Of Despair, Hope, and Climbing Paths

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

It’s not a secret to anyone that I’m of a depressive turn of mind. This does not mean I’m depressed – at least not right now – but that when faced with a stress, my mind tends to head down towards depression. When faced with a question of guilt, I tend to blame myself.

Now I hear you clucking and saying something about medicines for that. Of course there are.

But here is something our overly therapeutic age misses: guilt and fear of being terrible have a purpose.

I’m not going to link the book, because I think it would bring on us the mother of all trollings, but those of you who are on Sarah’s Diner on Facebook know EXACTLY what I’m talking about.

There is a man who wrote a book that he claims he’s been writing both since 75 and for twenty years. (We didn’t ask what year it is in his world, so it’s our fault.) He painted the cover himself, and the drawing isn’t bad for a 12 year old or so.

Anyway, he thinks the book is the best thing since sliced bread. You see, it’s not about one of them troubled teenagers. It’s about a good girl who does everything right. He thinks this puts it on a par with several greats of literature (though how he got there, since the greats of literature all write characters with flaws and the ones he mentioned surely didn’t write about good girls, is beyond me.) His book is so much better than all that trash featuring vampires and werewolves, because those are unimaginative. His is the first time that story got told. And it should be assigned to every high school student.

If you’re already seeing the several threads of delusion there, it gets worse. Though a lot of the comments made about his grammar do not in fact make any sense (and enlightened for me why so many people think that all indie books are full of grammar errors. It’s because they learned grammar on Mars or something) some are spot on. He certainly has typos. But beyond all that, his stuff is stilted and weird, impossible to follow and there’s no narrative line to attach to.

And then he put his magnum opus out. And waited for praise, accolades the Novel [sic] prize and the Oscar [?] to just roll in.

What he got instead was a whole bunch of people pointing and laughing. And he can’t understand it, because after all, his book is the most original, most uplifting, most everything EVAH. So these people must be jealous of his brilliance.

Some of the Huns had great fun baiting him in the comments, but here’s the thing: I could grin at their comments (and his behavior is horrible enough to make one want to hit him) but I also felt that little cringe one feels when one sees a bit of oneself in a crazy person.

Because I started out like that. Oh, not under the impression what I was writing was so original or that everyone who writes vampires and werewolves is “unimaginative.” I’d read way too much for that. (Which I think Mr. Original hasn’t.)

But I started out writing things that had no discernible plot, characters only I could love, and hamfisted prose. [Okay, the last one was not so much “started out” as “last week”.]

I got rejected.

And then because I don’t have a healthy self-esteem (or much self-esteem at all, really, though the audience is helping me) I bought a bunch of books on how to do it, and I started analyzing it.

So, I couldn’t just self publish them, and yeah, that’s a difference. BUT I suspect if I had self-published and no one bought, and I’d got awful comments (except given what I was writing at the time it would probably sell on kink. Aliens. No I’m not telling.) the process would have been the same.

Because my idea of myself is not diamond-hardened and fire proof, I’d have gone “Oh.” And I’d have considered the idea that maybe my stuff really did suck and I only didn’t see it because it was mine. And then I’d have got the books/followed the same road.

So, to an extent, this depressive turn of mind, and this self doubt serve a purpose. The reason I run so hard is that me is following me, and I know the b*tch. If she catches up to me with all her doubts and insecurities, I’m going down for the count.

But sometimes she does catch me. And that’s an issue too.

My books take an average of two weeks to actually write – active writing time. In between there is a needed silence of two weeks to a month. The “battery recharging/ideation” time.

So how come I average two books a year (and some years I write six?) Well that’s the silences that aren’t necessary.

This is going to sound completely crazy considering I make a living at this, but I go through entire months of being convinced everything I ever write is drek. And then I can’t write at all. Extracting words from my mind becomes sort of like passing a novel out through a narrow crack in a wall, in papers the size of fortune cookie fortunes.

I could do without those silences. I could do without the fears so bottomless that I will accept any suggestion/criticism, no matter how ridiculous. I’ve learned over the years to do nothing to past works when I’m in this mood, and certainly not to read reviews/comments. Because if I read them at that time and then go and change my work, I will kill it. At best, I make it into soup without direction as I try to be all things to all people. At worst… You don’t want to know.

Now imagine someone with this turn of mind and the years of apprenticeship required to write something halfway decent. (I think I achieved that last week!)

Don’t nobody call no ambulance (yes, the grammar is intentional. Yes, I know. Nails on chalkboard) because it’s been years since this happened – but sometimes I felt I was spiraling down, with each level of shame/guilt worse, and constant memories of every humiliating/stupid mistake I’d made, to the point where often the only thing keeping me from committing suicide was knowing I had kids, and a duty to them.

It occurs to me that most of you are more of my stamp than of Mr. Greatest Thing Ever Written and You’re All Envious Hacks. And also that even for those who aren’t writers, these are tough times.

Not only are many of us struggling to make ends meet in Summer of (no) Recovery Six, but technological change is doing to the texture of our everyday life what hormones do to a pre-teen boy just before the jump.

You know the change is needed and largely beneficial, but we’re not a teen boy, and we don’t know where it leads. Everything is changing, and we’re caught in the middle of it. Unlike our “elites” we aren’t trying to take the world back (way back. Into feudalism) to where we feel more comfortable. But we do get scared and confused and wonder if what we’re doing is really for the best, like a beginner writer caught between two ways of writing and not sure which one is best (since it’s not just what he likes.)

In both cases: be good to yourself. Do the best you can. Few things in life are permanent. If what you are trying proves wrong, try something else.

And yeah, most of us have been tightening and tightening and tightening and cutting out all entertainment. And no, it’s not by choice.

But here is a suggestion: let that belt out a little bit. Shop advisedly. Buy bang for the buck. Amazon Prime furnishes us with a never-end of free movies and tv series, for instance. They’re a little old, but hey, we don’t have cable (expensive) so they’re new to us. And I’ve just joined Kindle Unlimited Lending Library. Now I know they pay a little less to writers, unless the story is 2.99 or under but here’s the thing: with it I read more than I could otherwise. So I don’t feel too bad for my fellow writers. $2 or so is better than what I would pay them otherwise (nothing, pretty much) and it allows me to read back up to the levels I like.

We also got a zoo membership and a membership to a couple of museums. These are expensive, relatively, but they give us a chance to run away every time things get to be too much. Weirdly, my family (each working three jobs or so) hits that wall at the same time. Most weekends we’ll all be working, catching up on things, maybe stopping for a movie in the evening (though not often.) And then one Sunday, usually dark and dreary with snow on the ground, we all go “this just isn’t working. I’m not getting anything done. Let’s go to—” And at that time it’s good to think “sure” and not “Do we have the money.” (Besides, when you have four people, one entry to a museum for all of us is half a year’s entry.)

That usually keeps the worst of depression away, while you’re working and don’t see an end in sight, and aren’t sure you are any good or will ever get anywhere.

When it doesn’t…

We humans are tormented/followed by the idea that our life must have a purpose. What I mean is, even the most irreligious of humans feels that he must be here for some reason.

Last week I posted the free book by James Owen, which I really do think is a wonderful pick me up if you’re trolling the depths. A couple of hours later, I had a thank you in my email. One of you – not a commenter, but a reader here – thanked me, because he’d been spiraling down the pit of hopelessness and trying not to think of doing away with himself. The book came just at the right time, and it stopped the spiral.

And suddenly I thought “Wow. What if my entire life, everything I’ve done, everything I am, was just for that purpose? To give a man a rope as he was slipping down the slope?”

Then I remembered an Agatha Christie story (in her bio) which I now don’t remember if it was a family thing or something that was told to her (I know she used it in a short story, later on) of someone who goes out to a cliff intending to throw himself down. Only there’s a woman there, sitting and looking out at the sea. And he can’t kill himself in front of someone. So he doesn’t. He goes back to life and it gets better.

I don’t remember how she explained it, but the thing is that the woman was also there, contemplating ending it all, and then (she somehow finds out what happened) she realizes if she’d killed herself before he arrived, he’d have been lost.

What I’m trying to say is even if your purpose in life is to just sit there at the right time and the right place (or if you don’t believe in purpose, your usefulness) there is something only you can do. It might be what you intend to do or it might be an entire accident (Instapundit, asked how he became instapundit “Like most things in my life, it happened by accident.”) But just by being here, you can become a lifesaver, and the life you save might change the world for the better.

In the same way, just by trying the best you can – at writing or life or whatever – you can sometimes become extraordinary. Perhaps most times. Yes, there is survivor bias in stories of “I tried, and I succeeded” but perhaps the arrow goes the other way. Perhaps if you really try, and are willing to admit you’re not perfect and to see clearly, you mostly succeed.

It’s just most people don’t. Because either absolute self confidence or its lack (yes, even that) are in a way far more comfortable.

But if you neither leap into the abyss, nor stand there frozen at its edge, telling yourself there is no abyss, if you learn the paths down and up the cliff, and if you lend a hand to those on the same road… perhaps, just perhaps that black cliff can become an enchanted cove where many find solace and life.

It’s worth a try.

119 thoughts on “Of Despair, Hope, and Climbing Paths”

    1. I have already gotten the coolest fan letter I will ever get. Someone emailed to tell me that “Isabelle and the Siren” (in Sword and Sorceress XVI) had been of great help during the time when he was depressed.

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  3. There is that saying that some people’s apparent purpose in life is to be an example of what not to do for the rest of us…

    E.g. the author of that book

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  4. In line with the “what if this is why I’m here” thought. Here are two of *my* thoughts/experiences. 1) I make no secret of being a Christian, and have had a *lot* of “bad things happen.” One day, while feeling sorry for myself, I had a thought (may have been God speaking to me, but that isn’t relevant). “What if by struggling on, in spite of all my difficulties, someone gets hope?” (Note: I’ve had *four* serious, as in potentially could never walk again, injuries, and one potentially never walk normally again, injury. Both knees are “severely arthritic,” as in little/no cartilage in the joints. I’m also in a wheelchair, barring a “Lazarus Class miracle,” permanently. I’m also in a Nursing Home, because I “need help” doing some things.) Yet, I have a Children’s/YA book coming out, as soon as the fundraiser to try to put “ten copies” in every Children’s Hospital in the Continental US, ends (Oct. 3, 2014). I also have a book abut the “problems of being Handicapped, and _Three_ cookbooks for single/handicapped, in the pipeline. (The first book will pay the costs of publishing the others.)
    2) The second experience came at a VietNam Veterans “reunion,” about 15-16 years ago. At the time, I wore a heavy brace on my right knee, to support it. A vet, asked me if I was “wounded in service/” I answered. “No, it’s due to a work injury.” We started talking his service, and how he was treated, on his return from VietNam. “We flew directly to San Francisco/San Diego (I don’t remember which), got off the plane, and were marched into a warehouse. Inside, we were told to strip, handed civilian clothes, discharge papers, and pointed to the exit door. I never got over being treated that way. I’ve lost jobs, and nearly lost my family, because of it.”
    I said. “I’m sorry that you were treated that way. You have to realize that to the processing personnel, you weren’t people. You were just numbers to be processed. The more they did, the better they looked.”
    He came back an hour or so later, and thanked me. He had never thought about it that way. “For the first time since it happened, he no longer hurt from being treated that way.”

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    1. I said. “I’m sorry that you were treated that way. You have to realize that to the processing personnel, you weren’t people. You were just numbers to be processed. The more they did, the better they looked.”
      He came back an hour or so later, and thanked me. He had never thought about it that way. “For the first time since it happened, he no longer hurt from being treated that way.”

      I’m trying to imagine how much that must’ve hurt, for him to be willing to come and find you and tell you– I’ve had folks say things that made me realize stuff, but never fast enough and strong enough to be able to find them and say so.

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  5. Thank you for sharing, Walter. It means a lot.

    And Sarah, thank you. I get attacks of, “holy crap there is no good reason for me to be doing all this.” Sometimes they only last for a short time. Those, I can pick up and write after the worst is over. The others… well… it takes time, and I need to stay away from the desk, or just take paper notes about ideas or whatever, but not develop them on pain of mush– or butchery. Other times those deep dark moods turn into something wonderful if I write my way through them. I can’t tell the difference between them. I hope experience helps. :)

    It doesn’t help that I have “learning disabilities” especially in language processing. For years I used that as an excuse not to do it, but I was miserable.GMing RPGs helped, but they were an experience for a few people for a short time. Once it’s over there is nothing left but a pile of notes– that don’t even make sense to me anymore.

    Knowing others can get through this helps me right now. Sometimes, I just think I’m uniquely screwed. That is why hearing from both Walter AND Sarah help so much.

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  6. Through the glories of modern technology I have been able to not just send a Thank You or a note of saying I liked something you or someone else wrote or drew (and of course, I will use this to say to you Milady, Thanks A Ton for the works you give to us to read.) but have, like here and Mad Genius, come to consider so many of the people on-line acquaintances (and that leads to Thanks A Ton for keeping this blog for us to congregate and chat, swap lies, and generally cause havoc). I tend to cope with the downs by reading. You and so many others involved here and MGC alone have given me lots of stuff to help get through those times. Of course I read when up too, so it’s a good thing y’all have so much good schtuph to readz.
    Thanks Milady Hoyt and Thanks Ya’ll others I have read (and those I have yet to get to Thanks for having wrote the stuff I’ve yet gotten to).

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    2. Very much what he said. I really consider you an inspiration in my writing in a lot of ways (not the least your pushing of the Kindle Direct Program…)

      And depression sucks mightily. Been there, done that, came close to hitting the reset button a couple of times. Damn glad I hadn’t… but still have issues with it.

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  7. The man who saved my life never knew my name. He almost certainly forgot my face within 10 minutes of our one and only encounter. The notion that he ever had, or ever will have (short of the hereafter, anyway) even the faintest clue of how important he was to me in that moment is so ludicrously unlikely as to be unworthy of serious contemplation.

    But the fact remains…without him, I’d be dead right now…my body rotted away in some unmarked grave on the outskirts of a city I should never have moved to in the first place, and my soul condemned for all eternity, thrown away in rage and despair like so much trash. And there are a fair number of other people whose lives today would be, if not necessarily _over_ for the lack of my participation in them during the intervening years, then at least measurably worse.

    Some of us are lucky enough to recognize when we touch another person’s life in a really important way. Most of us are not. But just because we usually can’t see it happening, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen _every single day_. (You, my dear hostess, are a member of the former group…and if you sometimes don’t recognize it, it must be because you’re not paying attention, as we your fans have been doing our level best to make it quite clear indeed. :) )
    ‘
    I have never yet encountered a writer whose opinion of his own work was at all trustworthy. Those whose output is a fit monument for the ages seem to invariably think (at least sometimes) that it’s utter shit. And those whose prospects to enlighten and entertain are limited to the occasional work so awful that its best possible purpose is as a source of dire cautionary tales and hilarious mockery…well, they never seem to understand why the world doesn’t fall at their feet in abject worship.

    Perhaps there is a causal relationship there. Perhaps the inner critic whose opinions are so harsh that they’re properly thought of as indecently cruel is somehow a necessary part of one’s self-improvement along the path to mastery. But if so, this (the whole thing, really, but especially the bit where that inner critic refuses to shut the hell up once one has actually achieved competence and doesn’t need him anymore) is REALLY BLOODY ANNOYING, and I fully intend to raise my objections regarding this gross misfeature in the design of the human psyche with the Almighty, when my turn comes to meet him.

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    1. Actually, there are a lot of staggering geniuses who just think they’re doing a job. “Yup, sat down, wrote a book, I think it’s good, time to write the next book.” People like Trollope. Probably a lot better role model for artists than all us angsters….

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      1. Northrup Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism has a lot of sense and a lot of silliness, and on the silly side, he said that he thought Shakespeare would have felt pleased as he finished Hamlet, because he would have known how good it was.

        As if our reactions to finishing a work weren’t dominating our mood, and our judgment, at that time. Nothing is more inaccurate than our feeling when we just finished.

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        1. Hanlet? Oh man, if only you knew how good it was when I started writing it! Of course, like all stage productions there were several major changes required to make it accessible to the audience. We threw out entire scenes from the First and Third acts and the second act was completely re-written!

          That soliloquy was massively re-written as well — the actor just couldn’t get the original lines to read properly and kept wandering off the page midway through.

          Now, the Scottish play, that one really fell together once we changed the gay lover to Macbeth’s wife …

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            1. Personally I always liked “As You Like It”, but mainly because I was able to use the same research for two different papers in high school…. But I used to be able to recite all of Jaques’ “All the world’s a stage” speech.

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  8. I’m on Kindle Unlimited and think it’s great value, and an excuse to browse peoples’ work. When I’m depressed, I have a few books and poems I reread to get my head back in tune with the Universe….

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  9. I would have posted earlier, but I was busy. Busy searching for the cameras. And the microphones. I still haven’t figured out where you stuck the brain-wave scanner (I checked the attic. There are things up there — but they don’t scan brains).

    Thanks for the post. Now I’m going to go see about recalibrating my brain.

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    1. She must have an encephalo-adjuster. The number of times she’s written a post that was exactly something I’d just been thinking about is downright freaky.

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  10. A common theme from the truly heroic is to hear them saying “I was just doing what anyone would do.” That sense or humility. We cannot read the minds of others, which is both a blessing and a curse. If we could we might have an idea of how many times, without knowing about it otherwise, that we have done something that inspired/gave hope to others. Likewise, they could see where they have done the same for us.
    On the other hand, if gals could read guys minds, they would probably be waving clubs while yelling “get away from me, you pervert’ :)

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        2. Trust me, the monsters under the bed are nowhere near so scary as the people singing this song:

          I also warn you against the oeuvre of Kirsty MacColl. Tropical Brainstorm contains songs that will wither your willy woefully.

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    2. “On the other hand, if gals could read guys minds, they would probably be waving clubs while yelling “get away from me, you pervert’ ”

      One of the women I served with in the Army used to periodically come up and slap me. If I asked why, she replied, “you were thinking it.”

      If I responded that I was not, in fact, thinking anything inappropriate, she would point out that I would be soon enough. I couldn’t really argue with that.

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      1. Sounds like sexual harassment and assault. I’m guessing you didn’t treat her like an equal (like you would’ve treated a man who walked up and slapped you) in response though. You’d likely have ended up in the brig or cashiered.

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        1. It’s not like she slapped me hard, just a little more than a pat on the cheek… we were friends and it was all in fun.

          At least she wasn’t writing “dork” on the scrubs I was wearing like another of the girls in the section. :)

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              1. Really? And here I thought that posting a comment that was pretty obviously channeling radfem ideology (“equal is identical”) would’ve been dismissed as a joke. Silly me.

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                    1. Where do you think the idea of killing off all but a small breeding population of men came from? Or the more common “chemically treat all boys until they act like girls” thing?

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                3. Look up the “Men’s Rights” folks. The crazy ones, which Sarah probably had a lot of a week or two back and didn’t approve.

                  Single biggest argument for crazy feminists.

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                    1. Yes. You know the secret you shouldn’t tell them? They haven’t found something about the mind of woman. they’ve found something about the mind of human. The game works just as well from a woman used on a guy. I’ve seen it done and deployed some of the techniques at some time.

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                    2. Possibly one of the vectors that I first ran into it at; for a while I read a place… Whiskey’s Place, maybe? Eh, the posts were rational, a little repetitive, but the comments had several folks who…well, those guys must’ve really been hurting.

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            2. Do you think it would’ve made it better, or worse?

              We have the self-described “Real Men” insisting that reacting to someone half your size with an inherent 30-something percent strength gap as everyone involved are identically sized teenage boys. And they (the self-declared Real Men) drag it into everything… the only safe way to mention it is in multi-paragraph form, and they won’t listen. All women must be punished because “they” are all guilty of what the most straw-like of feminists did.

              There’s either been a spike in it, or I’m finally getting really sick of it… maybe both, it’s just inverted feminism and that wore thin pretty quick, too.

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              1. There’s either been a spike in it, or I’m finally getting really sick of it… maybe both, it’s just inverted feminism and that wore thin pretty quick, too.

                And then you have the female Ray Rice fans.

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                1. Which I only know of from the same media that tells me the TEA party is totalitarian, and that killing humans is OK if they don’t feel empathy with them.

                  The salt grain is the size of a supplement block.

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  11. I so needed this today. I’m in that pit of despair where I can’t see my successes, only my failures. I’m at a low thinking I’m delusional in believing I could tell stories. I’m old enough to know it goes in cycles and I just have to make it through the cycle. But it’s not easy even knowing it’s a cycle.

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    1. I know that feeling. Having a trusted friend tell me a story’s really good is simply a precursor to me believing it sucks dirty bilge water through a rusty pipe, and they’re just being kind.

      And then I’ll run across it a few weeks or a few months later, and go… Damn, did I really write that? ‘Cause that’s… pretty darn good.

      It’s not easy. But keep putting words on a line, because that’s just the black dog of depression wanting you to play with it and take it for walksies. It doesn’t want you to write, and will give you every incentive not to.

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  12. Thank you, Mrs. Hoyt, for this blog. I first came here from Instapundit after the 2012 election and reading your blog has been a comfort to me. And I love the puns that often spring up in the comments. :D

    I’ve gotten so many wonderful book recommendations from this blog, my reading list has doubled. I am so glad your blog is here.

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  15. You realize you describe your writing method very similar to what Mark Twain described as his writing habits. Except he only wrote a book a year or so. Longhand. Oh, and he made a compromise with his wife that he would only smoke cigars when he was writing.

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    1. Sorry, I’m not thinking and that sounded nasty at you. You write faster because you have a computer. Twain wrote longhand because typewriters were not up to speed, so of course he wrote slower. The rest of the time he did life and lectures and whatnot.

      The cigar thing is a non-sequitur, pay it no mind.

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      1. Hmm. Well, Twain did use a typewriter sometimes. If I remember correctly, Tom Sawyer was the first novel written on a typewriter and submitted as a typed manuscript.

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    2. Anent nothing in particular, Twain was supposedly the first American writer to prepare his manuscripts on typewriter. He hired a couple of gals to type them up for him, IIRC.

      Ref:
      WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29, 2006
      ‘Tom Sawyer’ was NOT the first typewritten novel
      Category: Literature

      Details:
      It is commonly held that ‘Tom Sawyer’, written by Samuel Clemens (a.k.a. Mark Twain), was the first novel to be written on a typewriter. Although it is hard to say definitely, it seems this is most likely incorrect. However, it is an understandable assumption to make, since Clemens himself made that claim in a letter written in 1904.

      Here is the timeline, as far as I can determine:

      0 1874 – Clemens purchases his first typewriter for $125. His first two letters are written on December 9th, 1894.[1]

      0 1875 – Clemens writes to Remington declaring he is no longer using his typewriter as people keep asking him about it.[2] In another letter he declares it is corrupting his morals because it makes him want to swear.[3] He gives it away twice that year and it is eventually returned both times.

      0 1876 – ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ is published.

      0 1883 – ‘Life on the Mississippi’ is submitted as a typewritten manuscript. Clemens did not actually type it himself, however. He dictated it based on a hand-written original draft.[4]

      0 1904 – Clemens writes in his ‘Unpublished Autobiography’ that he believes ‘Tom Sawyer’ was probably his first typewritten novel, dictated to a typist sometime during 1874.[1]

      So, in conclusion, it seems likely that although he was probably still the first author to submit a typewritten novel for publication, Clemens was mistaken when he recalled that ‘Tom Sawyer’ was that novel. ‘Life on the Mississippi’ is the more likely candidate. All that said, the evidence is not entirely conclusive and it is possible that Clemens was correct.
      http://circadianoesis.blogspot.com/2006/03/tom-sawyer-was-not-first-typewritten.html

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  16. Please indulge me one heresy. I have noticed in my own writing that on reflection, “I’m not this good.” and I’ve noticed that sometimes in the writings of fellas like C. S. Lewis that he’s gone past the level of great writing to inspired writing. As in divine, verbal plenary put it in the Bible inspired. (I said this was a heresy.) As the ancients wrote of muses who would take over and make the writer transcend his limited talent, I think we all see that in our writing and in the writing of those we read. But for the muse or G-d to speak through our prose we must write. And if we do not write, we become like the prophet “…his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones…”

    This inspiration is not something I can arrogate to myself, it can only be recognized in retrospect and only safely recognized by another.

    Of course, keep in mind I prefaced this remark by calling it heresy, you’ll have to search out the truth/falsity of it for yourself

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    1. One of the first things I remember my mom explaining about miracles is that they’re usually so small we don’t even notice until later. Don’t see any reason why that wavelength when something is written that’s just utterly awesome wouldn’t fall in that category.

      (Side note, I still think my brakes going out was a miracle. I was two blocks from the repair station and was supposed to go on a mountainous eight hour drive the next day. So my notion of “miracle” might not jive with yours.)

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      1. Good heavens. HAS to be a miracle, Foxfier. Two years ago, on the eve of a trip to Denver, OUR brakes went out RIGHT NEXT to a slightly upslope garage. To make it better, Dan — not Robert, or I — was driving.
        Two of those? Someone has been flying overtime.

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  17. … but sometimes I felt I was spiraling down, with each level of shame/guilt worse, and constant memories of every humiliating/stupid mistake I’d made…

    I call this Thursday.

    Fortunately for my overall sanity (I do too, have sanity. At least that’s what the green alien said was in that jar), the rest of the description is not accurate for me, so this actually helps me. I wallow in regret and self pity for a half hour to an hour, then get heartily sick of it and go on with life. Probably doesn’t work for everyone, but it does for me.

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  18. I got recommended to go here, and MGC, by friends who said ‘It’s a great place to not lose hope, to find it again.’

    Sarah, I credit your blog posts and the wonderful people for pulling me out of that nadir. It’s only been about 8-9 months and I can honestly say I’ve found ‘myself’ again. I’ve found the encouragement to put out my first little offering (which is doing surprisingly well!) and found the stories inside.

    So, thank you, for everything. And I write that with tears of gratitude in my eyes.

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  20. Let’s be honest: all writers start with crap. Fortunately, some of us get better, and constantly strive to improve it. We have people who can take an objective look at our work and tell us what needs fixing. And we are tough enough to admit when we’re wrong.

    Not all writers are so fortunate. The nameless author of the unspecified work is one of them.

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    1. There are some who ABSOLUTELY. REFUSE. TO. CHANGE. ANYTHING. Because it’s important to them for some obscure reason. Even if it’s something really minor, like ‘You have a typo on your cover,’ or ‘move that so it’ll BE on the cover when it’s printed.’ Refuse any kind of helpful critique too. They treat anything that isn’t fawning praise and accolades as no different from “I can crap out a better plot after eating a thesaurus.”

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      1. What I’ve noticed with the nameless author is a stubborn inability to grasp other people’s point of view. On one of the many forums from which he has been banned, he keeps telling people they shouldn’t criticize his first few chapters, because of all the wonderful stuff that comes later. But of course, if they don’t like the first few chapters, what are the chances they’ll continue? He doesn’t get that. I don’t think he ever will.

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        1. I’ve heard from people who have gone and randomly looked at different, later chapters, and no, they say, there’s no sign of improvement. The story gets vaguer and vaguer, the clothing on the girls gets stranger and the heels higher as the terrain gets worse, and you never have any real idea what’s going on. The descriptions get more purple too.

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              2. You mean punctuation is not meant to be scattered randomly around, to make the page look prettier? Why was I never told?

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                    2. Or an eternal optimist, thinking there HAS to be a pony in there somewhere…..can’t have a pony without it :)

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        1. Yeah, I knew someone like that too long ago (and that was the person I originally was meaning, but looking back I can see why people thought I meant Clampsy). Said person was a MUCH better writer than Clamps by a few orders of magnitude, but would NOT take critique well at all. The typo was in a blurb. Suggestions to tighten up plotflow or pointing out ‘uh, you’re inconsistent between this paragraph and that one’ because it was written while the person was very sleepy resulted in grumpy sulking. And if ‘other people took too long’ that person would get upset. And English wasn’t that person’s first language.VERY hard to help indeed.

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      3. Yeah, I remember once running into one of those, who solicited advice and attacked those who gave it.

        So abusive that when he signed with PublishAmerica, many rejoiced.

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      4. The funny thing is, the only story of mine that might actually go anywhere is the one where the none of the original main characters are actually left, except or the central character, who’s probably going to have to be re-written anyways.

        Nor did it start out as an Arthurian transform, and the only section of the plot that can actually be called “done” A) was intended to be only backstory, and B) was written from such an alien viewpoint it couldn’t be done as an actual stand-alone story anyways. It was only meant to provide myth fuel, and will probably disappear, because it was really there to explain the magic sword, which I’m not sure even has a narrative point anymore.

        And, of course, all of this has foundered on the shoals of the interpersonal relationships. They’re just not quite working. I know where they need to get to, and how they act once they are there, but I can’t seem to figure out how they get there in a convincing and unforced manner. It’s a little bit frustrating, because I think I have a great final conflict and ending, (which will probably end up being completely re-plotted if it ever gets there, too.)

        Then again, I’m always trying to do to many things at the same time, and ending up getting none of them done, so maybe I need to pick only two or three things to do at the same time, and finish them, first…

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        1. There’s nothing wrong with revising or reconstructing your characters. And in some cases, you can do it while the story is happening, as the conflicts and such shape the character and make them grow. (Done well and realistically, the readers are usually able to sympathize.)

          And I can completely sympathize with the ‘doing too many things at once, at the same time.’ That’s where I am right now.

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  21. I think the story is “Towards Zero”– the guy tries to commit suicide, fails, gets a pep-talk from the nurse about how doing so would mean a very important thing wouldn’t have happened, and then directly saves a life and indirectly saves several others, IIRC.

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    1. Theodore Sturgeon wrote a story whose title I can’t remember. Begins with a man on a ledge halfway down a cliff. He has a broken leg. He jumped. He climbs slowly and painfully back up. He sits and admires the view for a bit before limping or dragging himself to a road to wave for help. He can’t remember why he jumped.

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    1. Low attention span. For some reason I can’t write a coherent outline, so I have to hold it all in my head. If it takes longer than two weeks, I just keep having to go back to remember what I was writing.
      I just wish I could stop the silences in between.

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  24. Oh, by the way – how long before you can get the sequel to Sword & Blood going again?

    Yes, I know you wondered about putting people off. I grade it (in shock value) somewhere around that of a Dresden Files book. But now I want to know how they save the Queen.

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            1. I’ll put up the links as they become available- we’re using Lulu for publication and they distribute to Amazon, iBooks and Nook – but it takes time to get the links. There’s some links up for currently available ebooks via iBooks and Lulu on my deviantart journal post, but I’m waiting for the Amazon and Nook links as well, and I will definitely update with them. I’m holding off on the Oyster book plugging till I get the Amazon links (which, I’m told, can take up to four to six weeks.)

              Yeah, that’s a long time; but we’re sticking with Lulu because of us being overseas, and because it was somewhat better for us, especially with dealing with the IRS and tax stuffs so we don’t get charged US taxes (Which was a headache going over several months, but it’s done!)

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