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.

Thanksgiving 2017

Laura Highcove

In the lead up to Thanksgiving I found myself swamped with things, and while I wrote a post, I didn’t have time to go through the 3+ drafts I need to do to get something I write ready to publish.

That post is now on the back burner because I wanted to talk about what I’ve been doing with my writing. And that is, I hired a freelance editor to take a look at the Law of the Prince Charming. One of the main results was that I put the Huntsman aside to come back to LotPC. Two major changes were that I took out a major plot thread that required some reworking and added in another plot thread that required more reworking. These changes ended up going more smoothly than I thought they would, not that there weren’t scenes I had to pull apart at the seams. There were also a number of smaller changes like shoring up Tabitha and her mother’s motivations throughout the story and strengthening the theme.

I made one pass where I added in the rough changes I needed to, and now I’m in the middle of a revision pass where I am smoothing out the sharp edges the additions created and seeing if there is anything else I need to add. I’ll be going into more detail about what my experience in getting more professional feedback was like in this month’s newsletter, so sign up here if you’re interested.

Thanksgiving also happened since I last wrote a journal post. I spent far more time visiting with family than I did working on my story. I only felt guilty some of the time. It was quite the enjoyable holiday. I ate way too much, enjoyed time with family, and avoided any and all political discussion at the table.

My plan from here out: Get this revision pass done by Sunday morning. Then I can spend the afternoon on the rough draft of that post I mentioned.

World Fantasy Con 2017

Laura Highcove 4 Comments

So a week ago I went to San Antonio for World Fantasy Con. It’s my first year going, and I basically decided to go because I heard it mentioned on Writing Excuses and I wanted to get some experience with specifically fantasy focused conventions.

I was rather apprehensive because, while I’ve been rockin’ the convention scene since 2000, with Otakon and a few other anime conventions, I’ve never been to one focusing on books and truthfully I didn’t know what to expect. Otakon is huge and so my biggest change in expectation is that I knew it wasn’t anywhere near that large.

On the first day I was able to talk to someone who had been there before over breakfast, and she told me a few things to expect, like there is very little cosplay at WFC, (which is a change from Otakon) about the con suite (where the serve you food), and the readings.

After I got my badge they directed me to a room where I got a shoulder bag full of books. I was pretty surprised and happy, even though I couldn’t take them all home on the plane. I read several of them before I left and had to leave the others behind. The ones I did keep/read were enjoyable, and it opened me up to some books I wouldn’t have picked up on my own.

I went to the Opening Ceremony Panel where they had their guests, Martha Wells, Tananarive Due, Karen Joy Fowler, Gregory Manchess, and David Mitchel, all talk a bit about secret history, which is the theme of the con. It was a good introduction.

I then went to a reading by Curtis Craddock, who read from a swashbuckling style book called An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors which was a very intriguing read. I went to his reading just because there wasn’t a panel I wanted to attend at that time and I wanted to experience some live readings so I have ideas for mine in the future. And now I am adding that book to my ‘to read’ pile.

There was a panel called Beards and Intrigue: Queering the Historical Fantasy where the discussion was on LGBTQ+ protagonists in fantasy. The panel itself was great and the panelists included in their introductions their gender and sexual preference and it wasn’t until question and answer time that someone pointed out how cool it was that they had done that, and the entire audience just accepted it.

But that really was an overall theme that I noticed for the weekend. Fantasy people …I dunno, we’re just hardwired to accept things. We’re so used to reading about protagonists that are different, if they’re even human at all, and then being drawn into a story where we sympathize with those characters. So it gives us a leg up on the ‘live and let live’ style of existence.

The next day there was Exploration of Gender in Fantasy panel, where I found out about the Tiptree Award, which is “an annual literary prize for works of science fiction or fantasy that expand or explore one’s understanding of gender.” (from wikipedia).

And there was a panel Hild and Hilt: the Female Monk, the Lone Woman Protagonist where they talked about what it took to be a ‘lone woman protagonist’ and how that was different from a male protagonist.

I went to a number of other panels and readings and really enjoyed most everything I interacted with. And at the end of it all, when I was at the Awards Banquet and I was listening to Martha Wells speak, I realized something about the weekend that had sort of flitted at the edges but not really hit me. Unlike writing conferences I’ve been to, these were my people. I could feel it in the air and in the way everyone interacted with each other. Everyone was interested in fantasy books, they read them and brought them up as examples, and talked about them with such fervor; unlike at conferences where I feel like genre sort of sits on the sidelines and sometimes gets mentioned and usually by lumping fantasy together with science fiction. (Not that I have anything against science fiction, but it is different.)

After the Con was over, I had some extra time to go around San Antonio and experience the Riverwalk, which was amazing. Unfortunately I got sick on the way home and I still can’t breathe through my nose, but it’ll pass. But all in all, I was very glad I went and experienced it, and not only because of the free books.

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.

Better Late than Never

Laura Highcove 1 Comment

So I had to work this weekend and I rewarded myself by playing some Terraria. As such I forgot to write my journal post for this week. On Monday I got hit by some depression and everything I tried to write came out sounding like I was a complete and utter failure, even though that certainly wasn’t true.

I made good progress these past two weeks, though it wasn’t all easy and smooth, and there’s nothing big in particular that I can point to and say ‘I accomplished that!’, so it’s hard to write a post about what I did accomplish.

Sometimes this is writing. It has nothing to do with how skilled you are as a writer and everything to do with whether or not you can keep going back to the page day after day. I know some people who, I believe, are far better storytellers than I am, but I’m the one putting in the work. And so there’s nothing exciting to tell you about except that I’m still going.

Though my husband did make this:

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.

Help from Sebastien de Castell

Laura Highcove

I have poured out some new words on The Huntsman, but things are still not coming together the way I would like them to. As such I’ve gone back to the beginning again to smooth what I have and hopefully push forward again.

Going back to the beginning of my story does two positive things for me. One, the beginning is rather solid right now, so it helps me remember I’m not a terrible writer and it lifts my spirits. Two, it allows me to shift the story as a result of new things I have discovery written, including relationships between characters, because, let’s be honest, the thing I enjoy most about writing is the relationships between characters. So whenever they get more nuanced and detailed, it makes me happy and keeps me motivated.

I was listening to a podcast from DIY MFA.com where the author Sebastien de Castell talked about how much more difficult writing a sequel book is. As he pointed out, in the first book you can just create as much as you want, but in the sequel there are already rules, rules you can’t change (especially if the book is already published.) and expectations that have been set.

It just made me realize how true that was, and I stopped beating myself up so much about the expectation that I had that since the first book only took me two years, I should be able to do that for the second. The book is going to take as long as it’s going to take. I may never be one of those authors who pounds out a book a year. And that may change when I have an agent and/or editor helping me out. Right now I can only work with what I have. My goal right now is aimed at having an alpha ready by the end of the year. It’s good to always have a goal, even if you don’t make it. And who knows, tomorrow I might have that idea or write the scene that fixes all the problems I’m having. That’s part of why writing is so much fun.

PS: Sebastien’s Greatcoat books are super amazing, so if you like swashbuckling and snarky narrators, give them a shot.

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.

Making it Fun Again

Laura Highcove 2 Comments

I’m starting to think that two weeks between journal entries might be too long. A lot happens in two weeks, a lot of things can change. I’m not going to make my deadline. I’ve been moving forward pretty steadily, I just seriously misjudged where I was with the Huntsman when I made my goal.

I spent much of last week beating myself up the fact that I’m failing to meet my deadlines and that I’m not working on my story 24/7. But at a certain point I just had to stop and realize I wasn’t having fun anymore. It was a chore and I can’t write like that. I reminded myself that whether or not this story ever gets published isn’t what matters. It’s writing a story that I enjoy and that I want to read over and over, just like The Law of the Prince Charming. I’m still having a little trouble letting go of my attachment to my deadlines, but at least now I’m focusing more on writing something I enjoy. But this is only the second book I’ve worked on this seriously, so I can only be so surprised when I wildly misjudge how long things will take. I’m sure it’s something I will learn with time, just like everything else.

That being said, I went back and smoothed out the beginning of the story and am pushing my way through Wildrose’s arc. It’s been difficult and it’s been fun. My plan now is to push through to the middle of the book in the next two weeks, both Wildrose and Tabitha’s arcs. The only way to go is forward after all.

However, it’s also time for me to admit that I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year. Now I’m obviously still going to write, I’m just not throwing my hat in the NaNoWriMo ring. I love NaNoWriMo and I have learned so much about myself as a writer from it, but I keep reaching the point where I feel like NaNoWriMo is getting in the way rather than helping. This year, in particular, for several reasons. I’ll be going into more detail about those reasons in this month’s newsletter, so go ahead and sign up so you can stay in the loop.

See you in two weeks.

My Most Inspirational Quotes: #3

Laura Highcove

Third in my series of posts about inspirational quotes that have changed my life is one that I came up with and use for myself to help deal with feelings of overwhelm. It might be more like a mantra, but either way, I’m going to share it. When I was a far younger writer, still new and unsure of myself I used to get discouraged a lot when seeing the success of other writers. I would get stuck in one of these complaints:

I’ll never be that good.
I don’t write enough.
My website/social media account is crappy.
I don’t know enough.
I don’t have enough time.
I’m not good enough.

Or something similar. And then one day I responded to myself with: “So are you going to quit writing completely then?”
To which the answer was: “Well …no.”
“Then take one step and worry about the rest later.”

Nowadays this is shortened in my head to a more mantra-like statement that I use whenever I have a feeling of inadequacy or overwhelm when it comes to my writing. I just say to myself, as a question, with no malice or judgment: “Are you going to quit?” And then I keep going because the answer is ‘no’.

It’s basically become an interrupt for my negative thoughts, which immediately allows me to focus more on what I’m doing at the time and not worry about everything I might need to do.

The other thing that helps me with this problem is making lists, because that shows me my steps and then I can put them in order and cross them out. In addition, most times the list I come up with, of things to do, has some that can easily be put off (not an immediate deadline) which makes the list shorter and easier to manage.

Do you have a statement/mantra or ritual that you use to help with feelings of overwhelm? in order to help push you to a more positive mindset? Please share it in the comments.