My Worst Writing Fear - Ridicule

My Worst Writing Fear: Ridicule

by

Shannon Heuston

I wrote my first book at the age of six, carefully printing the words in an orange spiral notebook.  It was about a group of naughty children misbehaving in school.  I illustrated it with blue ballpoint pen.  Deciding I was finished, I scrawled The End, then abandoned my masterpiece.

            

Days later, my sister and her friends discovered it.

            

Fists clenched, I listened to her giggle to my mother about how they had taken turns reading it.  This first audience did not please me.  They thought my book was a joke, and it wasn’t supposed to be funny.

           

I was furious, embarrassed, and hurt.  Despite the cavalier way I’d tossed my creation aside, I cared about it. Hearing it mocked stung.   I never forgot how that felt.

            

I didn’t stop writing, but I never lost my fear of sharing it.  The memory of that derisive laughter echoes in my head whenever I hit the publish button.

            

Writing is invasive, an excavation of the soul.  When finished, it becomes your contribution, your purpose for living.  It’s you.  Criticism is an unwelcome intrusion.

            

Writing my first novel, The Playground entailed reliving the past.  Based on my childhood bullying experiences and its aftermath, I felt brutal honesty was required to increase awareness about the ongoing trauma suffered by victims.  This meant reopening old wounds andrisking the same kind of rejection I experienced as a child, a frightening prospect.

            

Publishing my novel was both terrifying and exhilarating.  It wasn’t something I could take back or undo.  What if I regretted it?  Sending it out into the world was like jumping off a cliff.

            

The initial reaction was overwhelmingly positive. My novel was a hand reaching out to others who were also suffering, to let them know they are not alone and what happened was wrong.

            

Sometimes I receive notes from readers telling me how deeply my book touched them.  They always arrive in the nick of time, just when I’ve begun to question my vocation, to reassure me that all the hard work is worth it.

            

Then there’s the criticism.

            

It’s inevitable, and that’s why we writers fear it.  Any book that inspires great passion will eventually be hated by someone. 

            

The negative reviews hurt, but I try to take it in stride.  I may shed a tear or two, but my book continues to sell.  That’s the important thing.  I concentrate on the good and try to dismiss the bad. It’s silly to focus on a few negative reviews when they are outnumbered by the positives ones.  That’s what I tell myself, anyway.

            

Criticism is the first sign of success.  Rather than signaling failure, it’s a sign you’ve arrived.  People are not motivated to write a negative review unless you’ve awakened their emotions.   All great artists receive their share of criticism.  Occasional negative feedback is the price youpay for doing what you love and sharing it with the world.

            

I’ve learned that it’s okay to fear criticism, it’s okay to hate it, and it’s even okay to cry over it.   Butdon’t let it shake your confidence.  Contrary to popular belief, successful people sufferthe most rejection.Instead of giving up, they use it as motivation to work harder.

            

Writing is a brutal profession.  Rejection is guaranteed.   But the ability to share your message with the world, reach people in their loneliness, and have an impact on their lives is worth it.  Criticism is  the buzzing of a mosquito in comparison. Celebrate it as a sign of success.

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Author Bio

Shannon T. Heuston was born in Boston, MA but grew up in Westchester County, New York, where she still resides. She first professed her desire to become a writer at the age of eight, when she tried to write a mystery series titled "The Sally Bridgman Mysteries" styled after Nancy Drew. Her first book had Sally Bridgeman and the gang traveling to France and then right away going out to peer in people's windows and spy on them, because, how else would you find yourself a mystery? She would like to believe her writing has grown more sophisticated since then.

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Blurb 

This novel is for anyone who has ever suffered bullying.  Rachel Parsons was horrifically bullied as a child.  Thirty years later the memories of the abuse she suffered still haunts her.  What happened on the playground?  And why can't she forget it?  A book that explores the long term effects of childhood victimization.

Check out the reviews for Shannon Heuston's novel, The Playground, on Amazon. You can also find Shannon on GoodReads and on Facebook.

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Excerpt

I had outgrown my old sneakers, so my mother found a pair of white boy’s Nikes with a baby blue swoosh on the sides from Odd Lot, a store that sold brand name merchandise at steeply discounted prices.  They cost three dollars, an enormous bargain for sneakers even back in 1985.  Happy that my parents were happy, I innocently wore those sneakers the next day, not realizing that life as I knew it was about to end because of this fashion misstep.

            I had no idea I had just committed social suicide until Alicia, the gorgeous girl I had been trying vainly to impress, wrinkled her nose at my blinding white shoes.  “Are those from Odd Lot?” she asked.

Instinctively, I knew to deny it from her tone.  

“No,” I said, forcing a smile, “I’ve had them a long time.  I just haven’t worn them.”

I was hoping I could trick her into thinking I had bought them before they’d been marked down and condemned to the discount bins.

Darren, the boy who had asked me if my refrigerator broke because I ate all the food, materialized like a dog scenting blood.  Bending down with his hands on his knees to get a closer look, he chortled, “You’re a liar!  Those sneakers are so from Odd Lot!  I saw them in the three dollar bin when I went shopping there on Saturday with my mom.”

My cheeks burning, I drew my feet in beneath my desk, wishing I could pull them up inside me like a turtle withdrawing into its shell.

“Definitely from Odd Lot,” was Alicia’s final verdict, presented with a toss of her perfectly coiffed head.  “I wouldn’t be caught dead in sneakers from Odd Lot.”  She swiveled her ankles to show off the delicate gold colored sandals adorning her feet. “These came from Bloomingdales.”

La-di-da, I had no idea what that meant anyway.  I knew nothing of brand names or stores.  If you said Banana Republic to me, I thought you were talking about a country whose main expert was bananas.

“Are you poor?” Alicia asked me bluntly.  “Only poor people buy their sneakers at Odd Lot.”

            “No,” I breathed, horrified.

I quickly scanned everyone else’s feet, for the first time observing something absolutely alarming.  My sneakers were completely wrong. Almost every other kid in my class wore the same sneakers, white low topped Reeboks with a jaunty British flag stitched into the sides and the brand name stamped on the back in blue block letters.  Even Jason, who was studying a book at his desk with way too much concentration not to be aware of what was going on, was wearing Reeboks.

I was an alien studying human life.

The feeling that had swept over me the first day of school, that everyone else was speaking a language I didn’t understand, was back.  Everyone was in on the joke together.  And I was all alone.

Keeping Your Writing Fears on a Leash -- Guest Blog by Helena Smole

Keeping Your Writing Fears on a Leash
Guest Blog by Helena Smole

    I have so many fears associated with writing that it would be really difficult for me to pick just one. Thus I decided to shortly depict each and every one of them. Writing is my greatest passion in life, although it had taken me a while to write my first book. It was at the age of 36 that I became a published author. I had felt the passion before, but had found every excuse not to write. Considering all the fears in my heart it was easy to find excuses.

   My first book ‘Balancing the Beast. A Bright View of Schizoaffective Disorder – Bipolar or Manic-Depressive Type’ is a first person account of my struggle with mental illness. The greatest fear while writing it was the fear of coming out of the closet with a stigmatized illness. I overcame this fear by meditation and great emotional support from my husband.

   When I started to write my first fiction book ‘Vivvy and Izzy the Dwarf: A series about relationships. Book 1: Out of the Forest and into the City. A Fantasy Novel’, I first thought it would be easy. On the contrary, there were new fears popping up. Firstly, I was afraid of writing something unlikely. While writing a fantasy novel one could easily be tricked into thinking that one can write anything, since it is fantasy anyway. Yet, in my opinion, one can quickly lose readers, if the plot is too illogical. I am trying to solve this problem by balancing the every-day reality with the careful inclusion of supernatural phenomena like wizards and dwarfs.

   Secondly, I am always afraid of disrupting the time sequence, like for example writing about the spring first and shortly after about the winter, while it should be the other way around. I worry a lot about it while writing, but I also dedicate one reading of the finished text solely to the time sequence.

   The worst fear, of course, is the fear of being uninteresting, or generally inadequate. It is the fear of having no readers. This can escalate into a paranoia, so for me the only way to keep it down is to meditate.

   One has to know something about fears though. If they are kept on a leash, they can be very useful, because they force us to try harder.

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Author Bio:

Helena Smole

    Helena Smole abandoned her career as a scientific researcher and decided to dedicate her life to writing. In her first book, Balancing the Beast, she describes how she learned to maintain her mental health. She is a 40-year-old language specialist who managed to learn to live with schizoaffective disorder. She decided to write about mental illness because she believes that the most dangerous stigma is the one mental health consumers carry in their heads. Her mission is to make mental illness casual and thus help her co-patients rebuild their self-esteem. 

   After her first book, she continued by writing novels. In her novels she writes about relationships and, being aware of the hectic world we live in, she lets supernatural beings help couples make it through the rough patches. In a way, she is reviving the old tradition of fairy tales, only this time they are intended for grown-ups. She has also authored over 170 analytical blogs on maintaining one’s emotional and mental balance, which can be read at www.helenasmole.com 

   Readers can contact Helena at her website, on Facebook, or on Twitter. She also has some questions for you. Would you be interested in a fantasy novel with romance, where wizards and dwarfs help a couple make it through the rough patches? See more information. Readers can also contact her: info@helenasmole.com

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Book Blurb:

Vivvy and Izzy the Dwarf:

Out of the Forest into the City 

 

   Izzy the dwarf comes out of the forest and into the city to befriend Vivvy. Izzy proves to be a true friend and source of wisdom throughout the story, also by consulting Wizards. Later, they both move to Pond Town, where Vivvy meets Felix. What follows is a story of a couple who love each other truly, but face many obstacles in their relationship, just like any other couple. The difference is that in addition to couples therapy, they can also rely on dwarfs and fairies in a pinch. This fantasy novel about relationships will enrich you with human emotion viewed under a microscope.

         Readers can buy Vivvy and Izzy the Dwarf on  Amazon USA and Amazon UK.

Getting the Science Right - Stephen A. Benjamin's Worst Writing Fear

My Worst Writing Fear:

Getting the Science Straight

by

 Stephen A. Benjamin

  I am a veterinarian and a biomedical researcher. The goal of scientific research is to decipher the workings of the natural world. Accuracy in the collection and interpretation  of experimental data is the fundamental basis for scientific discovery and advancement.

So, what is my greatest fear as a writer of fiction, science fiction to be exact? The fear of getting something scientific wrong. How can I get something wrong if I am writing fiction? Good fiction is based on reality. Are the characters and their actions realistic; do they evoke emotion and caring in the reader? Are the settings well-drawn and believable? In any genre, if the reader cannot buy into the characters, the setting , or the action, they will suspend belief and, potentially, their reading.

  But science fiction is fantastical adventure, whether  set in the past, present, or future. It bears no relationship to “reality,” does it? Tell that to Jules Verne or H. G. Wells, nineteenth century writers who accurately predicted many of the scientific advances of the twentieth century. Did they get some of their predictions wrong? Of course they did. Verne, in Twenty-thousand Leagues Under the Sea, amazingly envisioned and described the  SCUBA apparatus in 1870, yet, in the same novel predicted that humans could never harm the vast diversity of creatures that lived on earth. Don’t we wish the latter prediction was true?

  If greats like Verne and Wells could make errors, why is that a fear for me? Scientists can and do make mistakes in carrying out experiments and drawing  conclusions. Mistakes, when recognized, can be important to teach us what is correct. Yet, I am still afraid to make scientific errors in my fiction. An example: In the beta version of my recently published novel, The Galactic Circle Veterinary Service, a friend and colleague, also a veterinarian, picked up two errors: one the misspelling of a horse’s bone, the other the wrong term for a dog’s anatomical structure. Well, shoot, who but a veterinarian would even know? Doesn’t matter. I would know. I learned such things in school and there is no excuse for getting them wrong. I was embarrassed even though those errors never saw the light of day.
  
  I approach my writing as I approach a scientific research problem. I exhaustively investigate what is known, then use that to predict what might be. If I don’t get the current science right, what I propose for the future doesn’t work, for me at least. In Galactic Circle, a future plague has a basis in what we know now about microbiology and biochemistry. Even the alien life-forms affected must fit within a logical and consistent biological scheme of the universe, or the disease can’t work, and my story is less believable.

  So I fear someone reading my work (especially other scientists) and finding the error that makes them say, “Boy, did he get that wrong.” The old saw says, “Write what you know.” I’m supposed to know science and medicine. If I make basic  mistakes with current science, it tells the reader that I don’t know my subject. Might as well put the book down now! 

  My science fiction is based on good science. I will continue to research my subjects ad nauseum before I prognosticate the future of that science. And I’ll continue to make sure that someone reads my books who can catch my inevitable errors before they go to print.

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Author Bio:

Stephen A. Benjamin

  Stephen A. Benjamin received his B.A. from Brandeis University and his D.V.M. and Ph.D. in pathology from Cornell University.  He has served on the faculty of two medical schools (Pennsylvania State University and University of New Mexico) and one college of veterinary medicine (Colorado State University).  He is currently Professor Emeritus in the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at Colorado State University.

  Dr. Benjamin has been a teacher, researcher, and administrator, and his interests have spanned the areas of toxicology, radiation biology, cancer research, and veterinary medicine.  He has authored or co-authored over 100 scientific publications and book chapters.

  Fiction publications include his science fiction novel, The Galactic Circle Veterinary Service, which draws heavily on his medical background, and a short story, Just Desserts, a supernatural humor piece. Both were published by TWB Press, Lakewood, CO. Benjamin has an author page on Facebook.

  Dr. Benjamin lives in Colorado with his wife.  Besides writing, he enjoys travel, fishing, camping, golf, skiing, cooking, good wine, and five lovely granddaughters.

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BLURB:

The Galactic Circle Veterinary Service

His family threatened by his world’s tyrannical theocracy, a young veterinarian is forced to run an interstellar veterinary service as cover for espionage in advance of a galactic invasion. Watched over by a xenophobic and sadistic government spy, he offers medical services to the alien life-forms he meets. Treating werewolves for mange only scratches the surface of his adventures as he makes human and alien allies to help him free his parents and his world from oppression.

You can read samples of The Galactic Circle Veterinary Service 
on Amazon, Nook, Smashwords
and at TWB Press.

My Worst Writing Fear: Failure

 

My Biggest Writing Fear:

 It’s failure…Kind of...

 by
 Jason Helford
 

   I spent the first decade of my writing career immersed in learning and coming up with ideas.  The book ideas came easily for me, but I knew that I could and would not do them justice if I didn’t learn my craft first.  Many people think writing only involves an idea, a computer, and a bunch of time, but having been around writers for my whole life, I knew there was a lot more to it.  I found myself feeling very daunted—how the heck does someone just become a novelist?—so I tried to come up with a series of steps.

After thinking on it for some time, I came up with a list of the concepts I felt it was important to know and understand.  The next step required a classroom, so I signed up for a class.  I read, I studied, I took tons of notes and read examples from great authors, and then came another more advanced class where I was introduced to more advanced concepts.  I immersed myself in learning how to write by learning how other people wrote.  Then, my wife and I had a wonderful little girl, so I had to continue my studies at home.

In a drawer in my Grandfather’s old writing desk, I have a notebook in which I write down all my ideas, and that book was nearly filled a few years into my studies; however, I didn’t think I was ready yet, so I kept learning.  Grammar, syntax, themes, subtext, the subtleties of character.  The question persisted: “How do I do justice to these odd ideas floating around in my head?”

Months turned into years, which drew out to a decade.  Honestly, I had plenty of valid excuses available to me: I was a stay at home dad; I had to understand how to appropriately mix genres utilizing layered themes; I simply had more to learn.  “I’m just not ready,” I said to everyone.  Well, it wasn’t enough, and the pressure began to build, both internally and externally, as more and more people asked, “Where is the book?”  Everything I learned led to more things to learn, and I feared that I would never be good enough to start writing.  I was in a semi-comfortable feedback loop of learning, explaining and making excuses about why not yet.

Finally, the best writer in my life, my Dad, took me aside to talk.  We had been playing poker together on a weekend visit, something we always do, and it was 2 AM.  We were driving back home, laughing about all the odd characters at the table.  He got quiet, kept his eyes on the road, and asked me, “Jai, why aren’t you writing yet?”  I gave him the same pat excuses I gave everyone, but he brushed that aside, and told me possibly the best bit of advice I have ever gotten.  He told me, “Jai, look, everyone is afraid to put themselves out there.  But you have to, or you’ll never know.  Jai, you have to allow yourself to fail.”  Allow myself to fail.  He hit the nail on the head with that one, and I had nothing to say back.  I was not allowing myself to fail.  We just listened to the radio for the rest of the drive.

Fear of failure had kept me from trying.  It had kept me in a comfortable, embryonic stage, where the water is warm and no one is judging yet.  I think he may have won the dad advice pool with that one.  Once we pulled up to the house, I said, “You’re right, Dad.”  He smiled and nodded, and I found the drive to finish my first book and get it out into the marketplace.  That conversation was three years ago next April.  Since then, I have published two books, and I’m working on the third as I type, and I have the next bunch of books already planned.  I am allowing myself to fail…but I sure hope I don’t.

         

~~#~~

Author Bio:

Jason Helford

   Jason Helford is a first time author, having recently published his debut novel, From a Killer’s Mind, in July of 2013.  He’s a devoted husband and father, an avid comic book collector and an enthusiastic craft beer drinker.  Prizing originality and creativity more than anything else, his favorite authors are Hunter S. Thompson, Chuck Palahniuk, Ray Bradbury, Terry Brooks, Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman, Robert Asprin and Albert Camus.  Please don’t be offended if you are an author and your name wasn’t mentioned, he probably likes you, too.  He lives in Maryland with his wife, Bella, his daughter, Maddie, and his goofy dog, Sunset.

More information about Helford's writing can be found at his Website. 

Book Blurb:

From a Killer's Mind 

   The prologue is a vignette that brings the reader into the tone and setting of the novel, giving a foreshadowing of the events that will unfold.  It starts with newlyweds on a happy day, looking at a prospective home, but ends in tragedy due to an evil resonance attached to the house.  This leads the reader to the beginning of John's story.

John has been a successful serial killer for his entire adult life, committed to his craft without detection or disruption.  He's spent years refining his process and meticulously planning out each kill, honing his abilities to horrible heights.  At the start of the novel, the reader is introduced to John going about the routine of his particular method of selection and abduction.  The plans are well-rehearsed, but his dark life is abruptly disrupted as something even darker wells out from deep within him.  What starts out as one dissociative lapse--a blackout on the road--turns into a series of uncontrollable blackouts, unraveling his carefully wrought control.  John tries to re-center his mind through meditation--a technique he taught himself as a young man, to quiet his chaotic thoughts--but while John is deep within himself, he finds unfamiliar dark voices, voices not his own.  They claw past his defenses and force themselves into John's reality, manifesting from out of the depths of his subconscious.  John's scarred psyche had manifested as grotesque physical representations, torturing his fragile mind and bringing his buried past terrors back to life.

Through a series of unbidden flashbacks to the abuses and defining moments of John's past, and through his interactions with these manifestations representing his weaknesses and fears, the reader glimpses what set him on the path to being such a prolific killer.

The book is written with an emotional honesty that lays bare the killer's soul for all readers to see, while also delivering a good scare.

Buy Links for 

From a Killer's Mind.

Amazon           Nook            Smashwords          KOBO

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