Lilith Saintcrow

First of all, we have a winner in the contest for a signed Flesh Circus! Random.org helped me pick a comment number. The winner is comment #11, kara-karina! Kara-karina, drop me an email with your snail mail address and I’ll send you a signed, personalized copy of Jill’s latest adventure.

Also, I am over at SciFiGuy’s place today, with an interview and a chance to win a copy of Betrayals. I will be answering questions in the comments all day. Come on by and say hello! Plus, I’ll be at the Cedar Hills Crossing Powell’s this Sunday for the SF/F Authorfest. Come by and see me, fellow Dame Devon Monk, Barb & JC Hendee, and a bunch of other cool people, including the 501st Cloud City Garrison (Vader’s Fist). Good times will be had by all.

And now, my dears, for my Friday writing post. Are you all settled in with a tasty sandwich and frosty beverage? Good enough.

If I’d listened, none of this would have happened.

You see, I grew up being told that I was a quitter. That I never finished anything, that I had no discipline. I was told that I had my head in the clouds, that I was unreliable, that I might be booksmart but I would never be smart in any other way. I was just too dreamy. I always took the easy way out.

Part of the work I’ve been doing on myself lately has been taking a look at some of those core assumptions I was raised with. A big core belief is that I’m unlovable. Only slightly less huge is the belief that I’m a quitter, that all my success has been a fluke and that I have to live in constant fear of being exposed as, well, a fake.

I may know intellectually that this makes no sense. But the real work comes in when it’s time to change that sick heart-thumping feeling of danger, the feeling that you might be found out at any moment, that you are an imposter in a world of Real People.

I have two beautiful children I’m raising mostly-alone. I am making a living by writing, not the easiest task. I have over twenty books out. And just this week my editor at Razorbill called and told me Betrayals made the Times list for Children’s Paperback Fiction.

It was about twenty minutes later, when I was squeeing on the phone with my agent, that the ugly core belief came out.

“Do they ever make a mistake?” I asked her, anxiously. “I mean, will they find out they’ve been wrong and take it away? Does that happen?”

She reassured me that no, it did not happen, and we went back to squeeing. But later, after I hung up the phone, I wondered why I’d even thought that. It’s the New York Times list, for Christ’s sake. Why could I not accept and believe that I’d worked my ass off, day in and day out, and might deserve some part of the honor?

Because of that core belief that I’m a quitter. It was said to me so often for the first twenty-odd years of my life that I’ve ended up internalizing it, believing it–and it taints even the best news a writer could hope for with the sullen, gut-clenching feeling of being a faker.

But there’s hope. (There’s always hope.)

I pretty much accepted failure was going to be part of my professional life when I set out to get published. Rejection and failure happen every day, and sometimes multiple times a day for a writer. But total failure wasn’t an option. I decided to keep writing until someone, somewhere, liked what I did and offered to publish it. Sooner or later, I reasoned, if I kept working at it, I’d get on somewhere.

Lo and behold, it happened. I got my first break, and I kept writing. I networked like a mad bastard and kept writing. I got an agent and I kept writing. I got my first New York publishing contract and I kept writing. Other contracts followed and I kept writing. Foreign rights, requests for short stories, requests for other books followed–and I kept writing.

Do you sense a theme here?

The thing about challenging a core belief is that it requires that you take a look at the empirical evidence, not just how you feel. I am supporting myself and my kids with words I pull out of thin air. I do my best to hold up my end of the bargain with my Readers–to tell the truth–and you, my dear Readers, respond.

I made an effing NYT Bestseller List, for God’s sake. This is not something you get just by sitting back and smelling roses. It took hard work and a refusal to quit.

That refusal to quit makes me not a quitter. It means whenever that nasty little voice speaks up inside my head I can meet it with evidence in the real world that I am measuring myself by a broken yardstick. That’s the first step to replacing the yardstick with one that works–and not so incidentally, one that won’t stab me in the heart every time I’m down and a little low.

If I’d listened just to that voice, though, this would never have happened. I would never have even gotten published the first time. I would have quit when I got my fiftieth rejection slip, or even earlier.

Some part of me must have known it wasn’t true. Some part of me set its shoulders, lifted its chin, and said to hell with you and what you think, this is what I’m doing. That part is the real me, and it deserves to come out into the sunshine. This is the first jackhammer I’m going to take to that edifice of the core belief. I’m going to break that f!cker up and turn it into rubble, and build something better.

If I had listened, I would have stopped before I got published. If I’d listened, I would have stopped before I got an agent. If I’d listened, I would have stopped and accepted defeat years ago. I did not. I kept going, even while believing myself a “quitter” down in the secret chambers of my heart.

How’s that for crazy?

So, my dear fellow writers (and Readers), let me tell you this. You are not what other people tell you. You are not what other people say. You are what you do. Don’t stop. Don’t give up. Get that jackhammer, get that wrecking ball, and start the process of being kind to yourself by chipping away at those voices in your head that judge you and tell you you’re Worth Less. Look at what you’ve done so far. Imagine, if you’ve done all this while believing those awful things about yourself, what could you do if you were not chained? How awesome would that be?

It’s not easy work. But, as my sister once so memorably said, “They call it life because it’s hard.”

I won’t give up. And if I can refuse to give up, so can you. Let’s go kick some ass, you and me.

Over and out.

Related posts:

1. Found Wanting
2. Writing Can Save Your Life
3. The Room And The Will

Tags: childhood trauma, deadline dames, Friday Writing, Joy, shooting from the hip, what we know is true, win some stuff

This entry was posted on Friday, November 27th, 2009 at 1:24 pm and is filed under Deep Thoughts, Rant Rant Rave, Real Life, Writing (About). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.