Here there be guest post! This time by Tee Morris, talking about how the fear we all feel about our writing doesn’t go away just because you’ve published a book.

I never like seeing friends stressed out. Whether it is intensely stressed out or just out of their groove, it just kills me. It is amplified more when I personally feel the bumpy ride of Life’s rougher patches. Lately, those bumps have been feeling far too frequent for me; and it is very easy to lose yourself within the bad news and let it affect your work.

Getting published isn’t the hard part. It’s living up to the hype. Every time you clear one goal, another appears in front of you; and each goal is higher than the next.

There’s a lot riding on Dawn’s Early Light, the third book in the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series, penned by Pip Ballantine and myself. At least, that’s what I’m seeing. The book hasn’t sold a single copy, and yet the fate of an award-winning steampunk series, potential titles under development, and even my own direction as an author all feels to be in the balance. Why, you may ask? As I was one told by a friend of mine:

“You got nothing to worry about. You’ve arrived.”

I have? Well shit, I must have missed that memo.

Sure, I have the previous performance of the series’ previous books, Phoenix Rising and The Janus Affair. They still manage to appear in Amazon’s Top 100 in Steampunk. It’s even better when these books pop up in the top 50 after three years. We have been working up a modest anticipation for Agents Books and Braun on Twitter, on Google+, and with a third season of our award-winning Tales from the Archives podcast. We also have a blog and podcast tour underway, appearing on over twenty blogs (including this one) and ten podcasts this month, all of these appearances heading towards the launch of Dawn’s Early Light.

So why the anxiety over this? We got this, right? This ain’t our first rodeo.

Actually, it is. At least, with Ace. Our publisher has made a gamble on us and on a series in progress. We have to make sure this gamble pays off. This is what it means to be a modern day author. Back in the day of Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen King — hell, even in the days of a young and spry (?) George R.R. Martin — the term R.O.I. never came into play.

It’s a different world now, kids. It would be nice to think you can follow in the footsteps of Uncle George and enjoy a few years between books, but you can’t and you won’t. You’re measured by your last book. Not only in how it performs but when it came out.

The clock continues to count down to release date, and I continue to try to keep a clear head amongst distractions like douchenozzles buying New York Times bestseller slots and the saber rattling over Independent versus Big Bad Legacy publishing. It’s enough to drive you to drink (and I enjoy my single malt over chilled rocks, thank you), especially when you have on the line details like a house, a child to take care of, and a career to pursue.

On one of the more intense days where I was getting particularly frustrated, Pip said it to me through my rant of frustration: “You can’t give up. You’re not allowed.”

Then it hit. And it’s still hitting me…

I’m scared.

I’m scared that Ministry won’t go the way people are telling me it will go. I’m scared the book will hit the shelves and people will hate it. I’m scared that I’ve got all these great ideas, but I’ll suddenly find myself unable to get beyond the pitch. I’m scared the Ministry is going to fall short of everyone’s expectations; and I’m scared, particularly on those days when I struggle to herd the words, of losing that ability to write.

There’s also that fear that I’m doing something wrong, or not doing enough, to make our latest title a success.

That’s what’s happening in my headspace, and it is tearing me apart.

I understand what Pip meant though. I’m not allowed to give up. These are First World problems, and I still have stories to tell. It may sound like I am miserable, but that’s not it either. It’s just that anticipation. I love what I do, but I know how I get right before a major release. I set a pace, and there are days when I feel I cannot keep that pace. I have to, though, no matter how bad it may seem. We as the upright mammals we have evolved (in spite of those damn Godzilla-bits in our brain) must always strive forward. Onward. Always.

But this terror. Sometimes, this darkness feels bigger than me.

This fear isn’t a bad thing though. It’s good. It keeps me focused and driven. I know that when I’m the most terrified, I’m sharp. My heart pounds like a jack rabbit as I hammer out a blogpost, before a speaking event, before a panel discussion, against words straining to get on the screen, and—from what I discovered at a writers’ retreat—introducing a new work amongst a roomful of peers. I know that I’m alive, and every rapid pound in my chest reminds me that I have earned the right to be here and it’s time for my “A” game. I am told by agents, editors, and publishers I have chosen a path that few undertake. I honestly don’t know what that means, but I do know that this fear is an acknowledgement of a challenge before me.

When that fear threatens, though, a friend of mine—a fellow storyteller named Phil Rossi—offers a perspective I can get behind.

“We are defined largely by our own perception. If I think I can’t write, then I’m not going to be able to do it.  If I consider myself capable of telling a good tale, then that’s just what’ll happen.  Belief is a powerful thing. 

And in this case, I’d say it’s magic.”

In a perfect world, I believe that how we should be to each other: inspiring. That really is, as Queen once put it, a kind of magic.

Find your strength. Even when you believe you have none left, remember you do. It could be a loved one. It could be another writer. There is strength to draw from. Always.

I am ready to face it. I am ready to be a motherfucking rockstar.

Writing has rules. And writing has “rules.”

By which I mean, writing is beholden to two things:

Laws and guidelines.

Laws are mostly immutable. A period goes at the end of a sentence. Commas work a certain way. Words mean things. Grammar, punctuation, parts of speech, etc.

These laws grow more complex, of course. Byzantine, even. And the more complex they become, the more mutable they get — technically, you don’t put a preposition at the end of a sentence, but really? You can. And most do. You’re not supposed to use sentence fragments, either. But you can use sentence fragments to excellent effect: the short, sharp shock of information delivered. It can set a staccato rhythm. Just as deft use of a run-on sentence — also a technical no-no — can draw out rhythm and give your prose a purposefully meandering, stream-of-consciousness feel.

Guidelines are a different animal. They feel like laws and are often reported as such because it’s much easier and more interesting to yell YOU SHOULD NEVER USE ADVERBS instead of the more even-handed hey, maybe you should think very hard whether that adverb is necessary here because it might not be, okay? Never mind the fact that in the phrase “never use adverbs,” the word ‘never’ is actually a goddamn adverb, and so are lots of words you will use frequently like ‘now,’ ‘here,’ ‘there,’ ‘always,’ ‘yesterday,’ ‘everywhere,’ or even, ahem, ‘frequently.’ Writing advice is often about guidelines and not about laws, though, so many of the givers of advice (or shouters of advice) appear do so as if they are banging a gavel against the stone binding of a bonafide holy book. This is doubly more complicated when they begin to deliver storytelling advice, which is waltzing on ground that is as unstable as a field made of wadded-up jizz-tissues.

(Don’t even get me started on publishing advice. Yoinks.)

And I say all this as a person who quite clearly delivers a goodly bit of writing, storytelling and publishing advice weekly. I say this to remind you, in part, that what I say here is really just a suggestion — advice on par with how to how to brew coffee or how to perform a given sex-move. You do what you like. Different squeaks for different freaks.

Or: whatever makes your grapefruit squirt, you know?

Because every writer is a different animal. A mythic beastie whose mold was broken.

But herein lies the value of writing advice: these are things worth considering. Seeing how other writers do things matters. Just as the very nature of writing is not immutable, neither is your process, and neither is your grip on language, character, plot, story. Writing advice gets you to engage in the thoughtwork necessary to say, is my way better, worse, different, or what? It demands you ask, is there a way to improve what I’m doing, and is this way the way forward, or is it a step backward? It behooves you to pick up a tool and check its heft, its grip and its function before dismissing it entirely.

Learn the laws. Observe — and challenge — the guidelines.

Some writers violate the laws and guidelines because they never beheld them in the first place, in which case they’re not some bold explorer or given over to artistic experimentation. They’re just an orangutan with a paintbrush. (Sorry to any orangutans reading this blog.) If you use a chainsaw to perform dentistry, I’m impressed, but I’ll be a whole lot less impressed if after the act you say, “Wait, what’s a chainsaw?” Accidental genius isn’t easily duplicated.

I know that I’ve broken rules in my writing. I know that I’ve broken rules in this very post.

I know why I did it, too.

I have said before and I will say again here:

We learn the rules so that we may know when to break them.

We break the rules so that we know why we need them in the first place.

Learn your craft. Then make it your own.

It’s funny that people think I’m going to curse up a storm upon meeting them.

It’s understandable. I tend to be rather profane on this here blog (er, this here motherfucking bastard of a blog). I like to curse! Profanity is a circus of language. It’s a spoken world of dizzying trapeze jumps and exploding clowns and lions eating bears or whatever the hell happens at the circus (I haven’t been to the circus in a long while, shut up).

But I thought I should warn you, since this seems like it might be of some disappointment:

I don’t actually curse that much in person.

At least, not in polite company. Like, if I just meet you, I’m not going to be like, “WHAT UP MOTHERFUCKER” and then give you a wedgie. I’m not going to abrade you with my beard and say words like “shit-turkey” or “cock-spackle” or “fuck-sundae” unbidden. I’m certainly not going to get on a panel (where children might be present) and talk about, y’know, jizz or whatever.

As I grow more comfortable with you, I may pepper in a little profanity. And if we become truly close — like, my beard cilia begin to harvest your flesh — I may utter a steady stream of gibbered profanities from the Time Before Man into your ear in a ritual unlocking so that I may milk your pineal gland of all its wisdom and turn you into another one of my Wendigo-Puppets.

(AKA “Wendogs.”)

But, just to warn you: I probably won’t be all that cursey when we meet.

Probably.

Last week’s challenge: “Must Contain…“

Cyberpunk. Steampunk. Dieselpunk.

The literary subgenre -punk contains, as I see it, a couple key features —

a) A world taken over by the technology or fuel source or by humans (often in an authoritarian role) attempting to control the utilization and implementation of that tech or resource.

and

b) Characters who represent an anarchic, rebel “punk” vibe in this world.

Certainly other definitions could apply, but this is the one I’m going for today. The Matrix works as cyberpunk because you have the authoritarian machine regime and also the radical activists who dress all bad-ass and work to break the regime and its system to itty bitty pieces. Is Star Wars spacepunk? Forcepunk? If you really wanted to be cynical, you might suggest that we — right now — live in an Oilpunk world. BUT I DETECT NO CYNICS HERE. Ahem.

Anyway.

Your job is to write 1000 words of fiction in a new SomethingPunk world.

Where [Something] is a noun (tech/resource, most likely) you choose.

Definitely no cyberpunk, steampunk, dieselpunk.

That said, if you’re feeling a bit daunted by this initial open choice, I’ve included ten options below that you could grab and use in order to write this flash fiction challenge. Grab a d10 or choose randomly. If you grab from the list, the interpretation you choose is entirely up to you. (Most of those can go several ways, I suspect.)

You’ve got one week, par usual — due by noon EST on March 21st (Friday).

Post at your blog or online space. Link to your story in the comments below.

SomethingPunk Possibilities

1. Ghostpunk
2. Hellpunk
3. Cowpunk
4. Bloodpunk
5. Soulpunk
6. Geopunk
7. Godpunk*
8. Beastpunk
9. Dustpunk
10. Germpunk

* originally written “godspunk,” which sounds like “god-spunk” instead of “gods-punk.”

Mexican Federal Agent Marcos Camarena dedicated his life to the job. But in a country where white knights die meaningless deaths, martyred in a hole with fifty other headless bodies in the desert, corruption is not an attribute but a scale; no longer a stigma but the status quo. When Marcos’s life is threatened, he leaves law enforcement and his life in Mexico City behind for a coastal resort town—until an old friend asks him to look after an outspoken politician, a woman who knows cartel violence all too well. Despite his best efforts, Marcos can’t find it in his heart to refuse, and soon finds himself isolated on the political front lines of the war on drugs.

Write to find your voice.

I read a lot of fiction. Between books and short stories the word count can, at times, become ridiculous to the point that my brain can’t retain it all and I have to take a day or two to reflect and decompress. Reading is important, as they say, to the development of a writer. It’s true and unfortunate for a lot of writers that reading is the first activity to feel the squeeze when more is added to the already full plate of family, work, friends, writing, etc. Such is life, even for those of us who cut sleep to the bone.

But I think even more important – as such wise sages as Joe R. Lansdale and Chuck Wendig will also tell you – is to get your ass in the seat, buckle down and write. Every day. Every other day. Whatever – you make the goal. I wrote my first novel in mid-2012. Thought I could surpass my fellow first novelists’ problems (too long, too short, too fat, too skinny, you name it) and plot-wise promptly ended up with everything AND the kitchen sink. But it’s my first novel and it rocks so let’s kick it to agents, shall we? Crickets.

I received one piece of feedback from a respected agent that drove me on. To summarize: This is good, but it’s not you.

It’s not you.

Damn, right? But I continued to write, almost every day, and I think over the past eighteen months between Federales and a range of short stories, I’ve found my voice. Is it good? Who knows, that’s for the reader to judge. Will it evolve? Yes, I’m learning more every day. But it’s me. Thinking about it didn’t get me there, writing did.

Less is More.

With finding my voice came a discovery of my style – less is more. I don’t mean “minimalism” and don’t get me wrong: I love a gritty crime novel stuffed with violence and action, even ‘forget reloading’ over-the-top action. But it’s not me. I’ve tried (and will again) with short fiction but when I sit back and take it all in, I always seem to find a slow burn staring back at me.

Maybe it’s in my DNA. I’m certain it’s the kind of books and television I enjoy. True Detective, Drive, Memories of Murder, The Wrestler, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Queenpin by Megan Abbott, Battleborn by Claire Vaye Watkins, In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes, “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Conner. I’m inspired by the likes of these works daily. The way a story can hinge on one action, one scene, burning an image into your mind. Something as subtle as the significance of a dress hanging in a closet, or a character’s grim determination hinting at stubbornness that you know can only lead down a dark road. What’s said and more importantly, what isn’t said. The impact of each heightened by the subdued surroundings where they might otherwise be lost amid the static.

Perhaps it’s the slow burn mentality so rooted in the history of the noir subgenre (at least with Cain and Hughes) that rings with me. The underdogs and their irrational hope in the face of almost certain failure. Here, I think, I’ve found where I fit.

It has a name: Hamartia.

The classical Greek term for the hero’s “tragic flaw.” The downfall of the White Knight. Despite a character’s best efforts at becoming cynical and immune to his sympathies for others, he remains devoted to The Right Thing. He tries to do X, but his actions have the opposite effect, resulting in the ultimate tragedy that is his disastrous fate.

An idea I subconsciously knew, but hadn’t fully wrapped my arms around.  Thanks to my man, Bracken MacLeod, for the lesson.

Researching Mexico, noir central.

Politics and Spring Break aside, the country of Mexico is largely out of sight, out of mind for Americans. The goods come in, the goods go out. Drugs come in, money goes out. And I heard there’s violence, right? Lots of violence. But not in my neighborhood.

The violence in Mexico is extreme. Estimates of the number of people killed in drug-related violence since 2006 hover around 60,000. But what I find even more chilling is the threat of violence. Can you imagine police in the United States (I use the U.S. as an example because it is where I live, but take your pick of the First World) covering their face during an arrest, at a crime scene or press conference for fear of being recognized and putting their friends and family in the cross hairs of retaliation? Can you imagine paramedics waiting for a victim of a shooting to die before providing aid, because his survival means their deaths? Or thousands of armed vigilantes patrolling a state, complete with sandbag bunkers and checkpoints, because the police, or in this case, the military, have failed to bring law and order to their lives? It’s not just the stuff of fiction.

Love to write? Love to edit.

I’ve found most of the writers I know fall into one of two camps: Those that love the draft (crank it out, it’s shit anyway) and the meticulous editor. I fall into the latter category, sometimes to the extreme, especially while writing short stories. I find a first draft can be downright frightening at times. At the start of my current WIP novel, I sat writing and rewriting and rewriting the first sentence for an hour before I just gave up and moved on. Just last week I put out a meager 400 words in three hours because I was afraid of the garbage that would spill out. But that’s what a first draft is, right? Garbage. So you just have to power through and get it all down on the page.

While I find it satisfying to finish a writing session with a solid word count, it doesn’t compare to the high of the editorial process. Spending a morning revisiting a chapter, playing with sentences, adding key details here and there. Moving on to the next chapter knowing (hoping?) you’ve got something great that you can pass on to your writing group/spouse/editor/etc. for further critique. There’s nothing better in the writing process than that, for me.

Christopher Irvin: Website | Twitter

Federales: Amazon

I feel like I should say more than that, but really, that’s all that matters. If you swing by Goodreads, you can sign up for a free giveaway of the newest Miriam Black book, The Cormorant.

So, you should go do that now:

Goodreads Giveaway Link for The Cormorant.

Make with the clicky-clicky.

Maybe get a free book.

MAYBE GET A FREE PONY.*

* no pony.