Exploit Your Vulnerabilities to Finally Complete Your Book
By Jan O'Hara | November 21, 2016 |
There’s a one-mile circular route in my neighborhood that I’ve been walking for twenty-four years. I began by waddling its length when we moved into our home in my late third trimester and it was all I could manage in terms of exercise. After open-heart surgery for a faulty valve, I did the loop with a pillow clutched to my chest, seeing my ability to complete the circuit as a sign of imminent healing. I’ve used the route in a pre-nap ritual to tire my children. Of late, it’s become a quick way to perk myself up between writing spells.
But to whatever purpose I trod this path, until this summer I’ve always accessed it by turning left out of our cul de sac.
World-narrowing Mindsets Can Begin for Good Reason
There are good reasons for that consistency. If you complete the loop in a counterclockwise direction, you are granted a better view of a man-made lake.
It’s easier to peel off to get a cold drink, access a bathroom, or buy a treat—critical considerations when you’re hauling little people along with you.
But the biggest reason of all, and a clear illustration of my order in the pack hierarchy, was that turning left made it easier to walk a dog. This was a matter of sidewalk and grass placement. Walking counter-clockwise meant fewer canine temptations, so that after my pooch had a chance to complete their business, I wasn’t being jerked to a halt every few steps while they sniffed vegetation.
Hope Enters the Scene
I have been dogless for over a year, though, and this summer something broke my conditioning. When it did, and I turned the opposite direction, I discovered a strange and enticing land.
Houses which seemed “meh” from one angle turned out to be carefully tended and picturesque. (The converse was also true.) One particular home, which I considered strictly utilitarian, turned out to have vines entwined around a mullioned bow window and woodland plants beneath, like a cottage from Hansel and Gretel.
How This Connects to Writing
Turning left was a such a minor change to make, yet the results were both disorienting and hopeful. It was as if I’d been a forest dweller my entire life and suddenly discovered the existence of moss.
For me, moments like these crystallize the understanding that with the tiniest shift in perception, left can become right, up can become down, and insofar as writing goes, a serial non-finisher can end the year with not one but two publishing credits to her name. (I had the joy of being a contributor to Author in Progress in addition to independently-publishing my debut novel.)
An Accidental Weaponization of Vulnerabilities
So what happened to allow the necessary changes in my life? I’ve given this a lot of thought because I have no intention of regressing to the less-than-productive writing pattern of the last many years.
My conclusion is that, quite by accident, I created a new environment in which the very things formerly preventing me from writing became the forces driving me inexorably toward it.
In other words, not only did I stop fighting my nature, but to borrow Lisa Cron’s favorite adjective, I endorsed it with a full-throated Yes!
Harnessing the Caregiving Impulse
For example, I’ve spoken before about my tendency to get into caregiver mode and place others’ needs above my own. I use acts of service as a way of showing esteem and affection. When in this mindset, taking the time to write fiction can seem the ultimate act of selfishness.
But what if the desire to serve can be harnessed for the good of the book? What if the desire to caregive can be fed directly into the creative impulse?
In my case, because I was participating in a writing cooperative for my fiction, and because my book was the second in a series of standalone novels, failure to complete my contribution would mean negative consequences for ten other people.* And we’re not talking about their inability to pursue money or “fame”, which hold value to many, but don’t trigger an answering thrill in my psyche. I’d be sabotaging their ability to express themselves. To self-actualize.
I couldn’t be responsible for that.
Also, early in the process I understood that my novel’s secondary characters would largely be comprised of senior citizens. (Fifty-one of them, at one point!) So while writing meant being less available to my elderly parents for a time, I could envision the look on their faces when they read the book and saw their peer group represented.
In this way, writing became bigger than an act of self-indulgence. It could be an act filled with purpose and generosity.
Make Use of Your Disconnect with Reality
Let’s take another personality quirk which I know many of you share, and which can get us in trouble at times: a willingness to live in an idealistic or fantasy world.
When I started writing my novel, I had zero confidence in my ability to complete it. After all, it’s hard to argue with the years spent writing myself in circles, or the five unfinished manuscripts on my hard drive.
My inadvertent solution? Despite writing the book in an eleven-member cooperative, and using an editor, and confiding in a few friends and family, I allowed myself to believe the myth of total secrecy. I told myself I could write the book I wanted, publish under a pseudonym, and trust that my two identities would never merge.
Oh, and while I was concocting improbable scenarios, I’d somehow discover the time and energy to build relationships under two authorial names when I could barely manage under one.
Obviously those beliefs are unrealistic, but by allowing myself to cling to them, I harnessed my mad day-dreaming skilz for the good of my writing.
Indulge Your Obsessive Nature
Another trait of mine is that I strongly dislike being late. As I am married to a man with a Type B personality, trust me, this can be a drawback at times and the cause of many stressful moments. It can also make me inflexible and rigid.
Committing to the group, though, involved commitment to deadlines—in writing, no less—about when I’d have my synopsis complete, when I’d have my first draft done, when my book would go live, etc.
I can’t stress enough how helpful it was to have those concrete, chunked, and time-sensitive goals.
I’d known my Resistance was multi-faceted and nebulous. Sneaky. Based on perfectionism. But with a deadline, I had no choice but to fight my way through analysis paralysis and make the best decision possible in the moment.
Celebrate your Lack of Ability
Lastly, in the world of writing, I’ve always fought a sense of incompetence which only grows as I learn about craft and understand how far I fall short of mastery. (I’m not talking about humility, which is a trait I greatly admire, but about crippling insecurity even when gifted with compliments and resources, like the Writer Unboxed community’s support.)
So fine, I decided. I was inadequate to the task. But if I was going to claim my incompetence, why not do it on steroids? Maybe I was so incompetent, I couldn’t be trusted to understand the boundaries of my incompetence. What if I were secretly competent, but was so clueless I couldn’t recognize it?
If you can follow that last paragraph, congratulations! And…er, sorry?
Watching Little Changes Disseminate
I have always wondered how I would feel if/when I was finally published. There have been occasions in my life when I’ve accomplished a long-term goal and the results were less than satisfying. In this case, I’m happy to report, the converse is true.
I had realistic expectations about book sales as a new, self-published author with little marketing savvy, and I’ve been careful to keep my self-esteem disconnected from the marketplace. My goal is to greet each reader and each review with a sense of gratitude and wonder. For the most part, I’ve been successful in this endeavor.
In addition to gleaning all that joy, though, every day I feel progressively lighter for having shed the self-imposed label of non-finisher. It feels like a change that’s still propagating through the system. Each day reveals pleasant and unexpected results.
For example, I’m finally making decisions that preyed on my mind for years. (e.g. Should I start a Facebook author page? Should I go the traditional route first? Would I ever advertise and in what venue? Would I bother with putting out a print version of my book?) I’ve stopped wondering and considering and debating, and am now into action. I can’t describe how ultimately freeing that has become, how fun it is to make a choice and watch the results unfold with a sense of curiosity and experimentation.
Putting It Together
When we yearn for change in our life, there’s a temptation to want to accomplish it by 1) stomping down on our weaknesses 2) making wholesale change.
There’s another approach you’ll see advocated by some lifestyle gurus, and which is gaining scientific support as a sustainable and less intimidating model. That is the decision to make one small change and watch its consequences spread through the system.
Couple that with the willingness to work with your nature instead of against it, and if you’re feeling log-jammed, there is great reason for optimism.
So if you are frustrated, think small. Turn left instead of right. Discover the blessing within the burden. Uncover the productive writer within.
Then, if you’re like me, hope and pray your recent discoveries will stick with you for the next book. And the next. ;)
Do you have a personal vulnerability you can use, with slight alteration, to the benefit of your writing? If you’ve already done so, care to share the results?
*If you’d like to know more about the cooperative, please see my interview with Sophie Masson.
A USA Today bestselling author, former family physician and academic, Jan O’Hara (she/her) left the world of medicine behind to follow her dreams of becoming a writer. She writes love stories that zoom from wackadoodle to heartfelt in six seconds flat: (Opposite of Frozen; Cold and Hottie; Desperate Times, Desperate Pleasures). Her latest Christmas novella, The Cowboy’s Comeback Christmas, is part of a 9-author-strong anthology (A Cowboy This Christmas: A Sweet Romance Anthology). She also contributed to Author in Progress, a Writer’s Digest Book edited by Therese Walsh.
Helpful thoughts. Thanks for posting.
My pleasure. And may I say that I love your avatar? Bet you’ll never have kidney stones. ;)
Jan, I love that you turned right, and I love how you describe the ramifications of making one small change and watching the effects ripple out into your life. I have a bunch of personal vulnerabilities from which to choose. One is fear of being judged. Unique, right? Ha. But I’ve had to turn that one around and make it ‘part of the job’. I have a weekly deadline that I’ve come to love and am replacing the word ‘judgement’ with ‘guidance’. And I am finishing my novel. Congratulations on putting yours out there. You are inspiring!
Self-talk is critical, isn’t it, Susan. I do something similar in that I try to reframe a task I’m dreading as an “I get to ____”. After all, if you’re going to do it in the end, why not celebrate what’s good and right in it?
I’m delighted to hear you’re making progress! And yes, fear of being found wanting is both normal and intrinsic to the writing world. IMHO you’re wise to view it that way.
I love seeing the specifics of how you managed to power through the writerly barriers we face, Boss. And I just love that image! It’s very evocative. It looks like it came from my story world. Did you take it?
So I feel like I’m finally getting closer to being over the hump with this manuscript, and guess what vivid dream showed up last night. I was sitting at some sort of panel discussion (with an audience) while members of the panel discussed all of the things that were wrong with my book. Not story issues, mind you. They were discussing societal issues as they relate to the story, and how I’d mostly missed the mark. Hoo-boy. I suppose there’s always another layer of Resistance to face and fight, right?
I’m delighted for you, Jan! Thanks for sharing your successes.
Vaughn, the image is from Morguefile. It’s gorgeous, isn’t it? There’s another one of a moss-covered chair which I nearly used. Suspect it would appeal to you. (The link: https://morguefile.com/search/morguefile/1/moss%20chair/pop)
What I so admire about you, V, is that no matter what Resistance shoves in your path, you seem able to surmount it and write. With a dollop of humor, no less.
Wishing you all the best with the manuscript.
Excellent column, Jan – and congratulations on being one of the few bright lights in 2016, a year that should be repeated in general, as it has a whole bunch of problems. Alternate history, anyone?
I love that your solution to ‘don’t be late’ has been ‘don’t accept deadlines.’ Very creative, if you think about it – and will always work.
Do you have a personal vulnerability…
Oh, yes. People like me write only by the grace of God. And every time I go through one of the impossible periods, I find myself storing up (in writing – no memory will keep the details fresh) all the details, because I can see the gold flecks in the dross from the occasional lightning bolt in the dark sky.
IF, I tell myself, IF I ever get back to writing, and the brain has not gone on permanent holiday, this bit will fit so well for…
Right on the edge and looking over the precipice to very far down below where the waterfalls crash over the rocks.
Heck, if all you have is writing, it should definitely be heart-stopping – for the writer.
My Fear Journals are full of that kind of thinking.
Picking through all that stuff to use it, well, we all know writing is work.
Thanks for reminding me again. If you can’t get to the rollercoasters, make your own.
I love this, Alicia: “If you can’t get to the rollercoasters, make your own.”
Yes!
I know you have your own struggles with writing, but you’ve demonstrated a strong willingness to persist. Something tells me you won’t ever take your progress for granted.
Wishing you and your brain all the best in cooperative work going forward.
I don’t have a choice: I can do this – or nothing at all.
It’s a sobering thought.
Congratulatons, Jan!
I love your advice. If you normally go left, try going right. It’s like a more manageable version of the Frost poem about the two roads. And as someone who thought they were going one way until due to circumstances beyond their contol they weren’t, I appreciate the advise for putting the challenge into manageable vs overwhelming amounts.
Now, I’m back to the drawing board. I’m glad I took a time out to read your post this morning. Thank you.
B, exactly. We are choosing to diverge from our own well-trod path.
Life has a way of debunking the myth of control, doesn’t it?
I’m glad if there was something in here you could use. Onward!
So excited for the changes you made and congratulations on your debut novel. It is definitely true that looking at a familiar surrounding from a different angle can totally change how you see it. I discovered this while washing windows and peering into the rooms of my house. And I use it metaphorically in my WIP. Vision of self and vision of work can get dulled by repetition. When I walk, I often change things up and like you a different landscape extends not only to the physical, but also to what’s humming in the brain.
Washing windows, Beth? What is this strange phenomenon you’re describing? ;)
On a serious note, yes, your metaphor holds true for me. It’s like walking into your home after being away traveling. You can suddenly see where it’s cluttered, where it’s homey, and where the paintwork needs to be addressed.
Thank you kindly for the congratulations. I’m still pinching myself.
How I love this beautiful post! Thank you for the reminder of turning right. We are such an easily-rutted species.
I also love your thoughts about deadlines being the antidote to perfectionism. I will try to use that one.
Thank you for being you!
Dear Sarah, thank you for being such a tolerant roommate of this distinctly imperfect human.
You don’t strike me as a person who requires extrinsic motivation, but if it helps, I’m delighted.
xo
Jan, a hearty congratulations on all your accomplishments!!!!! I enjoyed reading how the small changes brought about new gifts to unpack. I realized nearly a decade ago that although I couldn’t do many things with a migraine, I could still write in bed, think, cry, pray, read and write. All of this is a great gift.
What a hopeful and pragmatic response to a painful condition, Vijaya. Here’s hoping the crying part doesn’t have to happen too often!
And thank you for celebrating with me. It’s a joy to be part of this community.
Such a great post! I’m so proud of you!
And love hearing about this convoluted, but relatable journey. I’m going to send the link to a friend of mine who is in the same position you once found yourself.
Convoluted, indeed.
I hope something in it can help your friend, Deborah, if only to assure him/her that there is hope for those who struggle.
Thank you for all your support over the years. It helped that you believed.
Jan, congrats on the work. I’m suffering from a long-term fictional flu (even my characters are sick), but I’ll see if I can spoon up some of your nourishing soup here.
You have such a great voice, Tom, it would be a crime if you don’t persist. I’m going to envision you as one of those people who emerge from a period of convalescence and go on to run a marathon. (Think Dr. Ruth Heidrich.)
This is exactly what I needed today, Jan. Thank you. In between overwhelming health battles, the day job, and, well, being a mom and wife, I can’t seem to find my way back to my fiction. Oh, I write – here and there – but it’s not steady and it’s far from joyful. I keep trying to clamp down on myself and have the JUST WRITE, DARN IT! attitude or swear to do a lifestyle overhaul, but it’s failing me. So I am going to take your advice: one small change. That’s it. That’s do-able. Now I just have to decide which change to make! Maybe a firm writing time every evening? Or maybe it’s just being kinder to myself. :)
For what it’s worth, Melissa, I would say the decision to be kinder to yourself is non-negotiable. From within that mindset, you might, paradoxically, be able to establish a new viewpoint in which you will ask more of yourself, productivity-wise.
A bit of a personal explanation of how that can work: It was from a place of self-care that I agreed to join the cooperative, hoping it would help me push through the constellation of Resistances I was facing. I was tired of being disappointed in myself and my lack of productivity.
What I discovered, with the help of deadlines, was that I am a very busy person. I wasn’t a slacker, or a malcontent, or a poseur. I simply had too much on my plate. Too many valuable things competing for my time.
I started to see, also, how my default position was to put myself last, and assume my writing would fit in around the other things. I had to make myself a promise: until I had this next stage done in the writing, my default answer to others would be no. In other words, I started at a zero zum position and had to make a case for anything that was non-writing.
It was a challenge to retrain myself at first, but it got easier as we all adapted to the new normal.
Once I did that, all kinds of solutions appeared that weren’t previously on my radar. For example, I started to explicitly ask for help with ferrying my Elder Ps to medical appointments. I asked for help with cooking. I made it clear that my writing was going to be a priority until the publication date. (So not forever, but for long enough I’d require support.)
So I’d suggest you can do both. Be gentle and understanding with yourself and see if you can commit to something different. Then watch and see what blocks you from writing and get creative around solving the blockade.
I will bet you’re not a slacker and not a poseur and not a malcontent. You’re simply a very busy person who hasn’t found the key to making your writing a living priority.
Thank you so much for your kind, thoughtful words, Jan. Much appreciated!
xo
Thanks for this article, Jan. I too used to suffer from seeing myself as a “not follower through” who didn’t finish the exciting and promising projects that I started. But writing changed that, at first without my noticing. I finished a novel. I revised it until it was as good as I could get it, but not good enough to publish. So I wrote another novel and finished and revised it. I “won” NaNoWriMo a couple of times. I started a blog and finished posts and published them. But I still thought of myself as a non-finisher until our very own Vaughn wrote a post that encouraged writerly introspection and I realized that my behavior had changed — it was my self-image that hadn’t kept up. That was a big deal. Seeing myself as someone who finished what she started (more often than not) made me someone even more likely to finish what I started. So says the woman who has still not painted the outside of her kitchen cabinet doors, after finishing the rest of the kitchen over a month ago. Finishing things is hard.
That said, I am currently sitting on a so-ridiculously-close project. I think I will use your extrinsic support method and get someone to give me a hard deadline. Someone seriously entrepreneurial like my dad. And in the meantime, I might buy myself some gold stars to track my progress–I always did like those when I was younger.
Finishing feels like setting a Rube-Goldberg machine in motion without any clear understanding of the multiple paths that will be activated, or whether the result will be a cooked piece of toast or discordant music. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to commit.
What I’m hearing you say, Natalie, is that your identity hadn’t kept up with reality. When they finally synced, it was even easier for a finisher to finish.
That’s my sense of things, too.
My blogging helped me have confidence about my ability to write non-fiction to deadline, and to a reasonable quality. Now I’m getting there with my fiction.
A deadline with your dad sounds like the right combination of firmness and encouragement. I lucked out in that with Brenda Sinclair as the cooperative’s organizer.
Jan O’Hara, this is uncanny. I, too, have been walking a one-mile route around a rectangular block that includes the condominium building where my husband and I live in Kansas City, Missouri. I’ve been turning right when I leave our front entrance. Several days ago I began thinking about turning left instead and imagining how my walk would feel and look different if I did so. I’ve been decorating for Christmas so haven’t gone walking (I’m 74), but for sure, thanks to your discoveries, I will go counterclockwise in the near future.
Congratulations on getting your debut novel published and on having your contribution included in Author in Progress.
Barbara, now I’m curious to hear if you observed anything startling or different. :)
Thank you for the kind words. It has been a strange and wonderful year.
I love this post, Jan! For the last few years my one-word New Year’s resolution has been FINISH. It’s so easy to get caught up in the immediate things and let the long-term things (like the novel) slide.
The only way I finished my book-length memoir was to give myself the deadline of submitting a chapter (new or revised) for every monthly meeting of my critique group. With the novel I’ve changed course a few times (thanks, Don, Lisa & a host of others!), so I wanted to wait till I had a good first draft to submit to them. You’ve made me realise that I need to find some other way to hold myself accountable. Thanks!
Barbara, I’ve tried various means of accountability before and it didn’t work because of the mindset I had behind it. IMHO the trick is to find a way to see completion as feeding into a core value that both calls to you in a positive way, and that you don’t want to violate.
Best of luck with figuring it out. Hacking our own psyche is an ongoing but worthwhile pursuit.
Jan, thanks so much for this article. I needed it so much. My brain linked what you described as vulnerabilities to what coach Cristi Cooke describes as Pillars of Genuis.
“Pillars of Genius”, Kathleen? I love it. A great way to reframe a character trait in a positive light.
I’m delighted if you found something useful in the post. :)
Jan your article made me feel hopeful at a time when I am struggling to finish book 2. I am, like another writer posted, “ridiculously close.” I gave myself a deadline, which at the time of committing too, felt realistic, but now is implausible. I started berating myself, thinking book 1 was a fluke and that I’m really a ‘non-finisher.’ I haven’t given up, but everyday, I battle with letting that be my truth.
Thank you for your inspirational message. I take your words to heart and will look for that reverse path. Wish me luck!
Suzanne, one thing that helped me when I was writing my book is a quote from Jeff Novick. He’s a brilliant man who understands the science of healthful living and diet like few on the planet. The shouty-caps are his. ;)
“HOW YOU THINK IS EVERYTHING! Always be positive. Think success, not failure. Beware of a negative environment. In order to be healthy, you must believe that you can, that you can do what it takes, and that you have the resources available to you. A healthy attitude also has a positive effect on the body. If you believe it, you will see it.”
For whatever reason, this stuck with me as I wrote. I reminded myself I couldn’t really know the extent of my capabilities. So rather than expend energy on worry, I put it all into the work. Happily, it helped and my productivity far exceeded my expectations.
I will be holding you in my thoughts.
I believe Novick’s words to be true. Perhaps I just needed a reminder. Thank you for that, Jan. And please forgive me for not congratulating you for you writing accomplishments in my first comment. Wishing you continued success!
Well thank you, Suzanne. I’m happy to accept your kind wishes but this post wasn’t about my glorification, so no forgiveness is required!
In a few weeks or months, you might be reminding me of my own advice. ;) Isn’t that the way it works?
And off I go to write. Hope we both have productive evenings.
Another wonderful article in my inbox. Left with a warm sense of hope and various considerations on how to work with rather than against myself. :)
Perfect, Suzanne. I couldn’t ask for anything more. Happy writing!