How To Dream Without Making Dreams Your Master

A guest post by Ollin Morales of Courage 2 Create

There are a lot of people who dream about writing a novel but never actually sit down to write anything.

In my opinion, these people aren’t lazy, irresponsible, weak, or cowardly. In my opinion, these are simply people who’ve yet to learn how to dream without making dreams their master.

Why We Would Rather Dream Dream Than Actually Live The Dream

In his famous poem, “If,” Rudyard Kipling shares several important lessons that he hopes will help his son become successful in life. One of the best parts of the poem is when Kipling tells his son that he should dream but “not make dreams [his] master.”

Now, when I first read this line, I had no idea what Kipling meant. But, two years ago, when I finally began to write the novel I had dreamed about writing, I finally understood what Kipling meant.

It was only then, when I started to pursue the dream and not just dream the dream, that I learned that the reason why so many writers don’t even begin the novel they dream about writing.

It all comes down to this sobering fact: we would rather dream the dream than actually experience the high-highs, and low-lows, of what living out the dream is like.

We know consciously (or unconsciously) that the actual living out of our dream requires us to face rejection, failure, boredom, disappointment, depression, as well as acceptance, success, excitement, encouragement, and jubilation.

But in our dreams we have the benefit of only experiencing the positive aspects of the dream-realization process, and we’re free to censor all the negative aspects of that journey.

How Dreaming Becomes Your Master

Now, I’m not knocking dreaming. I think dreaming is important. Vital even. We all need to have a vision. We all need to have a concrete goal of what we want out of this life, and dreaming helps us define both that goal and that vision.

So, a dream is always a great place to start.

But where dreaming goes bad is when you get stuck on that vision, or goal, and don’t leave any wiggle room for improvisation or adaptation.

Dreaming becomes your master when you don’t allow yourself to take the first step in making your dream a reality, because you believe that all the stars have to be aligned perfectly in order for you to proceed.

Dreaming becomes your master when you don’t adjust or recalibrate your dream to the random curve balls life throws at you.

Dreaming becomes your master when you seek a pure, unadulterated version of your dream, and refuse to compromise for anything that isn’t exactly what you had imagined.

Dreaming becomes your master when you refuse to be open to opportunities that weren’t apart of your initial dream “plan,” but that may still help you realize your dream in the long run.

Dreaming becomes your master when you think you must “coddle” your dream and not let it be “tainted” by “impure” or “less-than-ideal” circumstances.

Waiting for ideal circumstances, or seeking to create ideal circumstances, is exactly how your dream gets deferred.

How To Dream Without Making Dreams Your Master

So, here’s what you must do if you’re continually deferring your dreams on a day-to-day basis:

Admit it. You have let your dreams become your master.

Now, for your own good, escape from your bondage and take the following actions toward your freedom:

Make a decision. (Remember: decision = action.)

A theater teacher once taught me this vital lesson: he taught me that “decision = action.”

For many of us, indecision is the constant foil to fulfilling our dreams.

We can’t decide on the best way to begin realizing our dream, because we see too many ways in which our decisions could lead us to disaster.

So, if you’re stuck in indecision, remember that as long as you stay undecided you won’t be able to move forward with you dream.

But, if you want to move forward, just make a decision. Any decision. A decision will always propel you into action, and before you know it, you’ll find yourself taking a real step toward your dreams.

(By the way, don’t be afraid if your decision does lead to disaster. If your decision produces an unfavorable result, you can always decide to try something else later.)

Stop analyzing. Just experience.

Another way we allow dreams to become our master is by overanalyzing our dreams.

We analyze the probability of us succeeding, or we analyze how much money we might make, or we analyze what awards we might, or might not, get. We study the statistics, examine the percentages, pore over the stories of people who have achieved something similar to what we desire to accomplish. We start there, but we don’t end there.

We spend hours upon hours comparing, contrasting, pondering, conjecturing, stipulating, estimating, and extrapolating all aspects of our dream—but we never just choose to EXPERIENCE our dream.

If you want to stop making dreams your master, you need to stop analyzing your “chances” of realizing your dream, and instead make the choice to experience the realization of your dream.

Remember that analysis is just thinking, and just thinking about your dream won’t get you anywhere. So, just move from thinking to doing, today.

Know that the living out of your dreams means that you must experience the “low-lows” of the journey as well as the “high-highs” of the journey. This is all part of the process.

Nobody gets an easy ride.

Well… except for Kim Kardashian. And Snooki. And rich people’s pets.

But you’re not Kim Kardashian, Snooki, or a Yorkshire Terrier from Pasadena, California so just get over it, get to work, and expect that the ride is not going to be perfect.

Stop comparing yourself to others. You have a unique journey you are meant to fulfill.

The bad news is that you’ll never be able to achieve the kind of success that someone else has already achieved. But the good news is that no one else will be able to achieve the kind of success that you may potentially achieve.

So, focus on achieving the success that is only possible for you. Focus on succeeding in ways only you can succeed. Forget everybody else.

Detach yourself from the outcome.

Ask yourself to succeed in engaging in the process, and not in realizing the product.

In truth, what will come of your attempts to realize your dream is not really up to you. What is up to you is if you take the time today to try to make your dream a reality.

So don’t demand that you achieve great work, just demand that you will try to achieve great work.

Dream In Moderation

Dreaming is good, but just like with anything else, too much of it can be dangerous.

So make sure you dream in moderation. Dream, but be careful not to let that dreaming get in the way of you achieving those dreams. Dream, but don’t let dreams become your master.

Instead, be the master over your dreams. Admit that living out your dream, and experiencing all the low octaves and high altos of the process, is a whole lot better than just imagining your dream, and allowing your life to play out like one, long, monotonous chord.

How do you not let dreams become your master? Please share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

Ollin Morales is a writer. Courage 2 Create chronicles the author’s journey as he writes his very first novel. This blog offers writing advice as well as strategies to deal with life’s tough challenges. His blog was named one of The Top Ten Blogs for writers by Write To Done two years in a row (2011, 2012), and has been featured on The Huffington Post and Colorlines.com

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Categories: Craft, Creativity, Fiction

Mastering Words: Transform Your Writing Weakness into Strength

A guest post by Angela Ackerman of The Bookshelf Muse

Each day, we seek to put our best foot forward. We shower, dress for the day’s activities, style our hair. We plan, organize, gather our things, and check the mirror before leaving to pluck stray fluff off our sweaters and straighten sleeves.

Why?

  • To enhance our strengths.
  • To appear confident.
  • To show the people who interact with us that we are collected and ready for whatever comes our way.

It’s human nature to minimize our weaknesses. We hide zits, disguise thinning hair and avoid talking about our embarrassing mistakes. But in writing, covering up flaws can keep us from success.

Attitude

All writers shares a common epiphany on the writing path. I call it Staring Into The Abyss. This experience happens when our writing has strengthened to the point where blissful ignorance rubs away and we begin to realize just how much we don’t know.

It’s a dark moment, a bleak moment. We feel shock. Frustration. Despair. Some stop right there on the path, their writing spirits broken. Others take a micro-step forward, progressing toward the most important stages leading to growth: acceptance and determination.

Once we come to terms with what we don’t know, we can set out to learn. Taking on the attitude of a Learner is what separates an amateur from a PRO.

Asking for help

Writers can strengthen their skills on their own, but it’s a lot of hard work. Reaching out to other writers will shorten the learning curve considerably. Critique partners can help identify your weak areas and offer strategies to improve. They also will know of resources which might help.

There are many great sites for writers to find a critique partner or two. I recommend The Critique Circle (free & safe to post work). There are also sites like Absolute Write, Critters Workshop and Agent Query’s Critique Partner Wanted board. Or let someone play matchmaker for you: Ladies Who Critique & Rach Writes.

Read

No matter what areas need to be worked on, books can help. Find inspiration through your favorite fiction authors and in ‘how to’ books (here’s a good list to start on). Pick up a few and take notes. If you can, pair up with another writer to read the same book and then discuss it. Learning together gives you a better chance to fully understand any topic.

Resources, resources, resources

There are thousands of articles on writing that can teach strong writing technique. Plotting, Story Structure, Voice, Description, Showing vs Telling, Style, Dialogue, Characters…whatever areas you want to develop, there is content out there to help you.

The trick is finding the best nuggets of information without losing your whole day online. Try this Search Engine for Writers for starters. Then, bookmark The Writers Resource which is a must-have for any writer. And saving the best for last, turn your gaze to the sidebar! Write to Done is a treasure trove of fantastic material for writers.

Think outside the monitor

Many of us are introverts, and it’s easy to get caught up on the keyboard and screen. There’s nothing wrong with this, unless your rectangular life preserver is holding you back. Writing Groups, Conferences, Work Shops and Retreats are all excellent opportunities to hone writing skills and meet mentors. Writing events need not be expensive–get involved in a local writing group and see what events have a low or no cost for members.

When you’re looking for opportunities to learn, don’t forget the movies. So much can be gleaned by watching films to see what makes them work. In fact, some of our biggest epiphanies as writers will come from studying screenwriting. I highly recommend reading Save the Cat & Writing Screenplays that Sell. These books are pure gold. Trust me, your writing will thank you!

Write and rewrite

Transforming writing weaknesses into strengths takes time. Choose learning strategies that work best for you and never stop writing. Each step of the way, apply new-found knowledge to the page. We learn most of all by doing, so always make time to write.

Angela Ackerman writes on the darker side of MG & YA. She blogs at The Bookshelf Muse, a description resource hub for writers. Her book, The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression is scheduled for release in April 2012.
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Know Thyself. 7 Truths About Writers

A guest post by Joanna Penn from The Creative Penn, one of the Top 10 Blogs for Writers

Claiming the word ‘writer’ for yourself can be a big step. You may have been writing all your life but do you actually call yourself a writer?

Know Thyself was inscribed on the ancient Greek temple of Apollo at Delphi. People would go there to seek knowledge of the future or to find revelation about themselves. The words were a reminder that the first step to truth is to look inside.

Fundamentally, writers write, they put words onto a page or screen. But there are other aspects to writers. Do you recognize yourself in these traits?

1 We are loners

Writing is a solitary art. Even writers who collaborate create their pieces separately and knit them together later. We are not naturally team players. To be a happy writer is to enjoy solitude for creation. Writers are often introverts in the sense that they are energized by time alone with their minds. They may love being with people but it tires and drains them. I spent many years thinking I needed to be a team player, that it was essential to being a rounded person. Then I did the Myers Briggs test and found that introversion is just a natural state for some of us and certainly more dominant in writers.

2 We want recognition

Writers have egos and our desire to see our words in print or type stems from this need to be recognized. We want the six figure book deal. We want to be on Oprah or the New York Times bestseller list. We want to write words that change people’s lives. We want to be read. For all that to happen, our writing needs to be out there in the world.

3 We are scared and doubt ourselves

We want people to read our words but at the same time, we fear criticism and negative reaction. We compare ourselves to others and we often come up short. We doubt that we are original or that people will even want to read our words. We worry that we have opened ourselves up too much to the world, and then we fret because we haven’t been truthful enough.

4 We are deeply creative but sometimes forget this

When I was working as a corporate IT consultant, I found my creative side withering and dying from lack of exercise. I wanted to write a novel but I couldn’t imagine even starting one. I didn’t believe I could find that creativity in myself. So I started saying an affirmation on the daily commute. ‘I am creative, I am an author’. I said that over and over, and gradually I began to explore ideas and start to write. Four years later, I have two novels available on the biggest bookstore in the world. Although we may spend years in the wilderness, we can resurrect that creativity.

5 We know execution matters

Ideas are abundant. They swirl in the air about us and we pluck them down. We form them into finished works. People talk to us about the ideas they have, for this book or that story, but they don’t execute on the idea. We write, and we finish what we started.

6 We are always improving

Writers are readers. We learn from others by their words and we constantly try to improve our own ways of expression. We take courses on how to improve our writing. Sometimes we spend more time on reading books about writing than we spend actually getting white on black. We are obsessed with understanding why this works and why that is successful and we put what we learn into practice.

7 We know there are dark places within

Inside us are memories, emotions and an imagination that runs deep. We go there to tap into the experiences that make our writing resonate. Sometimes what emerges may be violent or horrific, resonant in truth and raw in emotion. We write with the knowledge that most people feel these things but they don’t admit to themselves that they exist. We have the ability and the strength to write those words without apology.

Do you agree that these are truths about writers? Are there any more?

Joanna Penn is the author of thriller novels Pentecost and Prophecy. Her site TheCreativePenn.com helps people write, publish and market their books and has been voted one of the Top 10 Blogs for writers 2 years running. Follow Joanna on Twitter @thecreativepenn

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The Pros and Cons of Comparing Yourself to Other Writers

A guest post by K.M. Weiland of Wordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors

With the advent of writing communities on such networking sites as Twitter and Facebook and half a thousand forums and Nings, writers are perhaps more social and less solitary than at any time in our history.

This brings its fair share of both benefits and drawbacks, since our easy access to other writers—both those who are striving to be published and those who have a dozen bestsellers under their belts—causes inevitable comparisons.

Are we as good as they are?

Are they as good as we are?

Let’s explore what we can gain from answering these questions, as well as the pitfalls to avoid.

Cons

Jealousy: Easily, the most destructive con of comparison is that of jealousy. Sometimes this jealousy is the simple result of having read a book that spun its tale with such gossamer characters and seamless themes that we were left astonished.

We look at this brilliant author’s perfect prose, and we hate them just because they’re so much better than us. Or perhaps a writing buddy has just nailed a plum contract with the Agent of the Year. What did she do to deserve that honor, especially when—let’s be honest here—her writing leaves a lot to be desired compared to ours?

Jealousy is a flaw common to the vast majority of writers (due largely to the next con on our list), but it’s one that gets us exactly nowhere. The sooner we can stand up to our feelings of jealousy, put them behind us, and work toward being genuinely happy for our fellow writers, the more content and the more productive we’ll be.

Because, let’s face it, there’s always someone who’s better, richer, or luckier than we are. Jealousy is a never-ending melodrama of pain and pettiness.

Inferiority: Perhaps the reason jealousy is so prevalent among authors is that it almost always follows on the heels of its kissing cousin: inferiority. Very few writers are able to maintain perfect confidence in their skill.

When we run across a writer whose prose is more effortless than ours, whose characters are more realistic, whose paychecks are larger, and whose accolades are louder, we can’t help but compare. And when we find ourselves wanting, we either want to plot laborious and exhaustive murder for the object of our comparison, or we want to crumple in a corner and bawl at our general wretchedness. Sometimes both.

In one sense, this chronic inferiority complex is actually a positive thing, since it keeps us honest. As Orson Scott Card put it in How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, “Writers have to simultaneously believe the following two things: The story I am now working on is the greatest work of genius ever written in English. The story I am now working on is worthless drivel.”

Maintaining humility in our work is crucial to our genuineness as artists. But we can’t take this too far. We have to be able to reach a place of objectivity from which we can honestly compare our work to other writers, glean what we can from that comparison, or, if there’s simply nothing to be gained (as would be the case if we, say, compared the latest advance on our books to Stephen King’s), shrug it off as the inconsequentiality it is.

Pros

Inspiration: Comparing ourselves to other writers isn’t all bad. So long as we keep the downfalls in mind and are prepared to avoid them, we can actually gain a number of benefits from considering our fellow writers and how we measure up against them.

Honestly, can you imagine living entirely segregated from writerkind?

That would mean no books to read.
No fellow crazies to understand our quirks and obsessions.
No writerly energy to feed off.

We gain our inspiration from the art of others, from hearing about our writing buddies’ struggles, and from bouncing ideas back and forth.

If I were to write a thank you note to every author I’ve read, loved, and inevitably compared myself too, I probably wouldn’t have time to finish my next novel. Because most of us write the kind of books we enjoy reading, we are constantly reading books that are similar to our own. We recognize similar elements, compare them, and learn how to improve our own characters, plot, and prose as a result.

It’s a win-win situation, because who’s to say our mentors may not someday read one of our stories and find some similarity that brings that next epiphany to their writing?

Motivation: Once we get over the crumpling and crying brought on by our sense of inferiority in comparing ourselves to great writers, our next step is to rise from the ashes, pen in hand, motivated to blot out the very reason for our inferiority. The brilliance of this other author isn’t a boulder to crush us; it’s a mountain to scale.

Perhaps today we’re not good enough to be mentioned in the same breath with our heroes, but, you know what? If they can do it, so can we!

Reading great writers and comparing their brilliant stories to my own has been one of the single greatest factors in motivating me to keep writing, keep learning, keep trying. Nothing is more exciting to the dedicated writer than reading good fiction. Good stories excite us and drive us forward. We close the covers on a good book, and the first thing we want to do (after buying the sequel) is run to our keyboards and funnel all that inspiration and motivation into our own writing.

As with so many things in the writing life, successfully comparing ourselves to other writers is all about balance. If we can tamp a lid on the cons and embrace the pros, we can use the success of our fellows to launch ourselves to even greater heights.

It should be the goal of every writer to be comparison worthy. Hearing someone say, “I wish I could write as well you,” isn’t only the highest of compliments, it’s also a sign you’re giving back to the writing community the benefits you drew from it yourself.

About the Author: K.M. Weiland is the author of the historical western A Man Called Outlaw and the medieval epic Behold the Dawn. She enjoys mentoring other authors through her writing tips, her book Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success, and her instructional CD Conquering Writer’s Block and Summoning Inspiration.
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Memoir Gets its Own Back: Kapka Kassabova on how an Idea Morphed into a Published Book

Kapka Kassabova

A guest post by Kapka Kassabova

‘If you want to work on your art, work on your life.’ – Chekhov

Ten years ago, I was a single East European émigré living in Auckland and caught between Old and New Worlds, two passports, the end of the Berlin Wall and the beginning of the 21st century.

How timely, then, that one night I should walk into a bar and see a couple on the dance floor, moving to what sounded like the soundtrack to my life. Their chests were glued together, their hips rigid, and their faces lost in some fantasy of a better world. They were, of course, doing the tango. And that fantasy soon became mine. The soundtrack to my life turned out to be Astor Piazzolla’s ‘Oblivion’, tango’s most existential tune and a must for all melancholics.

I say ‘timely’ for two reasons. One, because you can already tell from the above sketch that the young émigré took herself very seriously in her culturally dispossessed predicament. And what dance is better suited to the culturally dispossessed than the tango? I could have taken ceroc, salsa, or any other happy dance where I could have drank mojitos, shaken my hips, and grinned with all my teeth at the uncomplicated blokes partnering me in our three basic steps. Cha-cha-cha!

But I didn’t. I took up the world’s most complicated and nostalgic couple dance. Which brings us to reason number two: in the next couple of years, I joined a world-wide tango community made up of hundreds of thousands of people of every colour, neurosis, and cultural complication under the sun. People like me.

Tango became my religion, my primary romantic relationship, a home of sorts. I learnt Spanish so that I could understand old songs like The Day That You Would Love Me (note the problematic conditional tense) and the title of electro-tango band Gotan Project’s hit album La Revancha del Tango. Tango Gets its Own Back.

It did, but it took ages. About three years into it, I knew I had to write a book about tango. After all, I was a writer first, and a tango maniac second. Dancing was no longer enough. Reading everything on tango I could find was not enough. As with everything else in life, I knew I could only truly understand tango by writing about it. But how do I even begin?

From the wrong end, that’s how. Which is to say, fiction. So, during  a year in Berlin on a generous Creative NZ writer’s residency, I plunged headlong into the researching and writing of my Big Tango Novel. It was going to be about Buenos Aires, Argentina’s Dirty War, Nazi War Criminals in South America, Emigration, Music, Poetry, Relationships, Jorge Luis Borges, and Tango.

There was no shortage of Big Themes. What there was a shortage of was characters. An honest intention. An authentic voice. A narrative focus. An actual story. At the end of my residency, I had to admit that My Big Tango Novel was a dud with a soundtrack.

My second doomed attempt took place a few years later. I was living in Britain now. A great brain wave came over me. This time, I was going to do the right thing. I was going to start with the characters. So, there is this lonely youngish British woman who gets hooked on tango. She falls for a mysterious guy she meets at tango. When he goes off to South America on a mysterious trip, she follows him. They get sucked into the underworld of Buenos Aires. Then something mysterious happens, involving tango. It was going to be a very Mysterious Tango Novel.

My agent read the first chapters. My agent is the smartest woman in the British publishing industry. ‘This reads like notes towards a novel,’ she said. ‘Some good stuff, potentially, but… Have you thought about writing a more personal kind of book about tango?’

No, I said, went away, and sulked for a year. Actually, I went away and wrote a childhood memoir for a year, signed up by the other smartest woman in the industry: my editor.

Then I wrote another novel. Nothing to do with tango. To hell with tango! Actually, tango was bringing hell into my life. In the space of two years, thanks to tango’s mysterious ways, I lost my partner of five years, my best friend, my place in the local tango community which constituted my entire social life, and very nearly my mental health. I pulled back from the brink just on time.

‘You know,’ I said to agent and editor. ‘I’m thinking of writing a more personal kind of book about tango. But I don’t know what the story is. And who the characters are.’

‘Really?’ said agent. ‘I think you do.’

‘I can think of at least two characters,’ said editor. ‘Tango. And KK. It’s a start.’

‘I think I know what I’m going to call it,’ I said. ‘Something about the average duration of a dance with the same partner…’

Between that distant Auckland bar and Twelve Minutes of Love, there lie the mangled embryos of two abandoned novels. But I had the time of my life writing Twelve Minutes of Love. It took a year. It came out almost perfectly formed. It had a voice. It had a story. It had a beating heart. It was populated with characters I knew well. It had poetry and music. It had emigration and history. Even Jorge Luis Borges managed to sneak in. And each chapter presented itself with a natural ‘tango lesson’ which of course meant a life lesson I had learnt in the past ten years.

1. Fascination
2. Infatuation
3. Revelation
4. Temptation
5. Disconnection
6. Connection
7. Tourism
8. Home
9. Homelessness
10. Ecstasy and agony
11. Freedom
12. Love

Tango, like literature, is a hall of mirrors. I had seen the true nature of my quest, as a dancer and as a writer, only after I’d had a few false starts. Bad things come to us all, but good things come to those who wait. And who use the paper bin.

My ‘tango novels’ had been built on clichés. I hadn’t been ready for my own book. I hadn’t had the necessary humanity. I had suffered too little, fantasised too much, and taken myself too seriously. I had lacked the lightness of touch it takes to treat dark matter.

This memoir is the most authentic thing I have written. As if it had been secretly gestating for ten long years. It had been.

 

Kapka Kassabova is a poet, essayist and travel writer who was born in Sofia, Bulgaria. After leaving Bulgaria as a teenager and living in England and New Zealand, she now resides in Edinburgh, Scotland.
Image of Kapka © Gerry Walden/gwpics.com

Categories: Craft, Creativity, Fiction

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