No More Fear of Rejection

It occurred to me this morning that when it comes to writing, I’m a coward.  I’ve never experienced the pain of receiving a rejection letter, not because my stories are that good, but because I’ve never bothered to submit my stories to any source where rejection is possible.  Oh sure, I entered a story in the CBC Short Story Prize competition last year, the only competition I entered, but with thousands of entries pouring in, I entered not expecting to win, so there was no disappointment when I didn’t. 

I’ve become an expert at avoiding disappointment, going so far as to self-publishing two books, a collection of flash fiction and a collection of short stories, knowing that I didn’t have the foggiest idea how to market them, but at least they weren’t rejected, and I saved face by accepting that every book I sold was a victory.  I broke even, and that was a plus, but the stories in both books deserved better than that, they deserved to be submitted, criticized, and yes, even rejected a few times in order to gain credibility.  I didn’t have the courage to do it.

It’s CBC Short Story Prize time again, and I’ve been writing up a storm, hoping upon hope to write a story that I could believe was good enough to win, I did it, but now the fear has set in and I almost decided against entering it because of possible rejection.  It needs editing and revising, and I’m working on that now, but make no mistake about it, I will enter it, and I will wait with eager anticipation until next April, when the short list is announced and the winner is announced, and I will be crushed if it doesn’t place but that’s okay, I will survive it.  One way or the other, I will start to pay my dues towards becoming a serious writer.

Life is about change, and I am resolved to change.  I won’t sit idly by, waiting for a fruitful outcome, I will write up a storm, I will submit to markets and competitions, and I will collect those rejection slips, and those successes as they come, in short, I will take the risk and become a real writer.  Challenge accepted!

Love you all!

Luc

IF IT FEELS SO WRITE, IT CAN’T BE WRONG!

As strange as it seems, I don’t remember a time when I didn’t write.  Don’t get me wrong, I know that time existed, a time when I didn’t even know what a pencil was, let alone know how to use it to form a letter, a word, or even a complete sentence, but that time is so far away that I can’t remember it at all.

From the moment that I learned the art of composition in grade school, I fell in love with writing, and pencil and paper became my best friends.  I would sit alone for hours on end in my bedroom scribbling away on anything and everything that an eight-year-old boy could possibly be interested in scribbling about, and to be honest, most of what I wrote back then was gibberish, certainly nothing that would be worthy of praise, let alone publication in a second-grade newsletter had such a monster existed back then, but I kept writing, and I got better at it.

Pen and paper are still my favorite medium for writing, even though I have a top of the line laptop and an assortment of writing software on it, something about pen and paper brings out my creativity.  My home is cluttered with notebooks, binders filled with loose leaf paper and journal books, some of them full, some half-filled, and others barely written in but I would never dream of disposing of any of them even though some of them go way back to my twenties.

Writing is my passion, there’s no doubt about that, and though the time I have available to write is limited by the time spent at my full-time job in the Addictions Field, and other life commitments, I value each minute that I get to spend writing.  I have somehow found the time to self-publish two books, a collection of flash-fiction, and a collection of short-stories, neither of which was an overwhelming success because I’ll willingly admit that I suck at self-marketing, but I sold enough copies of each to break even, and that’s all that ever really mattered to me.

Now, I know that I’m not an excellent, star quality writer, even though a few of my readers have politely stroked my ego a little bit by implying that I might be close to it, I love them to death for that, but I do know that I am a good writer.  If I didn’t know and believe that, I wouldn’t be writing because the point of writing is to keep bettering yourself, and I know I have done that, besides, I’ve gotten good reviews from the hundred or so readers who have read my books, some from as far away as the United Kingdom, yay!

Even though I’m not a best-selling author, yet (knock on wood), I trudge away at my craft as if I were, and that is the only path I know to success.  I think it’s important for people to follow their dreams, and the best way to do that is to get out there and do it.  It doesn’t matter if your dream is to be an artist, a writer, a ballerina, an actor or an athlete, you’ve got to get out there and do it, even if you suck at it, until you reach a point where you don’t suck at it anymore, and it doesn’t even seem like work anymore, and you’re a star even if others don’t readily see it.  That’s how I approach my writing, and I can honestly say that it really isn’t work anymore, it may be hard as hell, but it’s hard fun.

Get out there and DO IT, no matter what IT is!

Love always,

Luc Rivet

DIGGING UP BONES, A WRITER’S QUEST

Okay, so I’ve got Microsoft word ready to go and I’ve set a timer for twenty minutes, now I sit down to write non-stop until the timer goes off, maybe longer than that.  This is called Freewriting, or writing practice as Natalie Goldberg calls it in her book, Writing Down the Bones, and it’s become my salvation, the end of writer’s block, hopefully forever.

The point of Freewriting is to write non-stop for a set period, without editing, and without caring about spelling and punctuation, I will edit before posting however, and to let words flow freely to the page.  I have become addicted to Freewriting and do it at least three times a day, most days it’s closer to six times.  Depending on how I’m feeling, sometimes I’ll set an alarm for twenty minutes, other times just ten, but I am faithful to the process regardless of the time I spend doing it.

When I sit down to write, I never know where my mind is going to go, and that mystery is part of the excitement of Freewriting.  I’ll be honest with you, not everything I write in the allotted time is fit for publication but it always supplies an idea worth developing the next time.  After three or four rounds, I’ve usually developed my idea enough that I can sit down without a timer and start writing a story.  I have a few stories on the go as I write this but I continue to put them on hold to do my Freewriting. 

I have a free writing journal now, and I add the date and time of my writing practice, when I’m stuck for writing ideas, I read through the journal and start freewriting from one of the entries in it and it becomes a fun writing cycle. 

I can’t help but think that it would be a valuable tool for students as well.  Wouldn’t it be great if instead of telling kids to write about their summer holiday, the teacher would encourage the student to write freely for fifteen minutes, unconcerned about spelling, punctuation or subject, and after which, would use the student’s writing in a grammar lesson by encouraging the student to edit their own work.  Call me an idealist but I think this would be an enriching experience for students and would cultivate a love of reading and writing among a younger generation that for now lives for video games.

Thank you, Natalie Goldberg, for getting me started in this.  If you are an aspiring writer or would like to learn to spill your feelings out in a journal, I would definitely recommend, Writing Down The Bones, by Natalie Goldberg, and I would definitely recommend Freewriting/Writing Practice.

Imagination Isn't Just Child's Play

I’m a dreamer, always have been and ever will be, and as such, I have a very active imagination.  This can sometimes be a curse, especially when you are imagining the worst possible thing that could happen, but it can also be a blessing, and as a writer, I find it is more often a blessing than a curse. 

In my younger years, when I was shy and withdrawn, I would spend hours on end in the privacy of my room, pretending to be anyone or anything else.  Not that there was too much wrong with who I was and with my life in general, but somehow I wanted more and my imagination brought it to me.  I felt more comfortable living in my imagination than living in my humdrum life and got more pleasure from imaginary friends than from the real ones I had.

Things have changed since then, I grew up and my imagination got silenced for a short period of time as I went about living in the serious world of a grown-up man, but I never totally shelved my imagination, I kept parts of it handy, almost as a security blanket.  I’m glad I did because as a writer, it has become my greatest asset.

There is something amazing about being able to immerse me, at will, into the lives of a newly developed character, to think as he/she thinks, and to vicariously live the story through them.  Most of my short stories were play-acted by me before they were written, and good, bad, or indifferent, I am invested in each of those stories like a father is invested in the lives of his children.

Now, it’s not only in writing that my imagination serves me well, it is also an asset when reading.  I find that I can easily immerse myself into any story I read, with exceptions when it comes to bad stories, and it is like I’m a participant in the story, and the world the other has created.  I am not unique in this way, many of the readers I speak to can do the same, and are grateful for the imagination to do so.

Imagination isn’t just child’s play, and it isn’t to be feared, it serves a fantastic purpose in each of our lives.  It has applications outside of reading and writing as well, it allows us to assess and re-evaluate any situation we find ourselves in, and to dream up a constructive solution; it helps us to survive dull, boring moments; and it fills us with hope.  Of all the blessings I have been given, I am most thankful for my imagination.  Long live my imagination.

Out With The Block, In With The Flow

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had pen and paper in hand, and a passion for writing.  From the moment I learned the art of composition, I’d say it was probably circa grade one, I fell in love with the concept of living through my imagination, and that for me is exactly what writing is.  My ability to imagine has diminished over the years but I’ve always managed to save some, and somehow it usually kicks in when I want to write.  Usually, but not always.

Like any other writer, I have periods where writing is a challenge, writer’s block if you want to call it that, and those periods are very frustrating for me because I tend to get worked up over them and my mood starts to change.  I’ve been experiencing that a lot lately, so much so that I’ve decided it was time to take a good look at it and to figure out a way to deal with it once and for all.  To do this, I needed a tool and the best tool I found, one that was gifted to me by my depression, is CBT, or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

CBT is about changing your thoughts and behaviors by assessing them, challenging them, and then replacing them with more empowering ones.  It is a therapy of choice for addressing mental health issues as well as some physical health issues, but I’ve learned that it has so many more applications in my life and to paraphrase the commercial, I put that s*** on everything.

What I discovered through the CBT process was that my block had a psychological basis to it, I felt that I needed to write a perfect story or blog post at first try, that I needed to be dazzling and brilliant, and that failure to do so indicated my failure as a writer, no wonder I got so messed up when I couldn’t produce.  I had to convince myself of the truth that most writers need multiple drafts before they get things right, that rewriting was not a failure but a necessity, and that the goal of a good writer is not to be brilliant and dazzling but to be entertaining. To assert these truths, I read writing books, lots and lots of writing books and biographies, and although I still struggle with writing sometimes, all I need is a quick dose of reality and the creative juices start to flow.

I would highly recommend Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to anyone who is facing any kind of crisis, whether it be physical, psychological, or even motivational.  While the internet is a valuable source of information on CBT, I would highly recommend consulting a CBT Therapist for more severe problems.  There is no shame in admitting defeat or asking for help, the true shame is in continuing to struggle on your own.

Love you all!

Luc