Fortitude—enduring the tired, tedious and unremarkable chores—is what makes the difference between those who dream and those who do.

Why am I talking about this? Because recently I saw some quote scroll past on social media. It was something (of course) posted by one of those super happy “life coach” people.

Though I’m certain the quote was meant to inspire, it hit a sour note with me. It seemed dismissive of the pain, sacrifice and—yes, suffering—of those willing to dream, and then stick to that dream. It bypassed the fortitude necessary for success.

I don’t recall the quote’s exact wording (they’re all so similar), but the saccharin essence was the same. Apparently, if you don’t LOVE every single moment of what you’re doing, then maybe you don’t have the right career.

Keep searching! Dream! You have a right to be HAPPY! If it isn’t making you HAPPY, then MOVE ON!

See, writing—much like any worthy undertaking—comes part and parcel with a lot of drudgery and loads of stuff we’d rather not do.

Fortitude & Learning Curve Drudgery 

A lot of folks believe that just because they’re proficient in their native language, they are then automatically qualified to write amazing fiction. Yeah…no.

Not judging at all. I used to be one of those people. I had zero concept how ridiculously hard it was to craft a readable story, let alone a good one.

Writing a novel that could span anywhere from 50K to 150K words (depending on genre) that manages to grab then hold a reader’s interest? AHHHH! Balancing plot points, plot arc, character, dialogue, scene and sequel, A-lines, B-lines, on and on?

It doesn’t take too long to understand why many great authors turned to booze and drugs.

*gives Poe a pass on the whole “heroin addiction'” thing*

Far too many writers start out believing the first novel they write is perfect, and if anyone counters this? They fall apart. Some give up. A few hire “editors” who are happy to tell them “the other meanie editor was totes unprofessional and it’s fiiiine to have fourteen POVs…all from cats.”

Others double-down on the denial and write a sequel or—God help us all—a series of equally crappy books that don’t sell.

Why?

Because learning to write novels is hard.

I’ve been through this, myself. My two formative mentors both made me cry…a LOT. And I am NOT a person who cries.

These mentors were nothing like my writing group. My writing group was so encouraging!

Bob and Les didn’t tell me my writing was unicorn tears, they told me it was more like what might come out of the other end of a unicorn.

No, not a unicorn. A hyena with tapeworm and a bad case of mange.

*weeps*

I didn’t love writing the same stuff over and over. Guess what? Didn’t always love reading and rereading the books they recommended I study.

Come to think of it, I didn’t love putting out my best only for it to come back with so much red I wondered if it had been hit by a bus then SHOT before they returned it.

Sure I could have quit. Thought about it a lot. A lot. Because shouldn’t I LOOOVE every moment of what I do? But, I didn’t quit because I wanted to become an excellent writer. I required more than glittery sparkly talent. I had to hone and develop fortitude.

I’m still a work in progress.

My critique group were fantastic cheerleaders, which we need…but not necessarily to make us better.

Cheerleaders look super pretty, but cheerleaders don’t train touchdowns.

Coaches who call out bad form, terrible plays, and awful habits create winners. These experts are hired to criticize, make a player watch footage over and over and, if warranted, do cherry-pickers until the player wants to DIE. Might seem “mean” but THIS is what will help that player make touchdowns.

Drudgery. Not pom-pom waving.

Fortitude: Welcome to the GRIND

There’s drudgery in the actual writing. Oh no! Yes, you heard it here first. Writing, while one of the BEST jobs in the world, contains more than its fair share of suckage.

The first draft can be loads of fun, until the mire of Act Two where you find yourself contemplating sudden and unexpected alien abduction—either for yourself to spring you from writing, or for your characters because you’ve messed up somewhere in the plot and written yourself into a corner.

Becoming successful in writing (or anything really) is never in the BIG things we do. It’s the compilation of a lot of small acts that build up over time.

It is showing up day after day even when we’d rather get a root canal than figure out what went sideways somewhere between page 1 and page 400.

We have to research, proofread, edit, revise, and all of this takes focus and time and pain. By the time a book is “ready” to be published, odds are pretty decent we’ll hate our own book and hope we never have to read it again.

***FYI: The feeling passes…eventually. Most of the time. Maybe.

Publishing Drudgery

For those who still want to traditionally publish, there is the drudgery of writing synopses and query letters and researching agents. Add the drudgery of the actual querying and subsequent waiting.

Meanwhile, most of us have day jobs and laundry and family members who expect to be fed every day #HighMaintenance.

Oh, and make sure to start writing the next book (refer to the love-fest above).

For those who choose a non-traditional path, we have to locate and hire the best people. Or maybe learn to format or design a cover ourselves. There may be multiple iterations of a cover. Then, if we believe we’ve found all our typos in our seventeen (hundred) passes? *clutches sides laughing*

And if we believe the proofreaders and editors caught all them too? Maybe, but..

On top of this, add in bookkeeping, record keeping, accounting, building a platform, understanding keywords and SEO and blah, blah, blah.

Suffice to say that YES, writing is a WONDERFUL job! I wouldn’t be here twenty years later if it was all bad. Yet, I do have to confess that choosing to become a writer showed me the worst parts of my character…in Technicolor.

I didn’t start blogging because I EVER believed my blog would be what it is today with millions of unique visitors. Want to know why I began blogging? I had ZERO self-discipline.

I’d become a person who didn’t want to do anything that I didn’t LOVE. If I wasn’t having FUN, then clearly I’d chosen the wrong career, right?

Wrong.

The Fortitude Factor

People who reach their goals and dreams are different for sure. Are they more gifted? Talented? Unusually good-looking? Perhaps. But, more often than not, these folks excel at handling the boring parts of the dream.

To which I shall refer to one of my favorite books on achievement. James Clear’s Atomic Habits (which I HIGHLY recommend), is fabulous. Yet, this quote in particular piqued my attention:

The greatest threat to success is not failure but boredom. We get bored with habits because they stop delighting us. The outcome becomes expected. And as our habits become ordinary, we start derailing our progress to seek novelty. Perhaps this is why we get caught up in a never-ending cycle, jumping from one workout to the next, one diet to the next, one business idea to the next. As soon as we experience the slightest dip in motivation, we begin seeking a new strategy—even if the old one was still working.

~ James Clear, Atomic Habits

You have NO idea how often I hear, “If I only had the TIME, I’d write more.” As if time is laying around in the couch cushions with the petrified Cheerios and the TV remote no one’s seen Twilight was popular.

Hey, I have been guilty here, too. Still can fall into old (bad) habits if I fail to remain vigilant. Yes, even after a pandemic when we all had more time than we knew what to do with.

The reason people (mistakenly) believe they must FIND TIME? It’s likely because they’ve hit the part of the writing process that’s actual WORK. It’s ceased to be a glorious high.

And, if they don’t start a new book (chasing the high), then they put off writing altogether using excuses more creative than their plot ideas.

Hey! Told y’all I have been guilty too…so no hating .

Yet, when we look at anything worth achieving, from writing an amazing book to being a great parent to running a profitable business, we see that it is how these individuals handle the millions of unremarkable unexciting and downright soul-crushing (but necessary) tasks that makes all the difference.

We see the same common denominator in every success story, from the legendary athletes willing to do the same drills over and over until perfected to the entrepreneurs who mined drudgery for the edge they needed to outpace all competition.

Fortitude: Can You Handle Being BORED?

Everyone loves new beginnings. The new relationship with no baggage and all hugs and kisses, the smell of the fresh notebook, the empty page waiting for all of our brilliant ideas. We love the new blog because it holds so much promise.

Then there is the new workout from YouTube, the new diet we found on Instagram, the new craft project we saw on Pinterest….

A lot of us fixate on whether we can handle the BIG moments, the MAJOR crises but I’d actually offer different advice. We need to ask the hard question.

Can we fall in love with pain and process as much as the end result? Everyone loves the summit selfie but few want the climb. It comes with hypoxia and pretty good odds you’ll die and no one will be able to claim your frozen corpse…ever.

Many of us LOVE the idea of six-pack abs…but we LOVE tacos more. We struggle after a few weeks. Why? Because we are tired, sore, and even though we’ve been working out for a WHOLE MONTH, we still don’t have a ripped physique.

Heck, we can’t even see a muscle. We’re tired of the pile of smelly clothes, the aches and pains and having to measure all our food. It isn’t FUN. In fact, it’s downright tedious.

We don’t LOVE the gym, the job, the book, the YouTube channel anymore because it’s day after day of nothing all that special…and pain.

Lots of that.

Catching Fire

Yet, all these small actions add up over time. When we embrace the dull actions and commit, we will eventually ignite. Ray Bradbury poetically asserted paper had an ignition point of 451 degrees Fahrenheit. The actual number is about thirty degrees higher.

Paper will burst into flames at about 480 degrees Fahrenheit (without being directly exposed to flame).

Using this analogy, let’s take our metaphorical paper and heat it to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, then 250, then 300, then 440, then 451. Boy, this is boring and taking a LONG time and taking energy. Nothing is happening.

Heat it to 460, then 470, then 477 and then throw up your hands because paper NEVER sets on fire without a high-budget marketing plan…I mean match.

Or, maybe there is a marked transformation somewhere between 477 degrees and 482 degrees. At 477 degrees Fahrenheit all looks the same. Oh but add in a little more energy and IGNITION. And this ignition all occurs within a range of a couple degrees.

Then…BOOM!

The same goes for becoming a successful author (as in a professional who’s PAID to play with our imaginary friends). A major key to success largely rests on how we handle the boring parts. Can we keep going, keep putting on the heat when it looks as if nothing is happening?

Success doesn’t have a canonized ignition point. If it did, being successful would be easy. Fortitude is a massive game changer.

If I knew I had to write five books, three series, add in a hundred blogs and forty three good reviews to reach literary stardom? Dang skippy I’d stick with it. There wouldn’t be ANY drudgery, because I’d have certainty.

But that’s the problem.

The ignition point for succeeding in anything is anything but certain (and might not even exist in some cases). It differs between people, generations, goals, industries, abilities, etc. We DON’T KNOW and THAT is precisely why drudgery can so easily undo us if we lack the fortitude to outlast it.

In the End

I want all your dreams to catch fire—your dreams to write, create, to be an excellent parent or partner, to achieve the remarkable.

If you can appreciate that every masterpiece began as a blank canvas, a hunk of marble, an ugly cement foundation, a sketch, or an idea and that IN BETWEEN there was a lot of wash, rinse, repeat and fortitude (which we can control)? You’re on your way to reaching those goals.

We’re rarely limited by our talent, yet we’re all too often hobbled by impatience. Drudgery makes us cave in too soon. It takes time to hone skills, learn a craft, build an audience, etc. Just keep pressing and hopefully you’ll see your ignition point and it will be the most beautiful light you’ve ever seen.

Then you get to do it again for the next goal . *smoochies*

But, you’ll be better and stronger because you know to expect the span of suck before the breakthrough! You will have strengthened and honed the fortitude required to finish. And the cool thing is, the more we work it, the stronger it gets.

What Are Your Thoughts?

I love hearing from you! Do you struggle with the doldrums in your dreams? Is it hard not to just start something new? Are your fortitude muscles weak? Have you been starting over so much that maybe that’s why you aren’t further along? Are you so sick of your book you want to cry? #GotTheTShirt

Don’t you wish we had the magic “temperature” where our dreams LIT UP? Some way to know if we were close? Or even heading in the correct direction? Have you struggled with learning to finish what you start? Been too easily distracted?

The post Fortitude: Dream, Do, Then Keep on DOING Day After Day appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

A little while back I introduced the Neurodivergent Spectrum, what it IS, and why it could particularly apply to writers and creative professionals. I even revealed some about my life, struggles, and late diagnosis in my post Neurodivergent Authors: Not Lazy or “Broken.”

There are many reasons for my late diagnosis, and we will cover some today.

***I am ALSO going to continue blogging on craft and brand, but this site has always focused on offering a holistic approach to creative professions—craft, branding, business, life and mental health.

But, before we talk about the autism spectrum, I would like to address why people might want to “care” about this topic, from writers to non-writers to Neurotypical people.

First, there are a lot more ND people out there than anyone ever imagined. Secondly, I believe our modern world and the digital age is either creating, contributing or exacerbating the situation.

If we cannot gain understanding, insight and compassion regarding this topic, I fear we will miss out on a lot of incredible talent and relationships.

We’re going to likely be around ND people. If we can recognize what’s possibly going on with that person, interactions can run far more smoothly. If we see WE have ND issues, then there are all kinds of workarounds once we realize we aren’t stupid, lazy, crazy, or broken.

This is a post about grace for ourselves and others.

Spectrum Self-Diagnoses

I can totally appreciate why many people roll their eyes when someone says they are ADD or ADHD or have Asperger’s or Autism. Some people might shout me down for saying this, but a huge reason I was hesitant to be professionally tested had to do with my attitude about the ND spectrum.

I’d personally encountered far too many people who’d used being on the spectrum as an excuse for never finishing, for flaking out, for being undependable, for being emotionally out of control, etc. Then, I was supposed to excuse all the poor behavior away because they were “insert ND issue here.”

Some of these folks were professionally diagnosed, but many were self-diagnosed. For the record, if you believe you are on the spectrum, you’ll likely start with a self diagnosis. And that is okay, because….

Most Medical Issues Begin This Way

If we look at most of the health concerns we all face, we almost always begin with a self-diagnosis.

***Should we believe we “might” be on the spectrum, this is no different.

Say, I have a weird mole that is dark and itchy. I likely self-diagnose that it could be a skin cancer or melanoma. THEN I see an expert.

If I get a fever, bad cough, sore throat? I probably self-diagnose that I likely have either a cold or virus. THEN I go to a clinic to see what is actually going on. Could be a cold. But, it could be something far worse (cancer) or no big deal (severe allergies).

There is a lot of shade thrown around toward ND people regarding “self-diagnoses,” but what sense does that make?

In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with starting there, but we do need to see if we can get expert help. We might be on the ND spectrum but where exactly? We could also be struggling with other issues—eg. PTSS/PTSD from abuse or some other trauma.

The Spectrum is More than ADHD & Autism

There is a lot of debate as to whether or not PTSD should be included on the ND spectrum (which can cover everything from dyslexia and dyscalculia to autism). Yes, PTSD (or PTSS) can cause structural changes in the brain. But, with proper treatment, much of that can be possibly reversed/healed.

Sadly, there is no healing ADHD.

Unlike those who are truly neurodivergent, PTSD isn’t a) congenital and doesn’t need to be b) permanent. ND people literally are born wired differently. It isn’t a result of a trauma or an acute stressor.

Thus, before we jump on the, “I must be ADHD” train, we might be struggling to pay attention because of undiagnosed dyslexia. We’re slow not because we can’t “pay attention,” but because it is such a struggle to work around a brain that tosses too many speed bumps in the way to be effective.

We might have PTSD and not recognize it, so we could be masking. Perhaps we are in denial, dealing with shame or guilt. Who wants our drama? So we mask.

Suffice to say, a spectrum self-diagnosis is a great start, but we want to make sure we’re getting good advice what is actually going awry. If we are on the spectrum then exactly how, where and to what degree?

If we aren’t, then what is going amiss that is looking a lot like a spectrum disorder?

Why a Diagnosis at ALL?

Since I believe I addressed this in other posts, I will be brief here. I did not self-diagnose (mostly out of pride, if I’m being transparent here).

It was not until over a half-dozen mental health professionals who were either friends, fans, or audience members who—after watching me speak—came up and said, “Hey, have you ever been tested for autism?” that I finally took things seriously.

Well, that is a bit of a lie.

I brushed almost all of them off believing I could just willpower my way through anything. Yep. That might have worked when I was younger and in a different world devoid of a BILLION blinking distractions. Eventually, however, the situation became untenable.

I was falling apart and pride and ego had to go.

Yet, when family members asked WHY I wanted a diagnosis, I had to answer that honestly. I don’t want or need an excuse, but I do need a plan of action that makes life doable and even enjoyable.

Once I understood HOW autism was affecting me, a lot of things changed. I am MUCH better at saying no, limiting activities, planning how I want to spend my energy. Now, others can appreciate why I practically LIVE in noise-cancelling headphones and they’re a bit more sympathetic when I ask to turn the lights down a little.

I could start being aware of my scripts. WHAT was happening right before I melted down? Exactly what transpired right before that bout of self-loathing? Why was I “seemingly” out of nowhere suffering sleep-deprivation, anxiety, or severe headaches?

Good news! We can actually rewrite the script! We’re writers.

***The answer to the above, for me, was largely environmental. Shop at times with no/smaller crowds. Get filters for my glasses/computer screen. Change the font on my computer to Dyslexie font. No screen time after 7:00 P.M. etc.

SUDDEN SPECTRUM Disorders

So now to the myth that SUDDENLY everyone is neurodivergent. Bear with me a moment because I am going to be a bit of a smart@$$. I am hoping everyone reading this believes that science, disease detection, understanding and treatment does improve over time.

We no longer diagnose people with consumption (Tuberculosis), Grippe (Flu), Apoplexy (a stroke), the Horrors (fever before delirium), Black Dog (severe depression), Falling Sickness (epilepsy), Mortification (gangrene), or Jail Fever (Typhus) etc.

***Click here for more Outdated Medical Terms. IMPRESS YOUR FRIENDS!

We also don’t bleed people to balance their humors, ladle Mercury down their throats, or insist they take Radium baths.

Or at least I hope not.

Cancer didn’t suddenly become rampant. We just didn’t have the tools and knowledge to recognize it existed, then to detect it, then to treat it, on and on. Hope y’all get the gist.

Yes, movies like Rain Man highlighted autism, but in ways, one could reasonably argue the movie almost did more harm than good.

The movie, Rain Man, showed the world a case of extreme autism (with other issues I’m not qualified to detail). Just because a person is autistic doesn’t mean we need a nursing aid to dress us and feed us before we go count cards in Vegas.

In fact, the concept there was even a neurodivergent spectrum didn’t even arise until the 1990s.

We are not ALL Rain Man.

Medicine & Science Improves

Or, at least we hope it does. Science is a process. As it improves, it can do a better job of detection. For instance, most medical and mental health professionals first only recognized autism when it manifested in the most acute forms (so severe the patient couldn’t function).

Then, many of these professionals believed until recently that children grew out of autism and Asperger’s (and also grew out of ADD, ADHD, etc.).

To make things even MORE fun, most mental health professionals—until very recently—believed only males could be autistic. Even I ran into this when seeking a professional diagnosis…in 2023!

I guess that doctor had never heard of Temple Grandin?

Suffice to say, I don’t believe that suddenly everyone is on the ND spectrum. I DO believe we are understanding the brain far better than we ever have in human history. And, because we understand better, we are realizing that “Normal” really is a setting on the dishwasher.

Many of us older people (who are finally getting a diagnosis or maybe realizing we might NEED one) recall the days of being called stupid, lazy, disruptive, defiant, or “bad” kids. We were daydreamers and flakes who “failed to apply ourselves.”

Since there was so little understanding of neuroscience, behavioral problems/character flaws became the default. Sort of like how, when people died of something like, say, pancreatic cancer (which kills very quickly), 400 years ago, clearly they were a victim of the “Evil Eye.”

Joking but not. Just pointing out we have come a LONG way in recognizing how amazing and variegated the brain IS.

“Thank” the Digital Age

Nothing happens in a vacuum, so obviously something other than neuroscience advances has driven the shift in perception. The digital age has been a blessing and a curse, at least for me.

Since I had severe social anxiety from an early age, it made it hard to learn how to be part of a group and conversation. Social media actually did wonders for my social anxiety. Humans learn by studying the group. But, if you are never part of a group because you’re “weird” or too scared, then how do you learn?

Then came Web 2.0….

EARLY ON, I joined a lot of chat rooms on Gather and groups on MySpace. Finally, I could watch and study. I could see how people interacted, took turns, “read the room” and recognized a lot of bad habits I had.

Since I had time to think through a response, I could respond better. The BACKSPACE button was and still is my BFF.

I also had zero concept that social interaction wore me out. Trust me, trying to seem normal is a LOT of work.

With social media, I could pace myself and interact at times my energy levels were better. When I fell into conflict, I eventually learned to back away, come back to it, think through what the person meant, etc. In many ways, social media made me kinder, gentler, and more compassionate with myself and others.

Additionally, I began to see my faults. My bad habits that turned people off on social media—AMAZINGLY—turned them off in life. Talking over people, being prideful, needing the last word (b/c I was so insecure), believing I had to be constantly entertaining, failing to really listen.

I am SO glad I don’t struggle with ANY of that anymore!

*dodges lightning*

I believe a lot of us ND people who used to just be weird loners with no friends or one or two friends started, for lack of a better term…showing up. Me? I went from the weirdo nerd who kept to herself reading and mostly engaging in solitary hobbies to finding my people.

Yes, on-line there were people like me who loved science fiction, D&D, campy horror films, and bad Kung Fu movies. People like me who also loved to argue whether Warp 10 was even possible or whether or not the sand worms in Dune should have spontaneously combusted due to friction.

Yes, this is the stuff that keeps me awake at night.

Again “Thank” the Digital Age

Conversely, while the digital age certainly offered ND people tools we’d never had before, it’s also created a lot of problems. We are starting to see the negative effects of having kids on technology too young, too much and too frequently.

Humans learn empathy by being around other people, studying body language and facial expressions. Most human communication is body language. When we are all in front of screens, working from home or even at an office in front of a screen all the time, we can lose those skills that have been innate since the dawn of humanity.

While I certainly do not claim to be an expert (this is all MY experience and opinions), I feel we might just be noticing ND more in a digital world.

And yes, I have seen the threads that Amish kids don’t have autism or spectrum disorders. BUT, I will also say that the Amish represent how human civilization worked for the past few thousand years.

They wear the same clothes made of natural materials, do a lot of physical labor, and there are no digital distractions. Their diet is all fresh food and very simple and life is very routine. Up at the same time, to bed at the same time. Rest on the Sabbath.

MAYBE the Amish DO have folks on the spectrum. Maybe they don’t. I’m not a researcher, so…um, okay. My point is, though, would we NOTICE neurodivergence in a routinized, agrarian society the way we do in the modern digital world?

So THIS SAID, if our digital world is a) showing us there were/are more ND people than we realized b) creating ND people c) stressing ND people…then we’re wise to learn our own limitations and develop compassion for ourselves and others.

Cuz frankly? The Neurotypical people don’t seem to be faring too well drinking from digital firehoses all day every day, every week of every year.

Beware of the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon

WHAT? Other than archaic names for common illnesses, impress your friends with THIS little nugget (Bay-dur MINE-hoff).

*flips hair*

Ever run into a term you KNOW you’ve never heard in your life, then hear it at least four more times in the next week? Or see something you know you’ve never seen before, then suddenly it’s everywhere? Reverse-harems? Punk-Rockabilly-Zydeco? Kombucha?

I’d never heard of Bikram Yoga until a friend told me about it and then…it was everywhere. Following me with sweaty mats…carrying Kombucha O_O .

The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon is also known as the frequency illusion or the recency illusion. While I DO want to highlight the strides the mental health fields have made regarding spotting and treating those on the ND spectrum, we also should be mindful we aren’t suddenly seeing it everywhere.

It is possible to be empathetic and responsible at the same time. Life is a process, and we are all in this together.

What Are Your Thoughts?

Do you think more people are on the ND spectrum because we are finally noticing it? So we can diagnose the far less acute cases?

Do you think the massive influx of data, images, and too much time at a screen is causing something wholly new never seen? For instance, repetitive work injuries weren’t as big of a thing until the invention of assembly lines.

Are the aliens reading our minds and we can’t concentrate because of all the recipes they’re trying to share?

All kidding aside, I want to always hold myself accountable for my behavior, actions, and inactions. For ME, though, recognizing my brain just did things very differently has been a huge help not only on my own, but when interacting with others.

It is my hope this blog helps you or someone you know and love. What do you think?

The post Why is “Suddenly” Everyone on the Spectrum? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

“Neurodivergent” (ND) has been a bit of a buzzword for the past decade, and even more so in the past couple of years. Seems like everyone is “neurodivergent” these days, like we are coming out of the woodwork.

Yes and no (a post for another day).

I’ve been hesitant to talk about this topic for a number of reasons, largely because it puts me in a super vulnerable place. Not easy for most people, and I’m certainly not immune.

Additionally, I “get” I’m not an expert beyond my own experiences, so take the post for what you will. I feel that the qualities that make us “neurodivergent” are what make many of us gravitate to creative professions in the first place—writing included.

Being neurodivergent can give us major advantages.

However….

The challenges that go with being neurodivergent can also hinder many of us from ever seeing meaningful success.

For instance, as a writer, I can tell you I’ve listened to 500+ audiobooks in the past 4 years. Many of those titles I’ve listened to in excess of 20 times.

There is NOTHING “NORMAL” about this.

One of my particular quirks (being autistic) is to learn absolutely everything possible about the topic du jour, which is GREAT. When I write any book, whether it is fiction or non-fiction, I am a veritable encyclopedia of information.

I easily make connections others do not, see patterns others might miss (ADHD). Then, I obsess (the OCD) until it is….SQUIRREL!

Friggin’ ADHD.

Being transparent. Today’s post is longer than usual.

But you and I BOTH know everyone skims, so just roll with it. Pick and choose what might apply to/help YOU.

Or read EVERY word because do you really want to be cleaning right now?

I didn’t think so. So read it twice.

All kidding aside, this post will be divided into two parts. In PART ONE, we will go over what I mean when I say “neurodivergent” and a bit of MY experiences, which you might relate to…or totally want to skip.

No problem.

PART TWO is more “general application.” We’ll cover what it’s like being a neurodivergent author, your strengths, weaknesses, and some tips and tricks to navigate this brave new weird world.

PART ONE: WHAT is “Neurodivergent”?

Being “neurodivergent”—to use super broad strokes—simply means our brains process information…differently. Can this be a “disability” or a “handicap”? Sure. Autism can be so acute the person cannot function outside in the real world (E.g. Rain Man). But not ALL neurodivergent people (or autistic people) are Rain Man.

I explain it to my son this way. For the most part, autistic people are an Apple OS in a Windows OS world. Is it a “disadvantage” to have a Mac OS?

Ask anyone who’s ever tried to find a connector for their Apple laptop so they could do a Power Point presentation….

YES!

It can be a hassle, much like my husband’s Android phone fits nicely in the charging cubby in our SUV…whereas my iPhone needs a special “certified” Apple cord, a detailed horoscope, a blood sample, three letters of recommendation, a credit check and a cosigner.

And yes, we will be mixing metaphors more than a 90s DJ today, so just roll with it….

Ice Ice Baby!

FOCUS.

Impairment: Tis a FLESH WOUND!

When one claims any impairment due to being neurodivergent, this can be akin to claiming to be visually impaired.

If I am visually impaired, this can mean anything from I need 1.00+ reading glasses to see the directions on a pill bottle to I was born without EYES! It might mean I am colorblind, have nystagmus, macular degeneration, damaged corneas, retinal tears, glaucoma, Sjogren’s Syndrome, etc., etc.

In fact, with visual impairment, I might have a combination of these problems (as well as ancillary, but related issues, such as diabetes or cardiac problems).

When someone says they’re visually impaired, this does not by default, mean they have a seeing eye dog, read only by Braille, and have no lights in their houses…though they might.

Same with being Neurodivergent (or autistic).

The Neurodivergent “Fruit” Salad

My journey to a diagnosis has been a LONG one, for a number of reasons we’ll discuss another time. Suffice to say that a lot of conditions are listed on what is referred to as the Autistic Spectrum. According to Harvard Health:

Autism often comes paired with other conditions, such as ADD, ADHD, generalized anxiety disorder, dyslexia, ODC, and so on and so forth. We have a “cluster” of issues.

It is possible to be autistic, and have only say, one comorbidity (E.g. ADD). But, it is just as likely one might have several, or NONE.

There is a saying, “If you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.”

We are all a Special Unique Snowflake Fruit Salad, yes. This is a huge part of the challenge many of us face. What combination of weird are you? Still weird, just different weird.

Not ME! I CAN’T be AUTISTIC!

*me clutching pearls* circa 2019

Autism never once crossed my radar. I’d pretty much accepted I was probably ADHD (and most definitely weird). Anyone who’s met me five seconds can see that. But autism? PHSAW!

Then, in 2019, I happened to be the main keynote at a large conference in West Texas. A lovely older author (who was a professional psychiatrist by trade) came up to me after I presented. She told me she thoroughly enjoyed my teaching but she wanted to suggest something, but was worried I’d be offended.

I assured her I had rhino skin.

Her: “Just listening to your anecdotes and watching you, have you ever considered you might be a high-functioning autistic?”

Me: Err? Whah? Pshaw! Seriously?

Her: Autism presents very differently in females and is extremely hard to diagnose because women are better at “masking.”

Me: What’s “masking”?

And thus began a long and painful journey. My entire life, I just thought I was annoying, picky, lazy, high-maintenance, crazy, wasn’t “trying” hard enough, etc. etc.

By about 2022, however, it was becoming painfully obvious I could no longer “outwork” my “disabilities.” I would have to approach things differently unless I wanted to be washing down Oreos with a bottle of tequila.

I go into this more in a previous post Neurodivergent: Being ‘Different’ in Life & Fiction.

My Autism Side

I never really played as a child as much as I “organized” things, whether that was my 10 gazillion stickers, my favorite books, or my Barbie collection (clothes by size, by era, or by color?).

From a very early age, I was a “collector” whether that was Barbies, all things Strawberry Shortcake, My Little Pony, series of books, a brand of pen, a certain series of notebooks.

Lisa Frank? I had ALL…THE…THINGS. Stickers, notebooks, spirals, erasers, pens, calendars, backpacks, posters, etc.

GOD HELP anyone who colored in MY coloring books.

If I played pretend, usually it involved forcing younger children to be students while I was the “teacher.”

***For the record, my little brother still has superlative penmanship and is a voracious reader of all the literary classics.

For me, teaching myself Conversational Swahili using Berlitz tapes from the library or making chlorine gas with that new Chemistry set (TOTALLY AN ACCIDENT) was “play” and “fun.”

Whenever I discovered something new, I had to do/learn ALL THE THINGS about whatever. I BINGED.

True, I struggled to make eye contact when I was young. BUT you get smacked and punished enough and you learn really quickly that eye contact is a big deal to adults.

Since I always struggled with social anxiety, I learned to “mask” by being funny. I was terrible at reading social cues but I could (mostly) cover that up by being “clever.” I remember watching all the great comics, studying their timing, their lines and yeah….

People are less judgy if they’re laughing.

Enough said.

Sensory Issues

As a kid, I refused to wear pants, tights, anything with elastic, or itchy zippers. Often, I tore my clothes apart because I hated the tags, any scratchy fabric (when corduroy was all the rage), wouldn’t wear clips in my hair (gave me headaches), refused headbands (gave me headaches), or hats (yes, gave me headaches).

My mom always bought me the exact same brand of shoes. Always. Maybe change the color, but not the brand. Though my grandmother would buy me other shoes, I’d wear the Buster Browns until…they…DIED.

I had the same shampoo (Johnson & Johnson), the same perfume (Baby Soft, duh), and watched the same movies. To this day, I can pretty much recite “Labyrinth” from memory (and “Grease”, “The Holy Grail”, “Stripes” and “Robin Williams at the Met” and WTH were my parents DOING?)

Anyway…

I’ve always preferred dark/dim lighting, and struggled in school with the bright/fluorescent lights. Mom (who we now know is also ND) never minded that I basically read by candle light (in a tutu, upside down surrounded by my favorite sticker books).

Additionally, I have such super sensitive hearing that it’s caused me terrible sleep issues most of my life.

***I now sleep in noise-canceling head phones because YES, I CAN hear spiders fart.

I loved the same records and am rather shocked my mother didn’t murder me for playing the same FIVE records SIX HUNDRED times a day.

Every day, I packed the very same lunch (peanut butter and honey, cut diagonally and an apple). If we went out to eat, I ordered the exact same thing. If my mom cooked the same meal every night? I was in heaven (and she frequently did cook the same meal every night).

I had the same routine, hated any kind of change, and functioned best when everything was clean, orderly, and organized. In school, I believed in following the rules and fell apart when others didn’t follow the rules.

And teachers who felt the need to be clever and “change up” the seating arrangements?

What is WRONG with YOU?

Not Much Has Changed

I still eat the exact same foods and wear the same clothes. If I find a shirt or pair of pants I love? I buy all of them…in all colors…and wear them until they DIE (and maybe a little bit after death).

I don’t want a new perfume, I want my favorite (thought they keep GETTING RID of my favorites and then I need to find a NEW favorite). When I go out to eat, it is always the same couple of places and they already know my order.

I listen to the same songs (or genre of songs) until I burn myself out, then cycle to my next fave and repeat.

Every morning is the same routine and if anything disrupts this? God help us all.

When I used to take hot yoga, I’d get there 30 minutes early to get MY spot. Right in front so I could see the instructor’s face in the mirror. In the far left corner by the windows so I wasn’t hemmed in on all sides by people.

If anyone got in my spot before me? All I could feel was incandescent rage for two hours…

OHMMMMM….you’re in my spoooot…..you psychopaaaaaath…..I hope you dieeeeeee….

I’m much better now *left eye twitches*

MY ADHD Side

THIS is where things get jiggy, because as anal and rigid as I can be, my brain is ALSO an explosion of ALL THE IDEAS. I see patterns in everything. Chaos is my middle name.

Back to those 500+ Audible titles? I listen while cleaning, cooking, crocheting, painting, and gardening. It is pretty much impossible for me to do ONE thing at a time.

Kid you not. I’ve been learning Mandarin since April, because doesn’t everyone just decide to learn one of the world’s hardest languages solely FOR FUN?

I will literally be doing a Mandarin lesson, while crocheting and watching television and answering my husband’s questions.

And I CAN do all these things at the same time.

Though this is also how my cellphone ended up in the fridge…and we just don’t need to talk about that.

These 500+ audio books are on top of paper books and ebooks and no I don’t have a problem, DO YOU?

Well, PUNK? DO YOU?

I thought not.

Anyway, as obsessive as I am about order, I can never seem to maintain it.

*openly weeps*

I am very much my own worst enemy. For those on WANATribe, we have been doing writing sprints every day all day (M-F) for like nine years. I pay NING $65 a month to basically maintain focus using peer pressure and timers.

If I put items in a box to “organize,” those items (to me) cease to exist once the lid closes. I need shelves or clear boxes. As brilliant as I think I can be, I am also…an idiot.

My mind is a whirlwind of ideas and facts and tangents and plot bunnies and, and….

PART TWO: Neurodivergent Creatives

What Does This Have to Do With Writing?

This is a totally unscientific guess, but I imagine many of you reading this blog (who are usually writers) probably were laughing, nodding, or maybe crying at a lot of this post.

As I’ve said many times before, if you are a writer, you are NOT NORMAL. The NORMAL SHIP sailed without us a long time ago. A lot of ND people gravitate to writing, but we might also struggle to be successful at it.

Ironically, the very things that make us ND can also make us superlative authors, which we’ll go over. Take heart.

Neurodivergent Authors: Autism and Writing

For instance, those of us who are on the autistic spectrum? We’ve literally made it our life’s mission studying human behavior. How do humans interact? What is this body language thing (that we clearly keep MISSING)?

We’ve read books on behavior, read fiction, watched movies, and parsed every tiny interaction. We can be masters at imitation in life and writing, which can be good and bad.

I told jokes for YEARS that had people in stitches, and I had literally NO idea what was even funny…just that people laughed…all the way up until HR talked to me.

So, if you’re autistic, you possibly excel at supreme focus, in depth studying, and understanding/explaining certain subjects in amazing (okay, excruciating) detail.

Just remember that not everyone wants to talk about serial killers, the Black Death, or the evolution of Medieval torture devices at that holiday party.

Unless it’s a holiday party with writers, then you’re probably going to be popular for the first time in your life.

Here are some challenges that I (personally) have found as an autistic writer, so again, I AM NOT A PSYCHIATRIST, I just play one on the internet.

Beware of Too Much Detail

We get SO excited about our world, our technology, or describing the world around us down to the molecular level that we can lose the reader.

Readers want stories about PEOPLE facing adversity. If they want a gazillion pages of pure information, they’re over on Reddit or “correcting/adding to” Wikipedia.

Learn to BEND

Flexibility is your friend. I KNOW you so want to go down that research rabbit hole but STOP. I am here to save you from yourself.

If you are writing your novel and realize you don’t know how to describe, say, a fishing boat, feel free to type INSERT COOL DETAILS ABOUT FISHING BOATS HERE LATER.

Then finish your story (again, that thing about people) and when you are resting after that draft, read all things “commercial fishing” and LAYER those details in later.

I have a writer who started out as a commenter who’s become a lovely friend. He hired me to look at why his sci-fi series wasn’t selling. There was no doubting his work ethic. He had like 15 books at the time.

But, I was only a couple chapters in and saw the problem. Magnificent world-building…but he kind of forgot to focus on the people and their problems (and no shocker, he is ND).

Once his recalibrated his focus? A MILLION TIMES BETTER!

It’s an Outline, Not a Suicide Pact

Many autistic people can fall into being planners and plotters, which is fabulous, unless this rigidity is keeping you from exploring your story in a deeper way.

Stephen King talks about the “boys in the basement.” I can personally attest my subconscious has come up with MUCH cooler stuff than I ever could have planned out ahead of time.

Yet, I will say (largely because I was “overcorrecting” for being ADHD) I’ve had times I refused to change course because I was terrified of being “a flake.” Which is all well and good except when your course is taking you off a CLIFF!

Neurodivergent? Be Mindful of Energy Levels

This actually applies to the autistic as well as other “fruits” in our Special Snowflake Fruit Salad. We can become so engrossed in whatever that we fail to keep in touch with how tired, hungry, or stressed we are.

If you add this on top of the exhausting effort it takes to “appear normal” it is a LOT.

Remember the kind psychiatrist who hinted I “might” be autistic? And how I had no clue what “masking” was?

There was a good reason this took time to discover.

It is because it’s only very recently that the psychiatric community is even admitting ADULTS can be autistic, let alone WOMEN.

*more clutching of pearls*.

Let’s say there just hasn’t been all that much out there until recent years.

But back to masking.

All my life, I struggled with being “fine, fine, fine” then something small/stupid happening—I can’t find my favorite pen—that would absolutely DERAIL me and leave me a hysterical raging mess of tears, snot and apologies.

I had no clue what was causing this (Hint: it’s called an autistic meltdown and applies to most neurodivergent people).

Case in point:

Early this year, I had a professional appointment. No one “mandated” I bring copies of my resume, but why be prepared when you can be OVER-PREPARED?

Suffice to say, my mom had just had surgery, I was trying to get over Whooping Cough, was homeschooling a gifted 8th grader, we’d just had a death in the family, and so I…delegated.

Normally, I would have checked what my husband printed, but I thought, “Kristen! This is you being a control freak. It’s FINE!”

Yeah.

When I opened my leather portfolio in the meeting, to my horror, I realized Hubby had printed all of my pages…crooked.

And in the wrong order.

With the headers cut off.

Good news is Hubby is alive and I am not in jail (or even on bail! Go me!).

I’d yet to learn about the Spoon Theory of Autism (and this also applies to anyone dealing with chronic issues, pain, etc.)

I only have so many spoons of energy until I need to withdraw and regroup…or BOOM!

Now, for Neurodivergent ADD/ADHD Writers

I’ll be the first to admit that I went to extreme lengths to avoid any formal diagnosis. To me, it seemed that too many people were using autism, ADHD/ADD, etc. as an excuse for bad habits, poor character, obnoxious behavior and to be willfully lazy.

***Don’t shout me down, that was MY opinion at the time (and still a little today).

Back in college, I was engaged to a brilliant man who quit halfway through a PhD. He actually quit most things, which was largely why we didn’t work out. Years later, I ran into him and he asked what I was doing. I told him I was a writer.

Him: I’ve always wanted to write a book, but I am way too ADHD.

Me (inside voice): No, you’ve never written a book because you lack the discipline to finish what you start.

***I’m actually much better at the inside words staying inside thing.

If you are ADD/ADHD, you can be a fountain of creativity. You see patterns in everything and make connections others don’t see…until you point them out. Your innovative way of seeing the world can make you a groundbreaking author…

…if you just sit and FINISH.

Remember, if this applies to you, I have one finger pointing at you and the others all pointing at ME.

ADD/ADHD Needs Structure

If you are ADD or ADHD and this doesn’t apply to you? Scroll past or feel free to leave your way of handling things in the comments. For me? I was a hot mess. I had a terrible habit of starting things and never finishing. Did I fail to finish because I was lazy?

Nope.

***Okay, maybe sometimes.

I failed to finish because I lacked the discipline to stay the course and I followed every single plot bunny…and their babies…and their babies’ babies.

This was HOW I ended up with my first “novel” being 187,000 word romantic-mystery-thriller-suspense-religious-comedy-self-help.

I started blogging back in 2007 (on MySpace) then blogging here in 2008 (???). The main reason I forced myself to blog was to learn to SHIP. It created a space that trained me to get butt IN chair until the work was COMPLETE.

Then LET GO.

And commit to a schedule.

Perfect is the enemy of the finished.

If you are struggling to finish a novel, then maybe do a blog or do a flash fiction every day, week, whatever. Train those writing muscles. More importantly, train those finishing muscles.

For instance, I taught myself to crochet. I am NOT ALLOWED to begin anything new, until what I am working on is finished.

***Reading books? Totally doesn’t count. I usually have like 5 going at any given time.

Neurodivergent: Did I Mention Structure?

This is where we can part ways with those who are autistic (or go to war with our “autistic” side). I believe a lot of pansters likely are ADHD. We actually need to start telling the story to figure OUT the story.

To be blunt? This is a highly inefficient way to write. No shade if it works for you! If you are a panster and finishing novels faster than Mortal KOMBAT? Then don’t change. Duh.

But, if you keep getting off track, then try getting your idea at least into ONE SENTENCE.

I even have to do this with NF.

When I helped write The Trap: Sex, Social Media, and Surveillance Capitalism I HAD to write a small paragraph describing what the book was about. When writing about the dark depths of the digital adult entertainment industry, there were SO MANY tangents.

Jewels and I simply couldn’t cover them ALL in one book. We needed essentially a log-line.

Even for fiction. If you’re neurodivergent (or even if you aren’t) this is GOLD. In ONE sentence, what is your story ABOUT? Even if it is something simple like what I am doing now: My story is about a ghost ship in the derby days of crabbing.

NOT a lot of details, but if I start going down too many trails that suddenly make my story NOT about a ghost ship in the derby days of crabbing…there is a problem.

Neurodivergent to Neuro-DIVERTED: NO to the Bunnies

Again, us ADHD people see patterns and new ways of seeing and doing and thinking and, and, and, and….

STOP.

IF you are writing your novel, you can take a trick from what I do with my autism. Should you think there is a thread you need to pursue, try writing WHAT IF THEY GO X DIRECTION INSTEAD? Then let your brain sit on it.

At least try to keep moving forward. If that detour, however, does not serve the overall story you are currently working on?

Put it in a folder.

Go to that blog I linked to about log-lines. See if your “plot bunny idea” might have enough meat to stand on its own. Write a log-line and maybe a little synopsis. Then when you FINISH the current idea, your bunny(ies) will be waiting…and likely breeding.

Here is how to write a synopsis, no salt circle necessary. This will keep you from smashing fifteen story ideas into ONE BOOK.

Conversely, IF you are unsure because, like I said, we often talk through/work through to FIND the story, then I highly recommend Google Docs. Break up your story with HEADINGS you can easily shift through (I think Word and Scrivener can do this too).

This will help you trim all that FAT when you get to the end.

For instance, my ghost ship story? My main character needs to be a land-lover greenhorn. So how does he end up on a boat in the Arctic circle? I literally have sections that read Probably NOT Part of Main Story but WTH, WHY NOT? Maybe I will keep it, ditch it. I don’t yet KNOW.

But the header function keeps me from having a bazillion separate documents and allows me to zip through what I already know is a hellaciously over-bloated document.

IN CONCLUSION:

Neurodivergent, NOT Lazy or “a Flake“

Merely different.

The writing profession has never been easy and we now face challenges no writer in this history of PLANET EARTH has ever faced.

A.I. anyone?

We have enough odds stacked against our success without self-sabotaging. This said, before I realized “being neurodivergent” was a thing, and that I might actually BE neurodivergent? I was harder on myself than anyone.

BUT, I also gave myself slack where I shouldn’t have.

To this day, I wear a rubber band on my wrist (to lightly snap) to keep me present so I don’t talk over people. Apparently, people get annoyed when you keep finishing their sentences.

Who knew?

I know I get enthusiastic and I certainly don’t mean to be rude. But that doesn’t mean it is okay for me to be Tigger and bounce through all the conversational crockery making a mess.

Additionally, when I give my word, I strive very hard to keep it and not take on any more work. I ran an editing special back in October, then everything decided it needed to update…so it could then CRASH.

Not kidding.

Word crashed, wiping out over 100 pages of edits. Then WP coughed up a digital hairball. Event Espresso (what I use to “sell” services) decided to toss all messages into the ABYSS and even WANATribe was 404 and took a week to fix.

Edits that normally should have been easy-peasy turned into a month-long nightmare (because of technology; the writing samples were unusually brilliant).

The old me would have just refunded the money out of sheer overwhelm.

But I’ve matured. I let people know what the tech issues were, and figured most people actually are not nearly as hard on me as I am.

Embracing Being Neurodivergent

When my mom sent me to be tested in August (I am NOT joking)…

Yes, my mother had me tested…

Anyway, she asked me what I hoped to gain from an “official” diagnosis. Which, was a fair question.

I wanted to know what are called “critical nodes.” Whenever a company hires a security specialist (like, say for building a DAM in Venezuela), that specialist should point out unique areas of weakness that are inherent to the design.

For instance, if the company is aware that rebel groups might want to sabotage their dam, they don’t want to pay for security everywhere, just the most likely points of attack or system failure.

Same with being neurodivergent.

Was I autistic? Or just wanting an excuse for being controlling? Or was I being over-controlling because of being autistic? Was I ADHD or just undisciplined? A combination of both?

So on and so forth.

For me, since getting a diagnosis, life is MUCH easier (mostly because I can plan and also give myself grace). I no longer feel guilty because I never wear the stunning dress I paid a fortune for, because NOW I know I’m never going wear it because of the seams and type of fabric.

***This also informs me of what to buy/not buy in the future.

Yes, I am swimming in 9,000 different hair clips (which I will donate at the beginning of the year). I kept believing I just had the wrong clip and didn’t put 2 and 2 together that it was a sensory issue.

I’m more mindful that I can be much too loud. People think I am upset or yelling at them. No, my hearing is stupid sensitive. The world (to me) is very, VERY loud.

I hear the AC cutting on and off, the computer processor humming, the traffic, the kids playing outside, the GUY WITH THE LEAF BLOWER, WHAT IS WITH THAT AND HOW IS HE EVERYWHERE?

So, to me, I am talking over a very noisy world.

Again, I use the rubber band. A quick snap on my wrist to remind me to slow down (the ADHD) and assess if the world is really that loud, or if I’m overexcited/overstimulated. Before my diagnosis, I had NO CLUE why I’d get so loud I was irritating people.

Now? I know hurdles I might encounter.

A diagnosis has given me tools to better communicate. For instance, my husband likes getting everywhere at the last minute, whereas I need to be places a half hour early.

We’ve come to an agreement.

IF he wants me to sit still and be quiet, he THEN must get me there early enough to center myself and calm my anxiety (or no kicking me under the pew).

What Are Your Thoughts?

We can talk on this topic again if there is any interest. I just know I felt unbelievably alone until I became a writer…then I DISCOVERED MY PEOPLE!

Trust me, I know that not every writer is ND, but I think many of us are. Additionally, I think a lot of us don’t KNOW we are ND and we beat ourselves up feeling like freaks, weirdos and failures.

I firmly stick by my theory that what can make us brilliant artists is also linked to why we struggle to finish, get/remain organized, have a hard time being able to stick-and-move and change with all the trends…

***OR we are SO good at sticking-and-moving with the trends we forget to WRITE BOOKS.

Did you relate to any of this? Maybe have a friend? A family member? Obviously I know today was a lot, but in the future I’d like to break this all into smaller pieces we can explore.

Do you see yourself in this? Or do you have something to add? I’m totally new to all this so I’m exploring ALL THE THINGS!

Are you ND, but maybe in a different way? A Tropical Fruit Salad (papaya hypoactive, mango dyscalculia, and banana ADD) instead of that North American (apple autism, walnuts OCD, and pear ADHD)?

I LOVE hearing from you! What are your stories, struggles, tips, tricks, links, epiphanies?

The post Neurodivergent Authors: Not Lazy or “Broken” appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Change is part of life. Anything that is living, should be growing (or even healing) which means it changes. Only dead things remain the same. This is true with people as well as industries.

Last post, we talked about the darkest moment, what it is and why it is so critical to story. It is at the darkest moment that the protagonist finally lets GO of the old self, the old ways, the old thinking and embraces the new.

Now, here is a critical point. Not ALL stories have a “happy ending.” Unless one is writing romance and a “happily ever after” is part of genre canon, our story does not have to have a happy ending, BUT it must always have a satisfying ending.

Yet, what does that mean? What is the critical component of the darkest moment that transforms the protagonist into a hero?

Any other person would resign themselves to whatever fate, whereas a protagonist-turned-hero, accepts what has happened, that “all is lost”…but presses on anyway with the hope that a) everything was lost for a good cause/reason b) the stuff that was lost needed losing c) what lies ahead will more than make up for what was lost.

Acceptance vs. Resignation

We all have “stuff” we don’t like. Maybe it is a personal flaw (out of shape) or something in life we dislike (unemployed or underemployed). It might be a crazy family we love but struggle to have good boundaries with. Whatever.

They key to positive change in anything is acceptance. If we don’t get to a state of acceptance, then by default, we are in denial. If you are unfamiliar with the Kübler-Ross, 5 Stages of Grief, I recommend checking it out. There is a LOT of applicability to dealing with all forms of loss, not merely losing a loved one.

***For the record, change implies some kind of loss.

According to Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, we go through five stages whenever we are hit with bad news (a death, a bad diagnosis, a heartbreak, losing a job, natural disaster, major upsetting change, etc.)

• Denial
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance

According to Kübler-Ross’s idea, we won’t neatly scroll down these stages one by one. We could get stuck on one, like anger. Or, we might vacillate back and forth from, say, depression back to anger to acceptance, then slip up and be right back in depression. So on and so forth.

Yet, note we must make it to then through acceptance in the final stage. Until we accept the situation, we cannot move on, and, until we move on, there is no room for new hopes and dreams.

This last bit, to me, is the kicker. We need to make room for new hopes and dreams. That is where acceptance, to me, differs from resignation.

Resignation is the shadow-side of acceptance.

In fact, if we look to a lot of villain origin stories, they fell prey to resignation whereas the hero takes up the mantel of acceptance.

Be the Hero in Life & Career

All change involves death of something.

When I chose to become a career writer, by default, the dream of being an attorney died. I’d applied for law school while I was fiddling with the idea of going pro. Somehow, I didn’t get the letter I’d been accepted into the class of 2005 at my law school of choice. I’d assumed I had NOT gotten in, and so I accepted a job as a technical writer…the DAY I got the letter for freshman orientation.

I could have reasonably gone back on my word. But, that isn’t me. I felt it was a sign that being a writer was the right way forward.

Theoretically, I could have managed both (I still could have accepted a slot in law school). But could I? Really? No. I was at a crossroads. I needed to accept that, while it was amazing I got into such a prestigious school, I really wanted to be a writer.

***For the record, y’all make me SO grateful I became a writer.

I had to let one dream DIE for another to LIVE.

No sooner did I decide to get into writing as a career that I realized everything was changing. While it was an exciting time to be an author, it was a terrifying time as well.

And yes, I had times I thought that maybe I should just hang it all up and go to law school. OMG, I chose wrong! What did I DO? On and on. But to be locked into that kind of double-mindedness is maddening.

I’d decided to be a writer, and, as a writer of the 21st century, that meant I had to accept that the publishing paradigm was not only going to change DRASTICALLY, but the pace of change was only going to accelerate.

I still have to accept this. It is never easy. Yes, I wanted the dream where all I did was hide in my little dream cottage and write novels fans adored. My agent, editors and PR people would handle everything else. But that is not reality (and never really has been).

Change and Learning to Pivot

IF I want to keep this writing dream, then I need to accept all it entails. Because if I don’t, it only sets me spiraling back through anger, depression, denial, and on and on.

Pivoting sounds like such a pretty and painless word, doesn’t it?

Um…yeah. All fun and games ’til someone takes out a knee.

I don’t know about y’all, but I JUST about figure out, say WordPress…then they New and Improve it, and back to the beginning. It feels as if I am constantly having to reimagine, rethink, reinvent…because I am. In ways, this is good because it prevents stagnation. At the same time? I feel like I need Digital Dramamine from all the ups and downs and twists and turns.

When I came back from presenting in Idaho, I posted, Aspiring Writers Need to Quit, Now! Why? Because I was blessed enough to hear a lot of speakers who completely turned my thinking on its head (which doesn’t happen that much).

When I arrived at the conference, I was in a terrible state of burnout. Why? I needed a paradigm shift.

I’d gotten stuck, which happens.

Remember that list? Bargaining? Depression? What had gotten lost—other than ME—was my why. WHY did I want to be a writer? Then, once I remembered my WHY, I had to accept that IF I still want to be a writer in the 21st century, that can look a zillion different ways (unlike pre 21st century authors).

In the old days, I had only a handful of options. Now? There are so many options I actually think my brain vapor-locks daily.

Say Yes to Acceptance, No to Resignation

When we fall prey to resignation, it makes us angry, bitter and rigid. When we are rigid, we don’t bend, we break. Or, for us overachievers/drama queens…we shatter.

It was really hard to blog for a while, not only because so much was happening on the family front, but my career felt like it imploded with the pandemic.

Did it? Yes. Did it really? No.

My career didn’t DIE, it merely changed. I was in a different season. In autumn, the trees aren’t dying, they are preparing for winter. This is when they’ll rest and drive their roots down deeper so they can be stronger in the future, thus be able to weather spring storms and summer droughts.

We don’t CRY in autumn, most of us LOVE it! If we don’t cry for the trees, why do we cry for the me-me-mes?

I had to grieve the old, accept that the changes keep coming, and that I have to stick-and-move if I want to remain in the game and see the SPRING.

If I DON’T? That is totally okay, too.

Writing CAN Change BACK into a Hobby

Not everything we love has to be monetized. It also doesn’t need to be permanent.

If you get a chance, go check out that post I mentioned earlier. Also, grab the book, Dear Writer, You Need to Quit, that inspired the post.

Also, since it is FRIDAY, I am going to leave y’all with an interview with ME. I know, it feels so self-serving, but it really turned out very funny. I hope it’s the shot in the arm y’all might need as we press into a new school year (I can see y’all sniffing the school supplies).

If you ever want to feel really brilliant, just know I did all the dumb things so you don’t have to. I met Carissa Andrews at the same conference in Boise and just WOW! I was floored when she asked to interview ME over at Author Revolution Podcast.

Psst! Carissa runs the Millionaire Author Manifestation.

Carissa is an internationally best-selling author with 15+ titles. She’s reached the status of millionaire author, and so she took what she learned and now uses that to help other writers.

Wow, right?

Unicorns DO Exist (I met her)

Y’all can go check out her website for all her testimonials and classes. Suffice to say, I was very honored and humbled she cared to interview ME.

We talk a lot about the ups and downs of this industry. The podcast IS long, so maybe listen on your phone. I can be FUNNY or I can be BRIEF, so I choose funny.

Anyway, when we accept that YES, being an author is amazing…but it is also crazy as a bag of frogs? We can then move forward, get UN-stuck from the Feedback Loop of Despair, and open up to for fresh dreams and new roads untraveled.

What are YOUR Thoughts on CHANGE?

Do you struggle with change, and telling the difference between acceptance and resignation? I did. People were always telling me I had to accept whatever and I took that for giving up (resignation). Only recently did I hear a podcast that pointed out the difference.

Do you struggle with acceptance, too? Get stuck back in the other stages of grief? Is change overwhelming? Am I the only one who wishes we could have a PAUSE button for the CHANGE?

I LOVE COMMENTS! Would also LOVE y’all top check out the interview. If you don’t want to listen via Youtube, I linked to all the places y’all can subscribe to Carissa’s podcast.

To prove it and show my love, for the month of AUGUST, everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat.

I actually have landed agents for people who’ve won this contest. Agents like me because I make their lives easier.

If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. For those who listen to the PODCAST, y’all get THREE times in the hat.

What do you win?

The unvarnished truth from yours truly (and maybe even time with an agent).

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less). People with superlative writing, I (with your permission) have been known to pass you onto an agent.

Anyway, I look forward to reading your comments and your writing!

The post Change Happens: Acceptance vs. Resignation appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Rejection can be so devastating, that the emotional impact registers the same as physical pain. Think about that for a moment. Our brain cannot tell the difference between losing a job and getting hit with a bat.

In fact, for those of you out there who’ve ever been fired spectacularly (too)? You might even prefer being hit with a bat.

Can I get an AMEN?

The sense of “belonging” to a group is hardwired into our DNA, and for very good reasons. For most of human history, life was nasty, brutish and short. We needed to remain in groups to ensure survival.

Rejection was very literally a death sentence. This is why cultures all over the world all have some form of exile/banishment reserved among the gravest of penalties.

Not So Fun Fact

Earlier, I mentioned “being fired.” The etymology of this word is LITERAL. As in no one in the tribe liked you.

So they burned down your hut.

Subtlety had yet to be invented.

Pain is meant to teach lessons that keep us alive, in tact, and reproducing. We touch a hot stove? We instantly learn that’s a bad idea. Yet, here’s the rub. Social pain is ALSO meant to teach lessons. Historically, when we acted in certain ways, we could expect rejection (or, conversely, acceptance) from the group. Pain served as a guide and taught us how to be properly social.

The problem, however, is that—while that hand we burned at age two fades from memory—the first time we were dumped, fired, bullied, laughed at in public is likely to never go away.

I know. I missed my calling writing for Hallmark.

Why are we talking about rejection, anyway? For a number of reasons, but first and foremost, we are writers.

Need I say more?

Knowing this, how do we get up? More importantly, how do we keep getting up time after time?

Expect Rejection

To make it in our profession, we must develop rhino skin. Writing is largely subjective. Trust me. Once you put yourself out there, everyone has an opinion. Many feel the urge to express that opinion, regardless of whether it is helpful or not.

Despite the fact that the general population spends almost all their extra time and money on what WRITERS create (Internet, movies, Netflix, books), most will insist we do not have a REAL job.

Ouch.

It’s dumb. I know. Roll with it, and, if it helps? Remember people eat Tide Pods, too. What can I say?

If you want to publish the traditional route, then expect agents and editors to reject you. Hopefully, they’ll be nice about it, but there are no guarantees.

Say you get a book contract. Yay you!

Ah, but that book will hit the market eventually, and then it will be time to face the critics…and the readers.

While I love getting a good book review, they can’t all be good.

This said?

People can be amazing…but they can be so horrid they’ll leave a writer curled in the fetal position washing down cookie dough with tequila.

Blogging is Good Practice

Does every writer need to have a blog? No. Is it a good idea? Sure. Blogs play to a writer’s strengths. Writers WRITE. Or, at least we are supposed to. Blogs are a great place to learn, to refine our voice, to improve our skills, and to…*sigh* learn how to deal with rejection.

When I started this blog almost fifteen years ago, my biggest fans were cheaphandbagsandxanax, sexyrussianbrides, and hotcollegegirlsforyou.

They left the best comments.

“I so lick your blog.”

“You make many good poinsettias.”

“You’re post is much brilliant!”

*sighs wistfully*

I knew they were bots, but I didn’t have the heart to delete the comments because looking at NOTHING was so much more depressing. Week after week, year after year, I blogged to the ether. But, I kept at it and, with time, eventually people began caring what I had to say.

Blogging taught me self-discipline. I learned to write to a deadline and SHIP. It trained out all my most of my okay some of my perfectionism. Blogs don’t have to be Pulitzer-ready. Perfect is overrated. In fact, perfect is the enemy of the finished. Let’s just say that blogging helped me grow up as a person and a professional.

Sadly, though.

Not All Days Can Be Halcyon Days

It’s great fabulous to go viral. First time I went viral, I didn’t even talk about writing. I figured no one was reading my posts anyway, so I griped about STAR WARS in What Went Wrong with the Star Wars Prequels? Wow.

FYI, people are VERY passionate about a made-up universe. That post is over a decade old and still getting comments.

It’s all fun and games…

…until you write something meaty and divisive and get misquoted and it feels like everyone on the Internet wants to run your head through a garbage disposal.

I give you…“Pay the Writer.”

From the reaction, I might as well have written a post called “Punch a Kitten.” Weirdly enough, the notion of actually paying writers with MONEY was a very polarizing post. Who knew? While many authors and readers rallied to my side (y’all were AWESOME), others swarmed to my site to call me the “c” word.

“Cute” NOT the word.

It took all my willpower not to take down the post. I just wanted it all to STOP! But, I didn’t. If writers being paid was the hill I’d die on, there were dumber hills.

If I didn’t stand by my work, who would?

Book Rejection Reviews Can Hurt, Too

The same thing happens with all books. When I choose something to read, I rarely let reviews influence my choice. The reason? In my opinion, reviewers are often unreliable narrators.

I don’t know if this will help, but, statistically speaking, only two kinds of people are likely to leave a review. Those who LOVED our book…and those who want to set it (and maybe even us) on fire inside our hut with our keyboards.

***Learned that little nugget in political statistics.

Those who enjoyed the book—then simply moved on to the next read—are statistically unlikely to leave a review because they were neither super amazed or dismally disappointed.

People can be wonderful, but they can also be horrid. The same jerks who probably paid us burgeoning writers to do their THREE-PAGE paper for them because writing WAS SO HARD are the same people who’ll write a FIVE-PAGE evisceration review.

I don’t make the rules.

To be clear, I am not talking about negative reviews that are thoughtful and concise about what in particular the reader didn’t like. I’m talking about the turd-slinging that serves no purpose other than playing high-and-mighty while being needlessly cruel.

Jerks Happen

Sometimes I wish I had a “SMITE” button so I could zap these trolls (obviously with slightly-less-than-lethal electricity) so as to remind them that there is a living, breathing person on the other side of their ugly character assassination review. A writer whose ONLY goal was to inform or entertain.

We get it. The author missed the mark. No need to be a troglodyte.

SMITE!

Sadly, though. I do not have that button or I’d protect us all. But, I can’t. And, like my old blog post, you will have to be willing to stand, even if it feels as if you are alone.

Rejection sucks.

But here is a cool trick to help you keep perspective. I do this when I feel low. Go look up your all-time favorite books. The books you are certain are perfection on every page. Then look at the one and two star reviews and you will see the truth.

You cannot please everyone.

If you get a bad review, my advice is to listen and be teachable. Maybe they are onto something you didn’t see and can do better next time. If they’re just being a jerk, then you only need eleven more haters to technically be famous, so?

You’re welcome!

Rejection Defines and Refines Us

I am fairly certain many of y’all have been nodding along and that is great! But, you might want to keep this one bookmarked for a bad day. If you stay at this long enough, you’re going to have days that you wonder why you didn’t learn to be a dental assistant or why you left that exciting life in medical billing.

What were you THINKING?

When I decided to become a writer, my family didn’t talk to me for a year. I said, “I’ve thought this through and corporate sales is not for me. I want to be a writer.”

My family heard, “Blah blah, throwing away expensive college degree going to wear beret and write bad haiku, blah blah, writer, joining a cult, blah blah.”

DO NOT expect to get a lot of support outside of other writers. If you get it? Fabulous! But it’s good to hedge expectations. Even with all the social media that now connects us, this is STILL a lonely profession.

We write to deadlines. There is no clocking in and clocking out. As I mentioned earlier, most people will not believe what we do is actually WORK.

Because ANYONE can write 100,000 words with multiple POVs, character arc, plot arc, amazing dialogue and NO typos. Just like a grocery list!

Where was I?

Oh, yes. You will likely get knocked down but that is actually a good thing. When I started out, I was an ego-centric unteachable @$$ and writing taught me humility. Still have the scars.

But it also taught me that getting knocked down wasn’t the biggest deal. What mattered in the end was whether or not I got back up.

Is Rejection in Control?

Like the characters in our books, our wounds can be our best friends or our greatest enemies. When I wrote my “first novel,” I kid you not, it was 187,000 words long. I just kept on writing then finally thought, “Seems long enough. The end!”

I was too dumb to know what I didn’t know. When I attended my first writing group, I couldn’t wait for all the accolades. I just worried they’d be jealous that I was so naturally talented *hair flip*

THEN…I got my pages.

The bloooood! So much BLOOOOD!

Red pen, EVERYWHERE! I don’t think there was any white space left. I’d walked away from a sweet job with dental to pursue my dream only to find out I was a talentless hack!

I remember sobbing in my Honda Civic, blowing my nose with Taco Bell napkins because I hadn’t eaten anything that cost more than .99 for the previous six months.

It was decision time. Was I in or out?

How much did I really want to be a writer?

Apparently I wanted it a lot. A couple thousand blogs, several books (and a LOT of trolls) later, here I am. And you know what? Rejection still hurts like hell.

Even rejection that’s just in your head!

Just so y’all know, back in March, the 19th century stopped by to visit me. I caught frigging whooping cough.

Since I was presenting in Idaho in May—actually this weekend so…come see me?—I HAD to let my lungs heal if I hoped to make it there. The doctors said I was too close to getting full-blown pneumonia if I didn’t chill OUT (not my strong suit).

I couldn’t miss Idaho, because it is an INCREDIBLE conference featuring some of the greatest writers in our industry. So, if it wasn’t something on my phone, I pretty much shut down.

Problem is? I’ve missed blogging so long I’ve been literally afraid to POST. I feel like a total failure…as if I really had any control over the last eight weeks. And the GUILT! So much guilt.

What kind of special nonsense thinking is that?

***Thank you to Merry and Mimi and Mary and all the others who kept pestering me to post. I love you ladies.

See, my confession should give y’all hope that all these years later, I am STILL learning! I’m writing these posts for me as much as you.

What Are Your Thoughts on Rejection?

Oh the tales of rejection! I’ve been dumped on Valentine’s Day…twice. In the 90s, I worked for a tech company. One week after my boss told me how much she valued me…she fired me. Talk about blind-sided.

Security walked me and my potted plant out of the building in front of everyone.

One time on Amazon, someone gave me a one-star review because they bought my book by mistake.

I could go on, but y’all have been there. We put all the heartbreak and triumph in our stories. The jobs we lost, the love that failed, the friends we thought would be there forever…until we had to dislodge that knife from our back.

It’s life. The sweet is only sweet because of the bitter.

So what about you guys? Any tales of rejection? Reviews that made you question humanity? Rejection letters with your name misspelled? Do you put those people in books too? Have you let rejection refine you or define you?

And just a reminder for anyone who can make it. Better late than never!

The post Rejection: What is REALLY in Control? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Pain is simply part of life. I think THAT much is clear as we are almost two weeks into 2023 *thinks of carbs and cries* Truth is, we have little control over most of what happens to us. This is true in life and in publishing. Control, in many respects, is an illusion. We can only do our little part on most things then hope and pray for the best.

This might sound a lot like me being a Debbie Downer here, but the truth can actually be quite liberating. When we recognize there is only SO much we can control, it narrows down our focus and all the things we “care” about.

We can set expectations accordingly and realize what is within our purview (finished books sell WAY better than unfinished ones) and frankly, what’s totally out of our hands (novels featuring left-handed snake handlers are all the rage!).

Dealing with Change

Publishing, like every other industry on the planet, has experienced a drastic transition over the past 12 years or so. An industry that had remained relatively untouched for over a century crumbled. Whether we like it or not, Amazon and on-line shopping dismantled an institution.

And yes, I hear all the writers collectively groan and wail. I don’t like it either. Shopping on-line just isn’t the same as browsing a bookstore all day, feeling paper in your hands and having a physical thing, right away you can touch and read and (if you are me) scribble in.

If you do want to set out to write professionally, then it is wise to understand exactly what you’re getting into. The actual path to publishing, not the “Made for TV” version we can be way too fond of (especially when new).

Writers are entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs are wise to do what is called a S.W.O.T. Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats).

So the “bad” news first.

Pain and Publishing

The consignment model that bookstores have relied upon for well over a century is, for all intents and purposes, gone. For anyone curious how this model worked (and is now likely limping along) the The Hard Truth About Publishing—What Writers & Readers NEED to Know provides a detailed breakdown.

Regardless, publishing will continue to go more and more on-line for a number of reasons. The consignment model, as I’ve pointed out, is and always has been grossly inefficient. This was all well and good so long as bookstores and physical books had no competition, no cheaper alternative. But that is no longer the case.

Additionally, want to know something about paper? It is freaking HEAVY, which means, with the cost of diesel right now, the profit from any paper book is tied to the cost of crude.

If it costs a small fortune to ship books, that eats away at any profit. Eventually, there is a ceiling that even bibliophiles will reach. We’ll only pay SO MUCH for the paper books we love, especially when digital is a fraction of the cost.

All this to say that Ye Olden Days of Publishing are gone, and have been for a while. Which is fine, but also scary. In the August 2, 2022 article in The New York Times, The Books Merger That’s About Amazon:

Whether for good or for ill, a judge blocked NY publishing’s plans to merge two publishing titans—Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster—in hopes of faring better against their ongoing nemesis, Amazon.

Initially, the duo claimed they’d fight this decision, but have since withdrawn any future plans to merge.

It’s Just Business

In the face of a recession that’s steadily nibbling away at profits as well as supply chain issues, the future of publishing is, as always, uncertain. This has always been the case in traditional publishing (especially when an excruciatingly small minority of authors are responsible for most of the profit).

This said, publishing is a business. Writing, if we want to go pro, is a business. We are wise to understand that business and how it works (or doesn’t). I totally get you and wish I had different news. What I would GIVE if all I had to do was WRITE. But, when we go pro, there’s a lot more that goes into being an author than simply getting words on the page.

And enough about that.

My goal here isn’t to utterly deflate anyone’s dreams of becoming a successful author, but this is a voyage. Like any voyage, it’s simply prudent to be honest about the trip ahead and plan accordingly the best one can.

It’s Looking Up…Maybe

One good “trend” I am seeing is the resurgence of older titles. In a November 1, 2022 article in The New York Times, A Big Publishing Merger Was Blocked, but Brought the Industry Little Clarity:

What do I see in this? Readers are tired of the slush pile being dumped in their laps. I’ve always held issue with how the big publishers and major retailers like B&N conducted business, namely because they kept trying to out-Amazon Amazon instead of playing to THEIR strengths.

Big publishing’s largest strength has ALWAYS been the relative quality of their books (overall). Even the worst traditionally published book generally has a cohesive plot and isn’t riddled with typos. When readers are thrust into a market saturated with unreadable, unedited or poorly edited stories, traditional publishers have always had the advantage.

Ironically, the entity they fought tooth and nail (social media) is the main component that now seems to be saving them.

What Does This Mean?

It means, firstly, that there are two fundamental aspects to being successful as an author—> Good books and solid platform.

I think we are, blessedly, moving beyond the early fascination with the shiny widgets and we (readers) want quality reads. We also don’t have a lot of time, and resent wading through bad books, regardless how they’re published.

People will always want good stories (Fiction) and information (NF).

The fact that older, pre-digital age books are coming back big, is a sign to me that we have more readers than ever, and they’re enthusiastic about excellent stories. Not only enthusiastic, but also addicted to social media, so they will InstaTwitFace all day about what they love!

We’re also seeing an explosion of different KINDS of stories, thus creating opportunities for different kinds of WRITERS. Short works are making a BIG comeback. The digital age has resurrected many forms of writing that were almost lost to us (E.g. poetry, essays, novellas, short stories, serials, etc.)

I’ve published traditionally, indie, and self-pub. Since I’m a control freak who enjoys breaking rules, I prefer self-pub and agree with Stephen Haunts that we indies really are The Punk Rock of Publishing.

So more good news. We are no longer in a One-Size-Fits-All profession. Yes, we’ll have to choose our pain, but at least now we have more options for our publishing suffering.

To the Pain

For those of us who want go pro, it is time to get to WORK. I love NaNoWriMo as much as anyone. I’ve been doing it for years and most of the projects I’ve completed are now published works.

Yet, when we make the shift from hobbyist to professional, every month is NaNoWriMo.

We have to understand that, while there is nothing wrong with writing for fun, hobbyists play for fun. Pros play for keeps. Make a habit of writing every day. I don’t care if it is 500 words (2 pages). Two pages every day of every week soon becomes a book.

As Mark Manson reiterates in his best-selling book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k, it is easy to fall in love with the end result. To imagine our books on every end cap, in People Magazine, trending on TikTok, or being made into a Netflix Original. And those are the dreams that will keep us going through the giant span of SUCK before the breakthrough.

Yet, in the meantime…

What KIND of Pain Will You Enjoy?

What kind of PAIN will we enjoy most? Because we cannot truly control anything in the industry beyond a certain point. To go pro, we must be honest about the pain writing entails then ask if it is worth it.

Would you STILL write even if I told you you’d never make a dime and likely die in obscurity? If the answer is yes, then we’re off to the races. If we write because we love it and wish to master it, then that is all that truly matters.

That passion will make us show up day after day and turn out word count. We’ll become experts at FINISHING. No half-perfect novel ever became a runaway success, but a lot of completed “crappy” books have.

We will have to keep an eye on the industry, understand how it works. If one publishes traditionally, then there is the pain of whatever limitations/expectations a publisher might place on us.

If we publish non-traditionally, then we not only need a good book, but we have to oversee the blurbs, back copy, formatting for paper and e-book, cover design, ISBNs, marketing, platform, brand, etc.

Which, for the record, ALL authors are responsible for marketing, platform and brand so there’s no Publishing Sugar Daddy that is going to shield us from that.

Peace with Pain

When we are okay with the pain of working alone, dealing with setbacks, learning to stick and move with an industry that changes at the speed of algorithms, and we’re willing to do the hard stuff because we love to write THAT MUCH?

Going pro is probably a good decision.

The better news is we’ll have lasting power our peers don’t possess. Believe it or not, most of being successful in anything is the discipline to consistently show up.

Every legendary book was written one word at a time.

Writing as a hobby is ALWAYS a good decision for those who have a passion for story. We don’t HAVE to monetize everything that brings us joy! It is OKAY to simply have fun.

Remember this when looking back at those New Year’s Resolutions still freshly inked on the page. If we fall in love with process, we can accomplish almost anything.

What are Your Thoughts About Pain?

Other than you don’t like it? Same. What I would GIVE for a pain-free option, but sadly life doesn’t work that way. Do you love the process or just love to fantasize about the end victories?

Hey, I was TOTALLY guilty when I was new. I spent more time imagining my books a movies than actually writing. Now? I am guilty of the opposite and need to do more dreaming.

It is 2023, so what have you decided? Go pro? REALLY? Or just learn to enjoy dabbling? Maybe a mixture of both? Do you need to be stricter with yourself, or maybe learn to lighten up a little?

I LOVE hearing from you!

The post To the Pain: Is Writing a Career or a Hobby? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

At least in the U.S., this is a week where we celebrate all we are thankful for (or at least it is supposed to be). In our modern world, I believe it is easy to take WAY too much for granted. Hey, I’m completely guilty of forgetting all my blessings and letting the silliest stuff steal my joy.

Since all y’all (correct Texas grammar) are perfect, I’ll just list some ways I can consistently fall short.

The microwave took a WHOLE two minutes to make the popcorn and it didn’t even pop ALL the kernels.

I needed to remember the other ingredients to the recipe, but the wifi in my grocery store is terrible. Is it too much to ask that a message from SPACE be delivered instantly?

The store was out of whole bean coffee and only had the ground stuff.

The dryer took too long to dry my clothes so I had to wear something else.

My iPhone 13 had to update AGAIN, and like totally in the middle of me listening to a podcast.

Okay, I’ll stop. I’m starting to want to punch myself in the face, .

FUN FACT:

Gratitude does not come naturally. Humans are biologically WIRED to seek out problems because we lived tens of thousands of years without a Walmart, IKEA, or Amazon. Being able to spot every problem possible (real, potential, or imagined) literally meant the difference between life and death.

Now that the whole “being devoured by wolves” thing is, by and large, handled, our brains still haven’t gotten the memo.

But seriously, how many times do we find ourselves complaining or even frustrated over the silliest things?

I cannot be the only person who gripes about forgetting to buy enough salsa. Maybe I am. Judge all you like.

Thankful People are Happy People

When I first decided to become a writer, I wanted to set my story at the Grand Prix in Monte Carlo. What did I do? I drove to the Ferrari dealership and took hostages made friends who could teach me about the world of racing.

Which was a really cool experience. I was able to meet professional race car drivers and ask questions. The one bit of advice that stood out to me had to do with how to win. Obviously, one has to FINISH the race to win. Kind of a prerequisite. Yet, what is an ever-present danger? Hitting the wall.

To combat this, drivers train to always keep their eyes where they want to go. Look at the wall and you hit the wall. Race car drivers learn that if you want to cross the finish line, always keep your eyes on the finish line.

Where the eye goes the mind (and car) follows.

This is VERY true in life.

We live in a consumer culture that is designed to sell us stuff. How do they do this? They tell us we don’t have enough. We’d be happy if we had a bigger house, a better car, a thinner body. Whether it’s Netflix or Instagram or Aunt Sheila, we’re continually fed a nonstop diet of the million ways we are not enough, how we could be better, and how much happier we’d be if only ______.

In short, modern Western culture is designed to keep our eyes on the wall. And then we’re mystified why we keep falling to pieces. This is why focusing on what we have that we are THANKFUL for can be so critical for mental, emotional, and relational health.

If all we see is where our partner or kid or family member messes up? Soon, that’s ALL we’ll see. When we fail to ever recognize all the things we do right, that we accomplish, where we shine, and only fixate on how we fall short? It won’t take long before we’re an emotional wreck.

Life Can Be Hard

Before we talk more about gratitude…

Not too long ago, I wrote a post about toxic optimism called Optimism Overdose: Sometimes Life STINKS. At the time, my FIL was in hospice. Not long after that post, he passed away. Life can be uncertain. There is genuine pain, suffering, and grief and it is equally important we recognize these emotions and feel them as well.

When we fail to authentically experience the negative emotions, they can manifest as depression, neuroses, physical pain, or chronic illness.

That said, I recall a (now) funny story about when I first decided to become a writer. I’d love to tell y’all it was an amazing time, but far from it. In 2001, I was misdiagnosed with epilepsy and had to resign from a very good-paying job. My health was shattered, and my ego was in whatever is worse than the toilet and lower than the gutter. I lost my apartment, most of my belongings, was unable to drive…and had to move in with my mom.

And So It Goes…

One day, I was lying in bed and my mom asked if I was depressed. In a rare moment of clarity/honesty, I said, “No. I am angry, disappointed, jaded, bitter, and generally pissed off that I’ve failed so badly at life.”

The funny thing about that? Once I OWNED those feelings, I actually felt a lot better. I’d identified what was genuinely wrong and could then work forward from there.

Now, please, do not take this as a sweeping generalization for all forms of depression. This was merely MY experience.

But even the great Carl Jung said:

I understand there are times it is genuinely hard to be thankful.

I’ve lived many holiday seasons where I didn’t know if we’d have food, or was struggling to pay the bills, get a job/keep a job, grieving the loss of yet another loved one, trapped in the Jerry Springer family get-together from HELL. In fact, for me, the holidays have a lot more bad memories than good (though been working on that).

So I GET it.

Yet, I think when life feels as if it is caving in, that we just can’t take one more step without shattering, that is the time we need gratitude the most.

Thankful for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving seems to be the middle child of holidays. Halloween is fun and glitzy and exciting. Christmas is shiny, has merch and movies and parties and gifts…and oh yeah, there’s Thanksgiving.

Hey, do we even have decorations for that?

Christmas is this magical time, and we often hear how we need to keep Christmas in our hearts all year long. Well, that is a great idea, but we would be wise to keep Thanksgiving there, too.

We have all kinds of ways to be thankful and many things to be grateful for that we might not even notice. The next time you go to complain, I challenge you to think of the blessing that inconvenience really is. I do this myself when I hear complaints and grumblings coming out of my mouth. YES, it is corny, but just roll with it.

I’ll show you what I mean…

Flipping the Script

I am thankful for all the laundry I have to do, because it means I have clothes to wear.

I am thankful for the pile of dirty dishes, because it means I didn’t go hungry.

I am thankful for the big electric bill, because it means my home has lights and heat.

I am thankful for the car that needs all new tires because it means I don’t have to walk miles and miles to get what I need.

I am thankful for that parking space waaaaayyyy out in the back, because it means I don’t have to park in a handicapped space. I’m able to walk.

I am thankful for the closets that need to be cleaned out, because it means I am blessed with plenty.

I am thankful I can’t have a Christmas tree because it means I have cats who break things, get fur all over my favorite outfits, puke in the middle of the night and ONLY on carpet. And seriously? This is why we can’t have nice things!

Wait, I WAS going somewhere with this.

Oh yes. They are cute and love us a lot…and are cute. And I also don’t need to take down a tree and put away a bunch of ornaments.

I am thankful for the split ends I have, because it means I haven’t lost all my hair to chemo.

I am thankful for the Christmas cards I need to send, because they could as easily be funeral announcements.

I am thankful for the traffic snarls that catch me, because the body the firemen pulled out of the fatality accident could have been me or someone I love.

I am thankful for my wrinkles and gray hair. Old age is a blessing denied to many.

I am thankful for my giant food bill, because it means I have a healthy son (who doesn’t have a stomach, he has a SINGULARITY).

Being Thankful is a Habit

As I mentioned earlier, we aren’t wired to be grateful. Having an attitude of gratitude is very counterintuitive to our human nature.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control and thankfulness are NOT natural. These are all qualities we have to be mindful to practice enough to make them habitual. And it is REALLY easy to backslide.

I am definitely thankful for all of you who bless me on this blog because it means y’all are willing to bless me with the most precious resource you have. TIME.

I’m immensely grateful you guys give to freely to me. You guys are the bright spot to each and every day in my world and the world around you. It is such an honor and privilege to serve you.

I love hearing from you!

What are you guys thankful for? I’d like to hear your comments (which I am super especially thankful to get, by the way). Do you have any struggles or stories you’d like to share? I can’t be the only one messed up .

And to show my love, for the month of NOVEMBER, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

Now I gotta go brine a turkey, and am THANKFUL I have to cook because it means I have food and family and friends. Have a fabulous holiday!

The post Unseen Blessings: Are We Truly Thankful? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

For most of my life, being ‘right’ was my single greatest priority. Years ago, I believed I knew everything. Okay, that’s a lie. More like a couple weeks ago I believed I knew everything.

More lies. Dang it!

Truth is, this morning I knew everything then got some caffeine and realized I was completely full of it. It takes work for me to stop and ask the hard questions daily to keep me grounded.

What if I’m wrong? Why am I really doing X? What is my motive? Am I afraid of something? Do I really believe what I’m saying I believe?

Where are my pants?

Calm down...

I don’t spend vast amounts of time gazing into my navel searching for the Lint of Truth…especially since everyone knows the dryer hoards the Lint of Truth (left by socks who’ve achieved enlightenment and thus shed corporeal form).

#Duh

Self-examination is still important. Alas, it’s also a tricky tightrope to walk, and takes years of practice not to fall on your head with a pole jammed somewhere painful.

We can lean toward questioning everything so much we become paralyzed neurotics incapable of making any decision. Conversely, if we don’t stop to examine what we’re doing and why? Let’s just say…

Persistence is a noble quality, but persistence can look a lot like stupid.

Me in My Smarter Moments

The Priority Problem

If I could boil down the essence of modern human angst into one core idea, I’d say we’re all facing a priority problem. We’re being relentlessly told we can have it ALL, when no…no we can’t.

Late Sunday night I got home from speaking non-stop for four days in Grand Rapids, Michigan. OMG! I love everyone and wanted to take them all home (but Feds have informed me this is technically ‘kidnapping.’ *rolls eyes*)

But, I work super hard to give it my all and, by the time I got home I was…DED.

*buzzards circling*

So, I am planning on taking a couple days off and…I need anxiety meds just to take a break…which is super sad but hey, at least I’m honest.

Nostalgia and Priorities

I’m from Generation X, and it’s tough not to miss a time where people didn’t talk on the phone while in a public toilet.

People my age have lived fully in two completely different worlds. We were the bridge generation from the industrial world into the digital world. We played the first video games, but also remember being bored.

I’m old enough to recall a time when if you missed a T.V. show, well sucked to be you. Television stopped at midnight only to resume at 5:00 a.m. with morning news, faith healers, and Captain Kangaroo (not necessarily in that order).

Back in my day *waves cane* the phone would ring and we had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA who might be calling. The highlight of my preteen life? When I got a phone cord long enough to extend the ENTIRE PHONE SYTEM UNIT into my room.

Cordless phones? Witchcraft.

I mostly played outside in the dirt. We slinked through barbed wire to traipse through rattlesnake infested fields searching for buried treasure—finding only fire ants, rusted tools, and the joy of bull nettle.

Under my cult-leader-type influence, we set way too much stuff on fire (using that Chemistry set I got for my birthday). Being a super non-PC generation, we killed a lot of imaginary Russians, made ashtrays in art class for Mother’s Day, and we all wanted to be Bruce Lee.

***True Fact #1: Once knocked myself out with nunchucks. True Fact #2: Eventually got pretty good at nunchucks. True Fact #3: We all wanted ninja throwing stars for Christmas, and 98% of parents did not find this at all odd.

Yet, I also played a lot of Atari. I even created multiple small business ventures using child labor (little brother and friends). We pulled weeds, washed cars, picked up dog poop all to score enough cash to imbibe in Pac Man and ice cream at the corner store….

Until we ran out of money and the clerk kicked us out. Then we had to resume being bored.

In school, teachers introduced us to computers that didn’t do much of anything useful…except allow us to die of digital dysentery.

Life was comparably simple for kids and adults. Get up, do your job, stay out of trouble, and go to bed. Rinse, wash, repeat.

Mom was awesome keeping up with bills because there were only like…five of them. Television had three channels. People didn’t expect you to be accessible 24/7. If you called and no one answered?

You called…back.

Later.

“Priority” Overload

Contrast my life in 1988 with 2022? It takes everything for me not to pack up and move to Alaska. Except I’m too lazy to pack, hate being cold and am too lazy to pack.

But seriously. Not only are we bombarded with calls, ads, emails, real mail and junk mail, but we can’t seem to escape.

Ever.

Which is not exactly what’s so bad. What’s insane is we believe there’s a way to actually keep up with all this crap. But we can’t, because our world isn’t real.

When I was a kid, I spent time at other kids’ houses daily. Not BS ‘play dates’ where everyone dresses in ‘real clothes’ and cleans the house like it’s friggin’ Thanksgiving. All this so two sticky kids can whack each other with Jedi light-sabers that LOOK like actual light-sabers…instead of a stick.

The on-line world is filtered. Since websites thrive when people click, only the extremes are ever represented. Extremes get more clicks.

It gets awfully tiring being in the extremes.

We’re deluged with the extremely beautiful, thin, fit, smart, talented and the teenager who’s now a billionaire because he invented an app that makes a thousand unique fart noises.

And why am I even griping because the meme (above) is SO ME. I can have 6,000 pictures of my CATS!

Point is, when everything is a priority, then nothing is.

*writes this on sticky notes to post on forehead*

Because if I listen to the on-line world, I’m supposed to make millions of dollars, write books that fundamentally change the global culture, never age, have six-pack abs, a perfect marriage, rescue animals, save the rainforest, all while keeping a house so clean one could perform surgery in my bathroom.

The bathroom I refurbished myself using recycled tires, wire hangars, and wooden pallets. All held together with unenlightened dryer lint and non-GMO, vegan, eco-friendly glue I made…in my ‘free’ time or bought to support indigenous people from some place I can’t find on a map.

Priority? Save the planet THEN show off on Faceplant, Flitter, Sintrest and Instasham & TikMock.

Busy, Busy, Busy

I’m from the buckle of the Bible Belt and we have a saying. If the devil can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy.

I’ve noticed that, unless I am mindful to unplug, get quiet and recalibrate, it is super easy for me to lose my way. Why? Everything is overwhelming. I hate my phone, am afraid of my mail and won’t shop until we’re down rationing toilet paper.

Priority Parallax

Objects on ‘To Do List’ might appear more important than they really are.

Every day is a habit of waking, taking QUIET time to reflect, then whittling everything down to what TRULY matters.

Or at least that’s the goal. Gotta start somewhere, right?

Because ‘having everything’ is playing life like Pac Man instead of chess.

In Pac Man you never win. It just gets faster and faster and harder and harder UNTIL YOU DIE. Chess? There is strategy, patience, willingness to ‘let go’ of even ‘important’ pieces to protect the most crucial one. In chess, you CAN actually learn, improve, grown and even win!

Go fig.

Entropy is real and alive and a beast in the digital age. Much we can’t control. Trust me. Target gives no figs I really don’t want eighty aisles of STUFF…especially when they only ever have two checkout lanes open, despite having forty.

*wonders if thirty-eight of the registers are real or props*

Only So Many Figs to Give—If It Isn’t TRULY a Priority?

We might want to have everything, but everything is a lie. We can’t make all things a priority because then, well…welcome to Hell’s Tilt-A-Whirl.

Back to those crucial questions I mentioned in the beginning. If we’re exhausted, strung out, and feeling like losers, it’s time to stop for a priority check (and a dose of reality).

The media is a lousy measuring guide because we will never be enough. If we were, they couldn’t sell us more STUFF. They sell us crap we don’t need by making us feel like losers, that we are missing out on the AMAZING…when we really aren’t.

Most of life is in the average. We’re only capable of being remarkable in a couple places. Why? Because being remarkable takes focus and a LOT of hard work. So choose the PRIORITY, then learn to be cool with the rest.

My home is clean…enough.

I haven’t finished all the painting and redecorating, but if the walls are that bothersome? Come paint and I’ll cook .

A final caveat on this? If I want my writing to be exemplary, where does it rank on my ‘list?’ Is it a priority?

An actual priority?

Since I’m OCD and a neat-freak, I know NOT to clean anything until I write. I must do this because my PRIORITY is to be a superlative author/blogger, NOT Martha Stewart—for an entire HOUR—before my cats and entropy destroy everything.

If my writing keeps ending up at the END of my list, more hard questions.

Why am I procrastinating? What am I afraid of? Is my writing always last because I believe I don’t have what it takes? Remember noble distractions can mask as priorities.

What Are Your Thoughts? Then GET OFF MY LAWN! *SMOOCH!*

Do you feel guilty about doing NOTHING? Struggle to get of the hamster wheel of To Dos? Does it seem like the ‘easier’ our world tries to make life the harder it gets? Is it an active effort to keep priorities in line? Do you find your writing constantly put off for…later?

Do you miss being unavailable? And people not being ticked off because you were unavailable? Sigh. What do you miss about the ‘good old days’? I get it, modern life does have a lot of good, but I do miss having nothing to do.

Tell me about your favorite parts of childhood, or whatever time gives you the rosiest glow. I want to hear about your My Little Ponies, playing HeMan, watching I Love Lucy learning to work in a wood shop. Whatever! Share your stories. I love hearing them!

Have a hard time doing anything for yourself? Because it feels too selfish. Once EVERYONE else is tended, THEN…maybe…

There are cool ON DEMAND classes below if you want to have fun honing your skills at your own pace. Otherwise? Feel free not to scroll down . Working to make this easy.

I love hearing from you!

What do you WIN? For the month of AUGUST, for everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

***Been out of town so will pick July’s winner next time.

CLASSES!

***All classes come with a FREE recording

NOW ON DEMAND!

ON DEMAND: Bring on the Binge: How to Plot a Series

SIGN UP HERE. Use New20 for $20 off

ON DEMAND: The Art of Character: Writing Characters for a SERIES

SIGN UP HERE Use New20 for $20 off

Spilling the Tea: Blogging for Authors ON DEMAND

Sign up HERE and Use New25 for $25 off

The Dark Arts: Building Your Villain ON DEMAND

Sign up HERE New25 for $25 off

LIVE CLASSES

More about to be listed.

World Building 101: Playing ‘Author GOD’

THURSDAY, JULY 28th 7:00 PM E.S.T. to 10:00 P.M. EST HERE

Use New15 for $15 off

The post The Priority Parallax: What’s TRULY Important? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Optimism is essential for a healthy life, healthy vision in particular…sort of like Vitamin A. In fact, for the purposes of today’s post, optimism IS Vitamin A for AWESOME. Yet, especially since the pandemic made landfall we ALL know things have been far from awesome.

A lot has downright sucked.

I’m still teaching and fast-drafting and working because that is what professionals and—sigh, adults—do. But admittedly? It’s been a struggle. I’ve not left my house in 2.5 years because of the pandemic, multiple illnesses, and back in the spring we had to put my FIL in hospice.

Every day I have a husband or a son who might randomly start crying because everything is in the air. They feel powerless. Because they feel powerless, I want to cry because I want to make it all better and I can’t make it all better but also suck at this ‘crying thing.’

And there is always that inner voice saying, “Why are you so upset? What do YOU have to cry about? You could be a refugee starving in Africa and your children dying of dysentery while you’re running from warlords….WHEN YOU HAVE NO LEGS! You terrible awful person! For you, life is amazing and you are ungrateful.”

Maybe it is just me?

Call Me, Ms. Optimism

In 2009, when my grandmother (who reared me, so essentially my mom) was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s, I kept a good attitude. There were new medications, new treatments to slow down how quickly the disease could progress.

I’d bring Spawn (then a baby) to see her and they’d play Bubble Guppy games on my—okay, his—iPad. Brain games to combat the Alzheimer’s.

Then, my favorite aunt’s heath began failing, the woman who still did her own yard work even though she was ninety-four. Often, she’d be in the hospital at the same time as my grandmother, sometimes in the next room.

Optimism to the rescue. Hey, I can visit them at the same time. Read to them, bring flowers, bring the baby, and save time and gas.

In 2010, when my husband received orders to deploy to fight in Afghanistan, I maintained my optimism. We could do this! Sure, I was a new mom with a baby and a once-solid family that suddenly was crumbling and now my husband was heading for a war-zone, but I could do this.

Maybe I’d write a book about it.

On and on, death after death, loss after loss, through hurts, illnesses, and betrayals so deep I wondered if I might die…I maintained my optimism. Granted, I didn’t shine nearly as brightly, but the world had enough darkness. I didn’t need to add to it.

Nobody cared about my sob story.

Feeling Fixation

When it comes to being a writer, I’ve been on both sides of the fence. I’ve been the newbie who wrote when I felt like it, when I was ‘in the mood.’ I let everyone and everything get in the way of sitting down and putting words on the page.

Then, I learned that amateurs listen to their feelings and professionals get to work and get $#!@ done anyway.

I blogged no matter what. Someone died the night before? I’d cry after I posted and made word count. Deadlines gave no figs about feelings. If I wanted to be the best of the best, I needed to adopt habits of excellence.

This is very true.

I’ve been blessed to meet and know many of my author heroes (mega authors, names y’all would KNOW), and I’ve seen them make deadlines and keep writing when their world was literally falling apart.

Writing through pain, through parents dying and children passing and health crises and on and on. Putting words on a page in hospital rooms, during dialysis, right before and after major surgeries.

Granted, I want to point out these incredible authors did this for more reasons than simply being professionals. Writing was also a way of easing their pain.

But, still…pretty inspiring.

Suffice to say, when I’d meet a new ‘aspiring’ writer who told me they couldn’t write or even think of building a platform because they were SO BUSY. Because of the day job, kids, and family they simply ‘couldn’t find the time’ (as if time was laying around in the couch cushions).

My response? Pick another profession.

I didn’t have a lot of sympathy.

To be blunt, I still don’t.

We’ve become a culture driven by moods and that isn’t healthy. I can’t count how many writers I’ve encountered who claimed they wanted my help to be to be the next J.K. Rowling, George R.R. Martin, Stephen King, Sue Grafton, etc. etc. but after we talked? They lost all their enthusiasm because being a mega-author was just so much…WORK.

Yeah…it is.

Or they’d write the next great novel—because it is so EASY—if only they had the TIME. Well, we were in lockdowns for how long? And maybe I missed the new dark horse Nora Roberts, but…

No, success, like in anything, takes years of work. Life doesn’t stop in the meantime just because we have a dream.

Granted, optimism sometimes is the lone lifeline we will have to keep hold of that dream. Optimism in the face of loss, suffering, pain, and betrayal can often be the only thing that keeps us putting one foot in front of the other.

It’s been that way for me.

When people I loved, whom I believed also loved me did the unthinkable? Hurt me in ways I still can’t wrap my head around? I HAD to believe something good would come out of it or risk coming apart at the seams.

Light Through the Cracks

There’s a meme/story I’ve seen passed around Facebook, particularly in spiritual circles. The idea of a broken vessel fashioned back together and how the light can shine through the cracks. Thus, the vessel is all the more beautiful for being broken, blah, blah, blah.

That is a lovely story, one full of optimism. It’s a story that I wanted to punch in the face…provided a story could be punched in the face.

Optimism Overdose

I come from a rough background and Viking stock. Was taught to have a pretty high tolerance for pain physical and emotional which can be good…but there is a fine line between being dependable and just plain being an idiot.

Getting up, getting to work, willing myself through even when I am mentally all over the place.

Back in my last major season of serious struggle, I defaulted to the methods that have gotten me through more tragedies than I care to relay, namely listening to positive books and willing myself to focus on what I am thankful for.

Surprise, surprise, it didn’t work. When the books that normally perked me up only sent me into depression or a rage, I downloaded a new book.

I $#@! you NOT, the first five minutes were full of that SAME STUPID ADVICE. Optimism is the answer. Focus on your blessings, on gratitude. Be thankful. Choose your attitude.

I lost it. Furious, I returned the book. I’d had enough. So help me, if anyone ‘sent in the clowns,’ I might have set them on fire. A daisy? I would have stabbed it. Our culture is dying because of a sugar addiction literally and metaphorically. Not only that but…

We are ALL TURNING ORANGE from too much Vitamin Awesome. And here we thought it was a bad spray-tan….

And I get it. We are a society out of whack. One side is all doom and gloom and manufacturing reasons to be in perpetual despair/hysteria. Our social media feeds are filled with people enraged over some fresh drama de jour.

Rage porn is the new social addiction.

Humans are addicted to being outraged. They ‘spread awareness’ all over our feeds so much that our every nerve-ending is exposed and raw. We can’t bear to open Facebook, let alone consider using it to ‘build a platform.’ Twitter? It’s basically MORDOR.

And, since everything hurts, we shut down.

To combat the rage porn, the sugar junkies post happy thoughts of the day and inspirational quotes on Instagram. Filtered images and cropped lives and tips for better this and better that, and how to enjoy the most from soup and laugh at salad.

I can’t help but look at my piles of laundry, the floor covered in grit because Nelson—albeit the fluffy adorable love of my life—flings kitty litter like friggin’ fairy dust.

I can’t stop staring the stacks of mail I have to sort through, the closets I need to organize, the…the…the…and all I can think is…

Did I FAIL Adulting 101?

You know that dream where you showed up to a class you didn’t know you were taking and it was the day of the final? And you hadn’t studied because you didn’t even have the book because you didn’t even KNOW YOU WERE TAKING THE CLASS?

THAT was the class that taught you how to be a functional adult, Kristen.

#ItAllMakesSenseNow

But don’t worry, these folks write scads of books giving advice on how to ‘turn that frown upside down’…and I want to burn it all down.

ALL OF IT.

Great People Sometimes Break Down

I’m like all of you guys. We’re all wonderfully different, and we all view life through our own unique lens. My lens is as a Texan reared in the Bible Belt. I frequently joke to fellow Christians that 1 Kings 19:5-15 is the first documentation of an angelic visitation with a Snickers bar.

Angel: Elija, so want you to know He DID receive your message. ‘You want to die.’ Yeah, so, request denied. Also, The Big Guy sent me to tell you that you’re a great prophet…but a total diva when you don’t eat. 

My POV? We don’t need another coffee mug, screensaver or mouse track pad with inspirational quotes. I adore Ghandi as much as the next person, but some days…just stop.

For my fellow faith folks, sometimes we don’t need any more uplifting scriptures..though maybe we could modify them?

Oh the plans I have for you, plans to cry your eyes out, eat all the nachos and finally admit you miss that person who stabbed you in the back and that it is okay to miss them even if it is NOT okay to let them come back in and wreck your life again…Amen.

Book of Lambentations …

#OhTheIrreverence

Lighten up. We’re all friends here.

Again, BALANCE the Optimism

It has been hotter than the hammered hinges of hell in Texas. I’m going through growing pains as a professional writer because publishing in the digital age is more slippery than eels in baby oil.

The point of all of this is, do not feel the need to always look on the bright side or for the silver lining. Embrace the darkness, move through it and give yourself permission to not be okay. Because, if I have learned anything through MANY seasons of being ‘not okay’ it’s that the more we avoid it, the worse it will be when the dam breaks.

Or is it the damn?

And ironically, I get that I am being somewhat of a hypocrite. Writing a post to make you feel better about not being okay. It is a mind-bender, so yeah just roll with it.

Life is a lot of things, a learning curve being one of them. I am still striving to balance the line between TOTAL FLAKE and WORK NAZI. If I locate it? Y’all will be the first to know.

What Are Your Thoughts on Optimism O.D.?

Do you wonder if you missed the Adulting 101 classes too? Is it hard to look at social media sometimes? Either the whole world is crap and burning down or we have to learn how ten ways to fit yoga and green juice into our lives?

Do you miss being unreachable? I take time regularly off social media because I’m already aware I’m a nut…but STILL.

Is it hard to see what you do well, what you have accomplished? Do you have a hard time being negative, too? It’s hard for me to cry, to be angry, to confess that I don’t want to look at my blessings. I want to scream and eat tacos but that’s a good way to choke #DontDoThat.

Am I off base? I firmly believe in gratitude and optimism and how we do have a choice in where we focus, but the all-sugar-all-the-time seems just as toxic as the rage channel.

Sometimes I just want to be in pain, to feel it and be allowed to feel it. I don’t WANT another blog about how to fix it. And yes, again, I admit that is COMPLETELY hypocritical but whatever. I love life tips, but also believe a good day of ranting and ax-throwing might make me feel better.

What are your thoughts…other than I’ve finally gone off the deep end?

Hint: Been here all along

I love hearing from you!

CLASSES!

***All classes come with a FREE recording

NOW ON DEMAND!

ON DEMAND: Bring on the Binge: How to Plot a Series

SIGN UP HERE. Use New10 for $10 off

ON DEMAND: The Art of Character: Writing Characters for a SERIES

SIGN UP HERE Use New15 for $15 off

LIVE Classes

Spilling the Tea: Blogging for Authors

Thursday, July 14th, 7:00-10:00 P.M. NYC Time. 2022 SIGN UP HERE and Use New25 for $25 off

The Dark Arts: Building Your Villain

TUESDAY, July 19th, 2022, For more information, sign up HERE and use New20 for $20 off

World Building 101: Playing ‘Author GOD’

THURSDAY, JULY 28th 7:00 PM E.S.T. to 10:00 P.M. EST HERE

Use New15 for $15 off

Workshop

Practice Your Pitch: Master the Log-Line WORKSHOP

Thursday, August 4th, 7:00-9:00 P.M. NYC Time. This is a TWO-HOUR INTERACTIVE WORKSHOP!

For more information, SIGN UP HERE.

The post Optimism Overdose: Sometimes Life STINKS appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Finding time has always been a challenge. While the modern world keeps promising to help us with this ‘finding time’ thing…it’s ALL LIES.

We have dreams and deadlines and most of us have grown fond of clean clothes. Also, our family is all needy and whiny and says things like, “Mommy, why is there no food?” “Daddy, why won’t the lights turn on?” “Honey, why are there people living in our basement?”

*rolls eyes*

Can you say, “high maintenance?”

OKAY, so tips…

First, a ‘Mea Culpa‘

I know my posts have been long. Mea culpa. Between the ghostwriting project and being ill, I was lucky to be able to blog at all. One to four times a month was about all I could do. Aaaand, I was afraid of y’all missing out on something important.

Now that I’ve gotten back to a schedule, I’m going to do my best to shorten these suckers up when I can. And thank you guys for being here. I appreciate y’all SO MUCH and I do value your time.

Moving on…

So how do we do this ‘finding time’ thing? It isn’t like time is lurking between the couch cushions like the remote, pet hair, and petrified cereal, sooo….

1. Accept There is No Such Thing as ‘Finding Time‘

If we want to excel at ‘finding time’ we need to accept that we have yet to figure out how to manipulate the space-time continuum to our advantage. Laundry and dishes have, but they’ve thus far refused to share their technology.

***Much like socks and Tupperware lids refuse to share teleportation technology.

In all seriousness, the simple act of accepting time is all around and only moving forward and faster as we age, can go a long way. If we keep believing in the ‘finding time’ myth, time will evade us easier than Sasquatch and Nessie’s love child.

This is when we suck it up and accept we need to MAKE TiME.

This is doable. If I told y’all tomorrow I could and would pay $10 MILLION to anyone who finished NaNoWriMo? I am betting we’d have the highest ‘winning’ rate in the history of NaNoWriMo.

***For anyone who doesn’t know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Want to Murder Your Family for Interrupting You Month. Wait, my bad. No, it is National Novel Writing Month and the challenge is to write 50,000 words in the month of November.

2. Perfect is the Enemy of the Finished

I just mentioned the space-time continuum. If you’re any kind of a science nerd, you’ve probably heard there’s this concept referred to as ‘folding space.’ If it really IS possible to fold the fabric of space-time, then I’m pretty sure space-time is The Fitted Sheet from Hell.

Sometimes, we just have to wad that sucker up, do our best and sally forth.

‘Finding Time’ is an imperfect activity at best. Most writers also work a full-time job, are parents, partners and are responsible for a TON of things that are not writing.

Me? If the house isn’t clean enough to have guests, all the laundry washed and put away and the yard mowed? I struggle with apoplexy sitting down to write….even though writing has been MY JOB for around 20 years.

I am not where I want to be, but not where I used to be.

Make a habit of carving out a particular time to WRITE. Even if it’s only a couple of pages, and even if you’re so behind on laundry your kids are wearing their swim suits to church.

Writing time is sacrosanct. I use a timer, and set it for a minimum of 45 minutes. Whatever I can do in that small chunk of time?

Well, can’t edit what I never put on the page.

For anyone interested, I pay for a NING (a private ‘social media’ group called W.A.N.A.Tribe) .Think of W.A.N.A.Tribe—W.A.N.A. stands for ‘We Are Not Alone’—more as a ‘digital office’ you share with fellow writers. We offer accountability and—since I am benevolent dictator—ads, politics, drama, distractions and spam are strictly forbidden.

We have very literally been doing writing sprints for almost seven years. Five days a week, every week, all year, and often all day, we are in the chat sprinting, writing, laughing, encouraging, so feel free to join us.

Back to a ‘page’…

The industry standard for a ‘page’ is 250 words. We are writers, and we can write 250 words a day. Do that every weekday and, within a few months, you’ll have a finished book. Granted, it will be a short book, but it will be something. Something is better than nothing.

And, odds are, once you get going, if you keep moving forward, you’ll probably do more than ONE page.

3. ‘Finding Time’ is Related to Proper Preparation

I get it. Many writers love being pantsers (writing by the seat of your pants). To be blunt, though? This method of writing— especially if you don’t understand story structure deep within the marrow of your bones—can be problematic. It is easy to get off course, lose the tension/conflict, and end up having to do a gazillion revisions.

I’m in no way suggesting you change your personality or style…just maybe modify it a bit to help you finish.

Even doing something as simple as writing out a log-line can do WONDERS. With a log-line, we know what our story is ABOUT. If we can scribble in some main plot points? Even better.

***Keep in mind these ‘main points’ serve as general guideposts. They’re not set in concrete.

Doing just this little extra bit helps you remember the entire GOAL of your story and, since you ‘know’ the major benchmarks, it’s easier to make better use of limited time.

Here is a great example of a log-line, the oldie but goodie, Romancing the Stone.

A fraidy cat romance author must travel to South America and team up with a shady ex pat in order to rescue her sister from jewel thieves before the crooks kill her sister.

We can almost SEE all the plot points and BONUS! We know the ending. Author thwarts thieves and rescues sister (with help of shady ex pat because it is a romance).

See? No detailed outline needed and SO MUCH easier to stay on track.

***Check out the post I hyperlinked or sign up for my upcoming workshop if you need help mastering this skill. We work on YOUR log-line until it is good to go.

4. ‘Finding Time’ and Research

One way we writers LOVE to goof off, yet still claim we are ‘writing’ is….research. If you know you’re going to write a book and get down the log-line at least (and scribble down some main plot points that CAN change), then you know what to research.

Set aside a limited block of time and read up.

Save any useful websites. Bookmark them, save in Excel, a file, or a video using coded jazz hands. Don’t care. The idea is to simply be familiar with the subject ahead of time and to have proper documents easily accessible.

Since there is NO way to know all the information we’ll need, if you hit a spot and don’t know? Just keep writing. If we take the above example, Romancing the Stone, and imagine this as our book? Then we might want want to describe the jungle. Fine. In another color, write insert cool jungle details here later…then move on.

Tell the story, FIRST. Then, flesh out the story once the first draft is finished.

5. ‘Finding Time’ Means SALLY FORTH!

This is similar to the tip above. Brain farts happen. Maybe you know your ending, but you hit a wall somewhere in Act 2. It happens. If, however, you know what is likely to happen next, simply type, in an other color, something super cool happens in here…then sally forth.

Keep moving forward.

Deep down, you know your story. Let your subconscious chew on the trouble. Very often it will come up with crazy twists and turns you never would have found by giving yourself an aneurism trying to manhandle the story forward.

Too many writers (and I have been guilty) get scope-locked on perfection. We go back and edit and revise and tweak the heart and soul right out of the story. As I have said before, there has never been a runaway hit/international best-selling HALF of a PERFECT book.

***That and there is no such thing as ‘a perfect book.’

To do this writing thing professionally, we have GOT to become finishers. We cannot revise what isn’t on the page.

And, for those who claim they cannot possibly do a log-line or plot points or continue forth without perfection? If y’all are finishing books then just keep on keeping on. Dean Koontz writes FIVE pages a day and never revises.

But…um…he’s Dean Koontz.

This advice is for the rest of us mere mortals. Trust me, every time I ignore my own advice? I end up writing myself into a corner, held hostage by plot bunnies. So, I hope at least some of these tips help y’all out. The more books we finish, the better writers we become.

***Yes, I remember we were going to address podcasting. That’s later in the week, so stay tuned!

I LOVE hearing from you!

Do these tips help? Can you think of any to add? What has worked for you? What do you still struggle with?

To prove it and show my love, for the month of SEPTEMBER, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

AND REMEMBER to treat yourself to a class! I don’t reveal all my best intel on my blogs ;).

Classes!

Practice Your Pitch: Master the Log-Line 10/14/21

Register HERE and use Pitch10 for $10 off if register by 10/1/21

Bring on the Binge: How to Plot & Write a Series 9/30/21

Register HERE and use Binge 20 for $20 off until 9/21/21

The Edge: How to Write Mystery, Suspense & Thriller 10/21/21

Register HERE and use Thrill10 for $10 off if you register by 10/14/21

The post Finding TIME: Five Simple Ways to Finish a Book appeared first on Kristen Lamb.