Category: blog post

What if I am?

Laura Highcove 1 Comment

Some of you may remember my trip to Vegas for the MasterTreat earlier this year. I got so much out of that weekend that it’s hard to even talk about it all, but one of the main things was that I felt a level of confidence there for almost the entire weekend, that I had never experienced before. As a result I was able to look at many of the feelings I have on a deeper level than I ever have. One of them was confronting more specifically what my fear of public speaking stems from. The another was my modesty.

One of the things that happened at the MasterTreat was that in my confidence, I was able to repeat some of the advice I had gained from the mentors in my life. The result of that is that the other women at the table seemed impressed, and one of them even called me wise.

My initial response to that was, of course: Well that’s not true. And I made the excuse that I was just repeating what other, smarter people had said. But after that gut reaction, I decided I needed to examine that feeling, so I sat with those compliments for a while.

I let myself think about what it would mean if I was wise. Not in the grand scheme of the world, or compared to other people, but in that moment, for those woman, what if I am wise? And you know, there is a fear somewhere deep-seated in me that believes that there is something truly wrong about being confident in myself. And once I was able to realize that, for a little while I was able to let go of it and see myself as other people do. And then I was able to be that wise person that they saw.

I didn’t suddenly crack under the expectation. I didn’t break under the weight of my own arrogance. I didn’t drive away the people around me with my ego, and I didn’t lose my sense of right and wrong. And while the confidence I experienced that weekend faded once I returned to the ‘real world’, I had certainly developed a bit of feel surrounding it, and I now find myself far more aware of when I’m brushing off compliments as a reaction and when I may deserve them.

So I want to give you a challenge the next time someone pays you a compliment. Instead of brushing it off with a dismissive comment or an excuse; actually accept it. For just a moment, allow that you are smart or brave or creative or attractive. And you know what? All life is are moments lined up one after the other.

The Importance of Patience

Laura Highcove

Patience is something everyone needs more of. It’s a constant struggle in a world that moves so fast. Working with horses is a good, constant reminder of the importance of patience.

I was reminded recently how important patience is. We had a horse get cast at the barn where I work. For those of you not familiar with the term, ‘cast’ is when a horse rolls over in their stall and gets stuck against the wall in some way that means they can’t get back up. Horses are prey animals and survived for millions of years by running away from danger, so if a horse can’t get up, they can’t run, and so in this situation most of them will panic.

For the horse who got cast, this panic manifested as labored breathing, sweating, and thrashing, which was dangerous both to the horse and the humans (me and my coworkers) who had to flip over a thousand-plus pound animal.

Once we had successfully freed the cast horse and it had regained its feet, it stood there still sweating and shaking, (Thankfully it had not been injured.) and I was reminded of how important patience really is.

I have a gelding named Nick. He was born at the barn and has been trained since he was a baby to accept the confinement of a stall, or being tied to his wall. Nick used to cast himself a lot as a baby. He was still figuring himself out. His training in accepting confinement, however, taught him that being cast wasn’t a cause for panic.

In his world, he would bang a bit, realize he couldn’t get up, and then a human would come and see he was cast and flip him over. As such, Nick never got upset about being stuck. No elevated breathing or sweating and as soon as a person came into the stall he would lay there perfectly still. Even when we flipped him over, he would lay there and allow the humans to move out of the way before climbing to his feet.

It got to the point that when he got bigger and heavier, that he learned how to get himself out of a cast state. He could either flip himself back over, or push against the wall such that he was far enough away to then get up. It got to the point where I would hear him banging a a bit and I would walk up to his stall and tell him, “You can get yourself out. If you’re having trouble, bang around some extra and I’ll come help you.” I knew I could do this because he was not upset about his confinement. Nine times out of ten, he would bang around a bit more and extract himself. The other time we would come (because we were listening to make sure he was okay) and he would wait patiently while we extracted him from a particularly bad angle.

This makes me think of how patience works. Sometimes things happen to us as a human. Some circumstance pops up and we get all hot and bothered. We ‘sweat’ and ‘thrash’ and end up doing damage to ourselves and others, even if mostly mental.

When what we really should do is stay calm and ask for help, (We can do it more efficiently than a horse.) or have someone remind us that we can do it on our own. That person can even be ourselves when the situation calls for it. What doesn’t help is the thrashing and the worry which can often get in the way of getting un-cast.

So next time you find yourself somehow stuck, try calming down (feel free to cry a bit first if you need) and then look at the problem from a different angle. A lot of times you’re not as stuck as you might think.

How I’ve Dulled my Social Anxiety

Laura Highcove 4 Comments

There was never a point at which I suddenly realized I was a shy person. I just always knew I was shy and for the most part I didn’t care. I stayed out of people’s way and they stayed out of mine.

Wanting to Change

A desire for change came from the place of realizing that being shy would be a hindrance to becoming successful as an author. In these days of social media, podcasts, and conventions, lingering in the shadows keeps you from being seen and being seen is important. These days, people want to interact with the people who write the books they love, and being seen helps to get your book out there. Often, the authors that I connect with (and thus buy the books of) are authors who are open, friendly, and personable.

Now I have made great strides in this front over the past five years or so, but I still remember being so excited about going to my first writer’s conference and how confidant I felt, until I ended up in a corner, clutching my umbrella for dear life while the other writers around me chatted with each other. I had grown comfortable in my own circles but had no skill at accessing that confidence in a new place with new people. I spent the first day of this conference flitting from place to place, as invisible as I always was.

Set Small, Reasonable Goals

By the second day, I realized how unreasonable it had been to expect myself to walk up to strangers in a place I had never been before and make small talk. That is not something in my skill set, and expecting it of myself was unfair.

As such, I gave myself an easier goal: Walk up to the fantasy author who had just given a panel and thank him. Not as big of an ask, I had gotten to know the author a bit through his panel and it is expected for people to go up and talk to him afterward. I just inserted myself into that place. He was friendly and encouraging.

When I went to Writer’s Digest for the first time later that year, I gave myself the small goal of exchanging business cards with someone. Just one person.

At a third conference I challenged myself to speak with just one agent. (Though I had a long list of them I had looked up prior, to give myself more options. This one was particularly tough.)

I also willingly! went to a retreat for public speaking. You can read more about that here.

The important thing was to not overload myself with expectations. I looked at what I was comfortable doing and I pushed myself to do a bit more.

Setting Up for Success

Let’s face it, the world is a scary place and I’ve found that I do far better in certain situations. If I need to talk to people I have never met before, I need to be in a familiar setting. If I need to go to a new place, it’s better for me to be with someone I know. This year was my second year at Writer’s Digest and I bunked with a writer I knew online, and several people from the DIY MFA team were there.

It was the best time I’ve ever had at a conference because I was comfortable in the setting and with the people there. And because of that, I was able to go into the Pitch Slam with more confidence than I would’ve thought possible.

I’m going to World Fantasy Con this next month in Texas for the first time and my mother is going with me. She’s not going to the convention proper, but we’re going to spend time hanging around the city together around the convention, and I expect that that bit of familiarity (along with the fact that I’ve been going Otakon for over a decade now) will greatly help my confidence levels in the new situation of the con.

Forgiving your Failures

I’ve given myself goals that I’ve been unable to fulfill. I’ve gotten in line to talk to authors before and then walked away because I got in my head too much and scared myself out of wanting to talk to them. The worst thing you can do in this case is berate yourself after the fact. It won’t change anything at that point. The best thing to do is look forward and either try again or give yourself (temporary) permission to stop.

After I had talked to six or seven agents at the Pitch Slam (and had done really well) I realized that I was emotionally drained and even though the time wasn’t completely up, I gave myself permission to stop pushing, because it’s just what I needed at that point.

Knowing your limits is going something everyone has to learn for themselves. Sometimes you’ll push too far and other times you won’t push far enough. You just have to keep being honest with yourself and keep trying to improve.

My Most Inspirational Quotes: #4

Laura Highcove

This one is the quote from my pile of inspirational quotes that makes me feel the best. While the rest of the quotes are sort of for the ‘down in the trenches, let’s keep at it’-ness of life. This one has the ability to lift me up.

Because in my head, I can hear the lightness and wonder of the person saying that last time. If I am completely honest, it’s the voice of the Godmother from the Law of the Prince Charming. Something about hearing her saying it and having it be someone who is not me saying it, and believing in me in that way, never fails to lift me up.

This is a quote I’ve had forever, but it wasn’t until I did this post that I found out this quote is attributed to someone, and that there is actually more to the quote. While not entirely relevant, it was an interesting tidbit for me.

Do any of you have some sort of quote that never fails to make your day a little brighter when you hear it? I hope that you do.

My Most Inspirational Quotes: #2

Laura Highcove

Following along in the vein of this post, where I talked about an important inspirational quote that I use nearly constantly to remind myself that I am progressing with my writing is the following.

I was going through a Google image search looking for random inspirational quotes to put into my Facebook feed when I ran across this one:

I was immediately completely overwhelmed with emotion and started crying right then and there. The truth is, I cry a lot. For a long time, I hated that about myself. I, of course, hate how I look when I cry and how I feel while I’m crying, but the thing that really bothered me was always how I worried how it made the people around me feel. How people immediately go into ‘Oh, what’s wrong.’ or ‘Don’t cry.’ And so I had, over the years, internalized that crying was bad, or wrong, or something to be fixed.

After I saw this quote, I made a rather abrupt mental shift. I began to tell myself that it was okay to cry because that meant I needed to cry, and that helped me stop feeling guilty about crying. I also made the decision that I was no longer going to apologize for crying in front of other people. (I still avoid crying in public, I’m talking about crying in front of friends and family.) The apologizing itself was like an admittance that what I was doing was bad or wrong. Instead, I move on with the conversation without drawing attention to the crying itself, and then I thank the person for supporting me.

And truthfully, I haven’t looked at this quote since I posted it to my Facebook. It was a strong enough influence that one time that it stuck with me. Do you have a quote or other experience that has immediately and drastically changed the way that you respond to the world? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Mistborn (Part One) Story Structure

Laura Highcove

In our most recent DIYMFA call, we were challenged to take a short story or children’s book and see if we could identify the parts of story structure within the book.

This fell right into a question that had been pushing around recently in wondering if, when a book is broken into parts (common in Fantasy), each of those parts also follows basic story structure.

So I decided to make the challenge a little harder on myself and see if I could figure out the story structure for Mistborn, by Brandon Sanderson, Part One. (I used the paperback version to get the page numbers.)

Here’s what I found:

Opening Image (Part One): Description of Vin’s crew’s safe house. (pg 19-21): Seeing Vin as the main character, I made this decision based on the fact that the first part takes Vin from where she is, to bring a part of Kel’s crew, so her opening image is her little world.

Inciting Incident (Part One): Vin’s crewleader kicks off his plan. (pg 25): This is why the story starts here, because this plan is what leads Vin to being found by Kelsier.

Opening Image (Mistborn): Description of Luthadel by Kelsier. (pg 28-30) The overarching plot of the novel is the caper, so Kel’s description of the city seems a much better “opening image” for that story.

1st Reversal (Part One): Vin decides to use her “luck” on the High Prelan. (pg 39) This is the choice Vin makes that causes everything after to happen.

Inciting Incident (Mistborn): Kelsier and Dockson observe Vin using her “luck” on the High Prelan. (pg 40): This event is what brings Vin into Kelsier’s noticing.

Temporary Triumph (Part One): The crew members saying they’re in after hearing Kelsier’s plan. (pg 79-81): Getting the crew to agree to the plan is a triumph, even if it doesn’t mean things go smoothly.

2nd Reversal (Part One): Kelsier and the crew outline the steps of the plan, everyone really sees what an impossible task this caper is, and Yeden wants to pull out. (pg 122): I had trouble with this because there isn’t a *ton* of conflict considering it’s the beginning of the book.

Dark Night of the Soul: (Part One) Vin doesn’t want to trust Kelsier (or any of the crew for that matter) (pg 156-157) At this point, Vin almost leaves the crew due to her inability to trust.

1st Reversal (Mistborn): Vin actually agrees to be part of Kelsier’s crew (pg 158): Vin makes the decision here. She has an out and chooses to stay anyway.

Crisis/Climax (Part One): Vin has to fill in the role of a noblewoman for the caper to work. (pg 165) Vin finds her role will be larger than she thought.

Closure (Part One): Vin settles into the idea of Kelsier being a good man (trustworthy). (pg 168) Vin has changed just a little bit, in that she’s willing to trust Kelsier.

I’m not sure if people more studied in story structure would think that my interpretation is sufficient, but I feel like all the beats are there. At the same time I could be grasping at straws because I went into this wanting Part One to follow basic story structure. Either way, I think the exercise is helpful and if anyone would like to challenge what’s here, I would love to discuss it.

How I Paint – Part 1

Laura Highcove

Okay, so I showed some people at the store the gryffin from the previous post, and I got quite a lot of amazed reactions, much to my surprise. We are our own toughest critics after all. I know I am good at painting, but I don’t think I’m that amazing. Other people tend to disagree, so I would like to share all of the very simple, but extremely effective techniques I use in order to get the results I do.

Step One: Have your materials. Obviously, you can’t paint a miniature without a few key elements. The paint, a (set of) paint brushes, and the mini…

I use games workshop paints because those are the most easily available. I haven’t used any of the new ones yet, but I hear good things. The consistency of the paint is rather important for a good look. If it’s too thick it clumps and leaves paint lines. Some of my paints are rather poor right now. I do what I can, thinning them with clear Windex (tip credited to Blake).

I get a set of 3 detail brushes from a local hobby shop. Costs $3 and when the tip goes, I use that paintbrush for less important things like washes. If you don’t have a good tip on your paintbrush, then you might as well just flick the paint on there at random.

The mini I’m using for this “tutorial” of sorts is my set of Lotheran Sea Guard from the High Elf Army of Warhammer Fantasy fame.

Step Two: Get the “How to Paint Citadel Miniatures” book from Games Workshop (or have Blake order it) and read it. No seriously. If you really want nicely painted miniatures, looking at well painted miniatures (and the tutorials of those painting techniques) is essential. I mean you’re here reading this right? I’m not even that good. In addition I have White Dwarf Magazines (with High Elf and Empire articles) along with their Warhammer rules books. I look at them constantly.

Step Three: Cleaning and priming. Ah, so now we’re finally to the actual mini. Never underestimate the value of cleaning and green stuffing your mini. What use is a beautiful paint job if there are mold lines? In addition, what’s the use of a beautiful paint job if the paint chips off. I prime with black. I just like it better than white, yes, even with all those white high elf robes.

Step Four: The crappy paint step. I call it this because I tend to think my mini looks like crap during this phase. This is when I take the colors I have chosen and put on the foundation colors.

The gray is my most used because of all the white high elf robes. Basically I get all the colors down, then clean up the edges. It looks flat and horribly boring. However, it lets you make sure you have the colors in the places you want before you do anything fancy. This is especially important when painting a whole squad as opposed to a single mini. The little details are different on each mini, and you may find yourself changing things.

When in doubt, don’t feel guilty at all about looking up that particular mini and getting ideas. I had the hardest time with the gloves and shoes on these guys, wanting to paint them a metallic and not liking how much metal that was until I saw the ones in the book had brown gloves and shoes. It hadn’t even occurred to me before that. Developing an eye for colors is not really something that can be taught, per say. It’s the whole reason for Step Two. You just have to have the experience, and that comes with seeing what other people, who have put far more time into it than you, do.

Also, note that you want these first layers to be the darkest version of whatever color you want when it comes out at the end. I build up my color from darkest to lightest. You don’t even want to know how long it took me to figure out that technique…