to Nancy’s guidance, I reconsidered it.

Here’s the thing: This is my third novel. I’ve made them all with Nancy. My first novel, Defining Dulcie, was one of Nancy’s first acquisitions around 2005. We learned how to make that book together. Since then, I’ve completed three books. Nancy has finished dozens. I’ve written three relatively short, contemporary novels for middle school readers. In the same time, she’s worked on comedies, dramas, sci-fi, fantasy, graphic novels, picture books, series, poetry, nonfiction, dystopians, short story collections, and more. Of course she knows more than I do!

Make no mistake: In every case, the final word on what goes into my books is mine. But I am an idiot if I don’t seriously consider all of my editor’s questions, suggestions and advice. I try not to be an idiot.

5. I’m not as smart as I think that people think I am.

As I mentioned above, I Kill the Mockingbird is my third novel. After I wrote my first book, people were surprised and delighted at my accomplishment. Honestly, so was I. I received and enjoyed the kind of warm affirmation that children get when they pee in a bowl the first few times. It was all good.

The second novel – with positive reviews and modest sales – raised some eyebrows and smiles. It was sort of like a second parachute jump. I didn’t die the first time so people weren’t shocked that I didn’t die the second. But still, it was okay to assume that gravity and silk were handling most of the work. All I had to do was step out of the plane, right?

This time, it feels like people might believe that I know what I’m doing. I can definitely describe many writing steps and processes more clearly now. I know more words. I recognize dead ends more quickly, and I know – both in theory and in fact – that writing a novel is not an impossible task. Still, to say that I know what I’m doing… that might be more false than true. There’s definitely more to this whole thing than jumping and yelling GERONIMO! But there’s still a lot of Geronimo going on here. Of course that’s why this whole business of making up stories is so much fun.

* * *

Paul Acampora writes short stories and novels for young readers. Kids, parents and critics praise his work for its laugh-out-loud humor, smart dialogue, and heartfelt characters. His books include Defining Dulcie, Rachel Spinelli Punched Me in the Face, and his newest novel, I Kill the Mockingbird, a comedy caper/conspiracy theory/literary love story about friends who sabotage their summer reading list. Paul enjoys classroom visits and writing workshops for K-12 students. He is a dad, a husband, a former kindergarten teacher, a college administrator, and the model for the Marshall in the 50^th Anniversary Edition of Stratego.

Paul Acampora: Website | Twitter

I Kill The Mockingbird: Amazon | B&N | Indiebound

It’s been a while since I’ve abused you with a recipe and now I’ve been drinking and the alcohol demons inside my belly are whispering up through the shattered fissure of my acid-scorched esophagus and they are humming IT IS TIME IT IS TIME AGAIN TO PUNISH YOUR READERS WITH A SURLY, PROFANE-LADEN RECIPE FROM BEYOND HELL’S OWN CRADLE and so fuck it, here I am, telling you how to make chicken lettuce wraps.

…

Okay, I’ll admit, that doesn’t sound particularly bad-ass.

“Lettuce Wraps.”

Is it possible to say that in a bad-ass way?

Like, LETTUCE WRAPS, ALL CAPS, GROWLED IN A CANCEROUS WAY.

Still not really, no.

Maybe it needs rebranding. A new name.

LEAF CUPS.

Yeah, no.

LA LECHUGA DEL DIABLO.

Getting closer.

HEAD-SKIN OF THE GREEN MAN FILLED WITH HOT MINCED COCK.

Maybe?

Whatever, you know what? This will be so good, it doesn’t need a kick-ass name.

It just needs kick-ass flavor, and the way we do that is with a moist, steaming dollop of Guy Fieri’s DONKEY SAUCE. Ha ha ha, no, seriously, kids, don’t put anything Guy Fieri touched on your food, it’ll taste like those weird exxxtreme pubes he has on his face. That’s what those are, right? He just glues his dyed pubes up there around the taco-hole he calls a mouth?

Hm.

Let’s talk about this food, and not Guy Fieri’s crotch-face.

This recipe is very customizable.

I prefer a life with options, and I like my recipes the same way. I don’t want to just follow an obvious list of ingredients and measurements. I want the freedom to choose, say, BISON GONADS instead of CHICKEN THIGHS. Because this is America and our freedom is so free it’s basically obscene so why not revel in it? If I want to use cabbage instead of lettuce, who will stop me? You? WHO RUN BARTERTOWN? MASTER CHUCKSTER RUN BARTERTOWN. LIFT EMBARGO.

Man, I’m starting to think that drinking during these recipes isn’t best.

Welp, too late.

Let’s get on with it.

You’re going to need:

SOME KIND OF LETTUCE. It needs to be the kind of lettuce you can fold up like a little botanical taco, a little purse held in the hand. This lettuce must work as a food receptacle. If you have some particular entanglement with a specific type of lettuce, hey, you do as you like. Iceberg is fine but has no flexibility. Romaine is long and holds up but again, same problem: it’s like scooping food into a spine and ribcage combo. I like Boston or butter lettuce.

SOME KIND OF PROTEIN. I use chicken thighs for this, not chicken breast because despite the titillating name, chicken breast is the dullest fucking protein outside maybe tofu. (Calm down, vegetarians, tofu is just fine, but we all know it’s a treacly flavor-sponge.) Chicken breast is the protein equivalent of off-white paint. Here, I want flavor. Which means I want fat. Which means I want chicken thighs. You can do something else, of course — pulled pork shoulder, ground beef, the sweetbreads of a census taker. Or hell, use chicken breast. I don’t care. Hate yourself with bland white meat. I’m not your mother, even though I dress like her and hide in your closet.

SOME KIND OF VEGETABLE. Pick one vegetable that will go with the protein into the lettuce wrap. Don’t get greedy — I said one vegetable. Hint: don’t choose onion, because that’s going in there already. Kinda. Sorta. No, I mean, choose another vegetable or veggie-esque product. Like, little oyster mushrooms or Shiitake. Or green beans. Or snow peas. Spinach. I don’t fucking care. Commune with your Personal Jesus and make a decision.

SOME KIND OF ONIONY THING. Lots of varieties of onion available to you. I prefer shallots in this instance because you get the flavor of onion and garlic together, and you can soften them nice and caramelize them or make them crispy as you see fit. By the way, “caramelize” is a poor term because it makes me think something is covered in caramel and that is a crass lie. You don’t promise caramel if there’s no caramel. You don’t do that to a person. That’s like waterboarding. It’s just like it. Anyway, other oniony things that work: sweet onions, red onions (which are better left raw here), spring onions, leeks, or ramps. Ramps, of course, which make every hipster foodie motherfucker like me basically juice our drawers every spring. They have a 17-minute window of existence at your local farmer’s market and THEN THEY GONE.

SOME KIND OF CRUNCH FACTOR. I like demanding that my lettuce wraps act as a divine symphony of unholy textures inside your crass, base, human mouth. I prefer nuts for this (ha ha ha no, not those nuts, you weirdo). You could do a “nut mix,” and you could throw a few Brazil nuts in there for the selenium. Cashews and mac nuts make for a nice addition. Sometimes I throw in a mix of sunflower seeds and pepitas. Or just the broken teeth of a fist-punched leopard.

Got all that covered?

Good.

Now, it’s time to assemble.

You will cook your protein in the manner of your soul’s yearning. When I use chicken thighs (six of ’em for two-and-a-half people), I grill them first for about six minutes on each side, making sure the meat is salted and peppered before it ever tongue-kisses the grill-fire. Then I let the meat rest to seal in juices (MEAT MUST SLEEP) before dicing it up to go into the pan.

While your meat is resting, you want to cook up your oniony bits. As noted, for me, diced shallots. Here again is another CHOOSE YOUR OWN CULINARY ADVENTURE moment as you can decide what oil you like best. I hear some weird things about vegetable oil, which is maybe true or which is maybe spooky anti-science bullshit, but whatever. Either way, vegetable oil for me is about as interesting as chicken breasts. Coconut oil imparts a nice taste, and olive oil is always a friendly option. Just make sure it’s real virgin olive oil, which is to say, produced by temple virgins.

Shallots. Soften. Or crisped. Whatever.

Then: diced chicken thighs into the mix.

So too must the vegetables go into the pan: punished because they’re vegetables and not meat.

Brown the meat, soften the veggies a bit.

Now it’s SAUCY TIME.

*oils beard, whips off pants, starts dance music*

Wait, no: sauce time. SAUCE time.

*washes beard, applies pants, turns on sensible music*

Into the pan goes:

A tbsp of rice wine vinegar.

A tbsp of tamari soy sauce.

A tsp of mirin.

Stir it up, let it cook for a couple minutes.

Then: hoisin sauce. Around a quarter-cup of it.

Mix, mix, mix.

Cook another, mm, say, five minutes.

In the meantime, it is time to clean your lettuce. I clean the lettuce because I assume it was touched by a hundred people before it ended up in my basket, including but not limited to: a flu-addled gopher, a syphilitic farmer, a just-masturbated produce stock-boy, ten sticky-fingered elementary-age school-children, and Guy Fieri. So: wash your lettuce. And then dry your lettuce.

Now: add the crunchy bits to the pan. You don’t need them to cook long. Also add one or two herbs: cilantro and/or Thai basil. Diced as you see fit, stirred around good, mmm. If you’re so inclined, squirt a little sesame oil in there before removing immediately from the heat (cooking too long after will soften the crunchies, take the flavor out of the herbs, and dull the sesame oil).

Scoop into a serving receptacle (bowl, dish, elk skull).

Put lettuce on serving tray (cutting board, plate, shell of a rare sea turtle you killed).

Now, assemble lettuce wraps.

Lettuce in your hand (or robot mitten or lobster claw or whatever ends your arms).

Spoonful of the yummy concoction into the lettuce.

Squirt some Sriracha or other favorite hot sauce atop it. So too with a little lime juice.

(Of course, limes are now being held hostage by Mexican cartels? What the actual fuck? It’s some kind of limepocalypse out there. Right now I can only buy the tiniest little shitbird limes and they’re like, a buck a pop? How the hell will I make gin and tonics now? And don’t say “bottled lime juice,” which is mostly just high fucktose corn slop. How dare you. How dare you.)

Fold, spindle, mutilate.

Eat.

You should be hearing angels singing to a cacophony of loud electric guitars.

You may be sexually aroused.

You’re welcome.

I don’t believe in writer’s block anymore than I believe in, say, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, or a UFO-load of butt-probing, almond-eyed, macrocephalic aliens.

That said, I believe that when people see those things, they’re usually seeing something. Bigfoot might be a bear, or a loose chimpanzee, or my Uncle Dave. The monster at Loch Ness is probably a log or a sunken vessel. Those aliens are probably your old college buddies pulling a prank on you, or maybe a hallucination from when you ate that really old lunchmeat and assured your family, “No, no, it’s fine, it’s supposed to be slimy and move of its own volition across the counter.”

And so it is with writer’s block. I do not believe in writer’s block.

But I do believe that all kinds of people get blocked about all kinds of things.

Writer’s block is a thing in name only. And we give it power by naming it. Worse, we give our own power away when we fail to see it for what it really is. See, writer’s block manifests in a number of ways, and it’s very important to understand the root cause of the mental and emotional obstacle that feels like it’s preventing you (because it’s not really preventing you, unless your version of Writer’s Block is some big dude who sits on your hands so you can’t type — once again I must apologize for my Uncle Dave). The notion of writer’s block has a vibe of doomed romance and starving artist to it, suggesting that we all share this common experience of being held off from our own gracious poetry. Writer’s block must mean I’m a real writer! Horseshit. It ain’t romantic. It isn’t your doom. Get shut of that idea post-haste.

So. If writer’s block isn’t writer’s block, just what the fuzzy, fizzling fuck is it?

…Lack of Confidence In Yourself

Problem: You don’t believe in yourself or your ability to do this work well. Your vision of the work in your head fails to match the execution on the page. I used to watch my aunt paint watercolor and think, “YEAH SHIT BRO I CAN DO THAT,” then I’d try and it would look like I splashed gray garbage water on a once-nice piece of paper. And so I gave up because of the unrealistic expectation that I held for myself. We are frequently holding ourselves to unrealistic expectations and that fucks us up. The pressure builds a wall between us and the work.

Solution: Care less. Calm down. You’re not curing cancer. Enjoy your ability to suck. Realize we all suck when we begin (and often throughout). Recognize that sucking during a first draft means that later you can come up behind your own shitty manuscript like a motherfucking editorial ninja and snap its neck and then use its blood to redline the work to make it better. Very few people are awesome the first time they try something, anything, and yet we’re trained to believe that writing is easy. “Just write,” people offer as their reductive writing advice, which makes this sound as easy as taking your first steps as an infant — and maybe it is, but also remember the infant only managed six first steps before taking a header into the dog’s waterbowl. The way through this block is to write. Write through your lack of confidence and write through your limited ability. Writing through the suck is how you get better at it.

…Doubt In What You’re Writing

Problem: This thing you’re working on just ain’t working. It’s not writer’s block. It’s the material. Something wonky is hiding in the various gears and dongles of your wordsmithy. You halt because you instinctively recognize that you’re charging forth into an uncertain reality, as if you went back in time and stepped on a butterfly and now you’re back and something feels wrong and you can’t tell what it is (hint: Hitler is president and we all have two butts).

Solution: A few ways to go here. First, say “fuck it,” keep writing. Act like nothing is wrong. Persevere and write through it and eventually the solution may present itself. Or: stop writing forward and start looking backward. Flip through and see if you went wrong somewhere, if there’s some moment in the story where you feel like you took it in a wrong direction, or see if you can spot a plot-hole whose heretofore-unseen absence of logic has been haunting you like a gibbering ghost rising from past pages. Or: take a good long long at the story. Is this really the story you wanted to tell? Is this your heart, minced into narrative, or is this the story someone else wants you to tell? Sometimes writing to a market or to another person’s expectations feels unnatural, like we’re wearing someone else’s underwear. It’s halting, jarring, unpleasant — and it can lead to creative blockage. Here, I’m afraid the solution is to go and write the thing you really want to write. The thing that speaks to your storytelling soul. The thing that is your blood on the page.

…Uncertainty About Where The Story Is Going

Problem: You’re running around like a car-struck squirrel, tail pinned to the asphalt, little scrabbly-paws carrying in you in endless circles. You’re lost. Lost in the story same way old people get lost on the Internet. (“AM I HOME YET.” “No, Grandpa, you’re on Tumblr watching animated GIFs of Castiel from Supernatural.”) So your mind protects you by doing what it knows best: sheltering in place. It tells you to hunker down. Help will come. Hang out here for a while where no words are being written. Feels like writer’s block, but what it really ends up being is your inability to move forward due to dire uncertainty in the tale at hand.

Solution: Some people are into this kind of mystery. They like putting on a blindfold and barreling through an eventide forest just to see what’ll happen. They like writing without any sense at all of what’s happening. You might not be that person. You maybe think you are, but you might be like me, instead: a pantser by heart, a plotter by necessity. I can be paralyzed by not knowing where to go next, which is why I prep ahead. And during. And after a draft. And that, there, is your solution. Plan! Prep! Draw a fucking map before you leave your house. Outline before you begin, or outline during the writing, or outline retroactively to see where you went and how you’ll do differently on the next draft. If you feel like you’re in the dark with a broken flashlight, then plot out your steps. Many authors gain confidence by knowing that there is still a story ahead of them and that they haven’t just written themselves into a brick wall.

…Fear of Failure

Problem: You have already designed your failure. It exists as a hilarious Rube Goldbergian blueprint inside your mind — the orchestration and execution of your ultimate stupidity. This mechanism clicks and whirs and in its robot voice reminds: They’re all gonna laugh at you. They’re gonna dump pig blood on you at the Prom. You fool. You hilariously deluded fool. Fear is a powerful thing, especially fear of failure. We fail at things in life and particularly as a kid and the world is not always kind to failure, is it? People do laugh. Or mock. Or teachers give us a bad grade. Or parents chide us and yell at us to do better. And we learn from this that doing better is only an act driven by the need to not be punished when really it needs to be driven by our own love of of seeing improvement and our desire to manifest what it is we really want to accomplish. When it comes to writing the problem with failure is that it’s internally-driven. Nobody’s going to give us a grade and so we have no metric. The only one punishing ourselves is us, and we are the cruelest judges and most shame-inducing critics — perhaps as a way to undercut our own future failures, to pre-punish for our as-yet-unseen rejections. In this way, we allow fear of failure to creep in the door. And by opening that door, we become our own worst enemies. Our fear stops us cold.

Solution: Psst. Psst. Failure is fucking amazing. Failure is an opportunity: to try, to learn, to do it all over again with a greater sense of awareness and confidence. Rejection is a beautiful thing because rejection is scar tissue formed in battle. Rejection is proof you’re fighting and not just sitting around with your nose up your own ass. Failure is armor: every time you fail you build a new layer of chitin to protect yourself the next time. Learn to love failure. Fail as many times as it takes to succeed. Writing is a job with as many chances as you need; our books live in a Groundhog Day reiterative existence where we can redraft and redraft as many times as we need to (outside the external pressures of deadlines and the like). Success is just the tip of a mountain — the highest peak built on a bedrock of failure. Failure is essential. Quash the fear. Write till its right.

…Fear of Success

Problem: Oh, fear, you tricksy fucker. Fear of success? Is that a thing? You bet your sweet cocaine-dusted nipples it is. We can fear various aspects of success: we might fear that success will up the stakes too high and we won’t be able to live up; we might fear that our success won’t be enough or won’t be something we can repeat; we might be secretly certain that we don’t deserve success. It’s easier to just stop where you are. Success is scary. It levels up your game and comes with a whole new host of pressures. And that can freeze us out of our own writing.

Solution: Relax. Stop thinking about success as external. Don’t worry about validation from anyone but yourself. Set a metric for success that includes you, and only you. Stop worry about things you can’t control and set your meter to include only those things you can control. Realize that a writing career — hell, a single writing day — is a thing with many peaks and valleys. Do you deserve success? Who gives a shit? If you get it, assume you worked for it and that you deserve it. Anything else is whispers from a demon. (And, that demon might be named “depression” — more on that pecking, thieving magpie-of-doom in a few minutes.)

…Burnout

Problem: You flared up and burned out and now you’re naught but a crispy charcoal briquette. Your internal creative space looks like what’s left after a house-fire. You’re tired. Exhausted, even.

Solution: Jeez, take a break. Step away from the story or I’ll Taser you right in the naughty bits. Go reward yourself for working so hard. Have some ice cream. Go for a walk. Build a Lamborghini from the bones of your enemies. Don’t go away from your story for too long. A few hours. A day or two or three. We spend a ton of IEP (Intellectual Energy Points) on our work and our life, so go, recharge, let your creative juices once more pickle your headcheese. Then get back to work with fresh eyes. Bring coffee. Because coffee.

…Other People Getting In Your Head

Problem: People can be poison. This is not true of everybody, but most writers know folks whose sole purpose seems to be quietly stabbing you with invisible knitting needles — shitty jerky fucky fuckers who prefer to diminish than build up, who are dire cynics but prefer to present themselves as helpful realists, who want to remind you again and again what a bad awful no-good idea writing is, either as a career or a hobby. Over time, this is erosive, corrosive. It gets into you. Eats at you. And when you go to write, it’s their doubting voices you hear. Not your own.

Solution: SPACE THEM FROM YOUR AIRLOCK. Watch them scream soundlessly while spiraling into the blackness of space. Translation: KILL THEM. … whoa, wait, no, I mean, uhhh, translation: cut them out of your lives. If you can’t cut them out for whatever reason (it’s your mother, your drug dealer, your dog), then you need to build a resistance to them. They are iocane powder and you must not let them destroy you. Try talking to them. Try letting them know that they’re hurtful instead of helpful. If that fails: hit the ‘ignore’ button and walk away.

…Just A Cheap Excuse To Not Do What You Need To Do

Problem: Mmmmyeah, you’re lazy. Sorry! You say, “I have writer’s block,” and yet, there you are on social media or you’re playing World of Warcraft and you don’t seem to be trying very hard at all. Reality is, sometimes writer’s block is just an excuse. It’s an easy and acceptable one, too. You’re not writing, people ask why, you tell them you’re blocked up like a colon. And they nod, because they’ve heard about this dreaded writer’s block and gosh, it must be bad. And the trick is, writer’s block still makes you feel like you’re a writer. It’s something writers get. You got it. Well, you must be the real deal. Except, you’re not trying very hard to get unblocked, are you? Because it’s much easier to talk like a writer then to do the actual writing, innit?

Solution: Stop fucking around. Stop lying to yourself and others. Super-glue your derriere to that overturned bucket you call an office chair and refuse to stand until you’ve written. Full stop. Game over. The only thing you get to quit is quit making excuses.

…Depression

Problem: You think you have writer’s block. In reality, you’re depressed. I don’t mean that glibly, like, oh, eye roll, you’re depressed, womp womp. I mean, you join the oh-so-many creative types who suffer from some variant, some gray goopy flavor, of depression. The thing is, depression is invisible. You won’t see the bleak, black sword through your heart. You’ll feel it, though, and it’s very easy as a writerly type to mistake this sensation as some kind of creative block. And then you go about treating it the wrong way. You think, well, I should just write through it, and while that might work for several of these other variants of creative blockage, it almost certainly will only create a multiplicative effect in terms of depression — meaning, it’ll hurt instead of help. Because you can’t just force depression, you can’t just shoulder your way through it like you’re Hercules slogging up a muddy hill. In this case, writer’s block is a symptom of a larger concern. You have to treat the disease rather than the result of the disease.

Solution: I am not a doctor (to which you all collectively gasp). If you worry that you might be depressed, it is at least worth talking to a counselor, psychologist, psychiatrist, or family doctor whereupon I assume (though am not assured) that the solution will be some combination of talk therapy and medication. What I do know, again, is that you’re not alone. It’s important to remember that. It’s important to remember that depression is a real thing, not just some cartoon stormcloud hanging over your head. It’s not an excuse, it’s not self-doubt, it’s not lack of outlining, it’s not your story, it’s not writer’s block. Acknowledge it. Call it what it is. Because unlike writer’s block, once you’ve named it, you can now work on destroying it. And that is the most vital part, I think: depression is woefully common, but the truth remains that the only way forward is to treat it. The only way out is through. Address it. Acknowledge it. Recognize you’re not a mutant, not some freak, but rather part of a rather large collective of folks. And at the end of the day know that if you want to be a writer and you suffer from depression that this must be dealt with or you won’t get to be the writer you want to be. And that is truly sad.

…Just A Bad Day

Problem: You’re just having a shit day. We all have them. Fuck it.

Solution: Go do something else. Just for today. Come back to it later. You shouldn’t have too many of these free days, of course, because if you do, that says that something bigger is going on, some larger obstruction that must be addressed. But sometimes the obstruction isn’t big. Sometimes it’s just: today sucks, tomorrow will suck less, walk away from the Writing Machine and go do some other stuff for the moment. See you back at it in 24 hours, yeah?

* * *

The Gonzo Big Writing Book Bundle.

*pay what you want, starting @ $10*

*offers ends May 31st*

It is that time again.

Recommend to me — us, because a whole lot of folks are reading this blog — a book.

It can be a book that’s been out.

Or a book that’s coming out soon.

Any genre. Any variant of publishing.

Tell us what it is, who it’s by, and why you recommend it.

Just. One. Book.

Not yours.

Not ten books.

A book.

Now, before I dart off, I’ll make a recommendation to you.

THE THREE, by Sarah Lotz.

“Lotz is a ferociously imaginative storyteller whose twisty plots will kick the stairs out from under you. She’s a talent to watch.”—Lauren Beukes, author of The Shining Girls

“The Three is really wonderful, a mix of Michael Crichton and Shirley Jackson. Hard to put down and vastly entertaining.”—Stephen King

Four plane crashes happen simultaneously around the world. Appearing to have different causes entirely. And yet, in three of those accidents — and maybe, just maybe in the fourth, too — one child survived the devastation. I really don’t want to give away too much more than that, but from there unfolds one of the finest, freakiest horror novels put to paper. It’s told as artifacts — documents compiled and found — and offers a world real enough (and fragile enough) to feel like our own. That’s in fact what makes this book so terrifying, to me: the fact that you can read it and despite hints of the supernatural, it feels like oh, shit, if this happened, this is how it would unfold. All of life, a big-ass Jenga tower waiting to come down.

See, for me, the best horror isn’t just about the scares. It isn’t really about the horror.

It’s about the dread that follows in its wake. And this has that ten times over.

It also has one of the more harrowing descriptions of a plane crash.

Which I read while sitting on a plane, soooooo. Oops.

(And come to think of it, I hop on a plane tonight, too. MAYBE I’LL RE-READ IT.)

My only small issue with the book — and it’s a non-issue, mostly, in that it remains effective, if jarring — is the shift for the last part of the book away from the artifacts and into straight prose. The prose there is excellent and does the job it needs to do, but after over 3/4 of the book being told in one fashion, the hard shift is keenly felt.

Either way.

Go.

Get it.

This will be a huge bestseller, I predict.

Amazon | B&N | Indiebound