Bloginomicon

« Graphic Novels

Apocalyptic Nostalgia »

---

Print This Post Don’t taunt the fear demon. Posted 4 months, 7 days ago., on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008, at 4:19 pm

So the other night I was in bed, trying desperately to let go of the day and fall asleep, and I was almost there when a little tiny voice broke in and said, "Maybe… maybe I’m just a boring writer."

There’s nothing better for waking you as you’re drifting off to sleep than a good shot of self doubt and insecurity. And at that moment I had no other thought than to get up, contact the editors at all the markets where I currently have submissions and withdraw them (I’ve done this before), then call up everyone in my critique group and beg them all not to read the novel portion I’d submitted at our last meeting. "My God, don’t read Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster!" I wanted to warn them. "It’s dreck, BORING dreck, and the hours you spend reading it you will NEVER GET BACK!"

A couple of hours later, I did drift off to sleep, no emails sent, no calls made. The fear still haunted me, though, and I had nightmares about boring people to death with my novels (oh, I also had a nightmare about a yurei-style ghost which was scary but also kind of cool; and for your edification, a yurei-style ghost is that Japanese ghost girl with all the long black hair in front of her face. See the pic below).

Like most of the nightmares I have, this one — the one about boring people to death with my novels, not the one about the ghost — stuck with me all day yesterday and bugs me still today. Now, I recognize this as an irrational feeling, especially a week after two of my short stories were published in print venues. But I’m no good at handling these things; when I get an idea like this stuck in my head, no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary, it rattles around inside my brain and sticks to the rest of my thought processes like Donald Trump’s hair piece sticks to his head. Concentrating on my writing gets difficult. My creativity goes like this:

ME: Oh, I’ve got this fantastic idea for how this conflict can be resolved, and how some of these characters can interact with each other, making the story more effective and funnier at the same time.

ME^2: No you don’t. You’re a boring writer. Boring, boring, boring! Take up something that more people will be interested in, like starting an online gallery of dryer lint and categorizing it by manufacturer, retailer, date of acquisition, fabric, and types of cat hair. No, really, It’s gotta have a wider market than your boring boring boring stories.

Yeah, like that. And surely no writer ever before in the history of mankind has ever, ever felt this way, right?

I thought not.

See, I told you I was special.

The party line for dealing with these thoughts, according to various folks I’ve spoken to, is to talk back to them, using reason and logic. David Burns in his seminal work Feeling Good, the essential popular work on "cognitive behavioral therapy", would recommend an approach which involves identifying the negative thought, identifying the fallacious thinking underlying it, and then developing a rational response based on realistic thinking. For example:

NEGATIVE THOUGHT: I am a boring, boring writer.

FALLACIOUS THINKING: Overgeneralizing, magnifying the negative, denying the positive, etc.

RATIONAL RESPONSE: Actually, I am quite an exciting writer who has published several stories, and any day now people will be lining up for my autograph.

I’m not sure how realistic this response is, but the point is to talk back to these negative thoughts with rational, positive thoughts.

I’m wondering if it might actually be more helpful to visualize these thoughts as things that can be squished. In the Buffy: The Vampire Slayer episode called "Fear, Itself", the characters are trapped in a house by Gachnar, a horrific fear demon which makes all of their most awful fears seem to come true. Like all classic fear demons, Gachnar feeds on the fear that it creates. As the episode progresses, Buffy and the Scoobies make their way through the house until they finally reach the attic where the portal to Gachnar’s home dimension has been opened. Bright lights swirl around the room, smoke billows forth, there’s a roaring sound, and the demon emerges.

Said demon is about six inches tall. All that fuss and bother for a demon who’s only six inches tall. My favorite bit of dialogue ensues at this point:

XANDER: Who’s the little fear demon? Come on, who’s the little fear demon?

GILES: Don’t taunt the fear demon!

XANDER (jumping back): Why? Can it hurt me?

GILES: No… It’s just tacky.

And as Gachnar continues to threaten Buffy and her friends, his little fist shaking and his little horns sparking, Buffy squishes him with her foot. See, all that fuss and deadly bother over a little tiny demon critter than Buffy can squish with a patent leather pump.

So I’m going to attempt to visualize these fears as Gachnar, the six-inch-tall fear demon. That way I can mock it and taunt it, tacky though it may be to do so. Since I spend too much time thinking, I’m told, maybe just resorting to mockery and taunting will be a better approach.

GACHNAR: You’re a boring boring writer who should never be allowed anywhere near a word processor and who’ll never be published again!

ME: Aww, who’s the little insecurity? Come on, who’s the little insecurity?

Then Sarah Michelle Gellar shows up dressed in black leather and squishes the demon under her stiletto heel. Or maybe not. I guess I should be learning how to deal with these things on my own, after all.

Of course, these little fear demons — insecurities, self doubts, and so on — will keep surfacing. I think it’s just part of being a writer. The best I can do, I think, is to keep mocking them by continuing to write and submit. Persistence in the face of self doubt is not tacky by any stretch of the imagination.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 4:19 pm and is filed under Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

RSS feed | Trackback URI

Comments»

Subscribe without commenting
E-Mail:

April 2008

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
« Mar				May »
		1	2	3	4	5
6	7	8	9	10	11	12
13	14	15	16	17	18	19
20	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30

Select Month August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 June 2005 March 2005 February 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 July 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002 January 2002 December 2001 November 2001 October 2001 September 2001 August 2001 July 2001 June 2001 May 2001 April 2001 March 2001 February 2001 January 2001 December 2000 November 2000 October 2000 September 2000 August 2000 July 2000 June 2000 May 2000 April 2000 March 2000

Full Archives

RSS