Writer’s Block? I’ve got “Writer’s Doubt”

By Kathy Dueck

Despite having written for years, it’s been tough for me to believe in my abilities as a writer, and send out my work.  I struggle with writer’s doubt.  Maybe you do, too.  Never mind the husband telling me over and over again that I’m a good writer; what I focus on instead is the negative voice inside my head that says “you’re not good enough”.  Despite getting straight A’s to date in the Professional Writing Certificate program I’m currently enrolled in, I remember what a hard slog my technical writing contract of last spring was.  At one point, I was completely demoralised when the lead technical writer changed almost every sentence of a document I’d edited.

I got to the point where I’d had enough of letting fear and self-doubt hold me back and decided to take a big gulp, put on my big girl panties and overcome this inertia.  I’ve become less bashful with my submitting my words, less intimidated by the process and less willing to have my prose sit on my external hard drive. 

My stories and articles and pitches are being sent out now. And not just to places that know me, like our church’s newsletter.

Lo and behold, I’ve had pieces accepted in the past year. By complete strangers no less who, one assumes, recognize good writing.  I’ve had a non-fiction article published in a Canadian magazine and a short story, Bullying: A Success Story, will be published shortly by short storiescafé.com who “feel it is a well-written, empowering story that would be great to include on Short Stories Cafe.”

And, with every acceptance, doubt and fear take a back seat. I’ve learned: nothing cramps creativity’s style like those two “devils on my shoulder”.  Hence, I’m inspired to write and look for places to send my writing to. Word by word, acceptance by acceptance, belief replaces fear and doubt and I dare to hope: maybe this here writing thing will work out after all. 

As for the colleague who changed all my sentences? I’ve given her control-freaky self the middle-finger salute.

Kathy Dueck is a married writer with two cats from Calgary, Alberta Canada. She's a non-conformist, a burgeoning activist, a recipe developer, a voracious reader, a patron of the arts [which is a fancy way of saying she watches way too many movies and TV shows], a blogger, and a volunteer. She believes that “going to church doesn’t make you a Christian anymore than standing in a garage makes you a car” and likes to think that “if church were a washing machine, I would be the agitator.”

Kathy has two blogs, one is a food and recipe blog www.chronicinthekitchen.com and the other  a "personal" blog  called FibroDAZE http://bignoises.wordpress.com/ where she blogs about life and sometimes about life with chronic illness. She also has a photography blog rkdphotocreations.wordpress.com in its' infancy.

It's All in the Words - Short-Short Story Challenge

Words. Words spill onto the page to create stories for everyone. Young and old. Sad stories, scary stories, happy stories, funny stories, children’s stories, family stories… You never know what you’re going to get when you sit down, pen and paper in hand. You write madly, until finally a story takes shape. Then you edit. Until you have the words just right.
And then you share.

Here’s the challenge.
Write a story in 7 days. You will be given a list story prompts and then have 7 days to write, edit and submit your story. A jury will select a short-list then our judges will choose the winners. The winner will be announced the Writer in Residence Final Reading on June 27, 2013 at Owl’s Nest Books. All finalists will be invited to read their stories along with Lori Hahnel at the final reading closing her residency.

1st prize: A free course voucher from AWCS.
2nd prize: A free Saturday workshop voucher from AWCS.

Finalists stories will be published on the AWCS blog, Writer’s Corner beginning June 1, 2013.
Entry fee: $5
Open to all residents of Alberta.
Contest Judges: Lori Hahnel | J. Jill Robinson | Rona Altrows
How to Enter
Fill out online registration. Pay the $5 entry fee. (Pay online by PayPal, Visa/Mastercard, or send Cash or Cheque to AWCS, 922, 9th Ave SE, Calgary, AB T2G 0S4) All applicants must fill out online registration.

All registered participants will receive the story prompts on May 5, 2013 at 12:00am. Check your email inbox. Choose one and write your story. Stories can be any genre, any topic, as long as one of the story prompts appears in your story.

Maximum 500 words. Typed, double-spaced, in an easy to read font, numbered pages. Title must appear as a header at the top of the page, on every page.

Submit your completed stories by May 11, 2013 11:59pm by email to info@alexandrawriters.org in .doc or .docx format. Names must not appear anywhere on the stories.
In the body of the email please include your name, contact information, title of story and word count.
Have fun. Be creative.

The Clothesline, by Jamal Ali

The gentle wind soothed the young widow’s loneliness on that bright summer’s day,

in June 2010, the day of her tenth wedding anniversary, in the backyard of her hilltop home. From her perch, while hanging her wash on the clothesline, Yolanta marvelled at the view of the Atlantic. She reminisced about her sailor husband, Alistair, who never returned from that fateful voyage. Alistair and his crew, on their

journey from the Halifax Harbour to San Juan, Puerto Rico, in that summer of yesteryear were never heard from or found, Lucifer in The Devil’s Triangle claimed them. Yolanta reflected on Alistair’s parting words on that morning while embracing and caressing him, “Our love, precious as the sun and moon will forever be in the music of memory, the living oceans and seas.”

The tender touch of her lacy bras and silky panties reminded Yolanta of the nights of lovemaking in these sexy underthings. She whispered, “I surely miss those carnal nights of splendour with my prince under satin sheets” and wondered, would it ever

happen again?

While looking at the celestial sphere and the ocean, Yolanta whispered with a tear, “Oh Aphrodite and Amphitrite, please, please, bring back my Alistair to me. Please, rescue him from Lucifer’s arms, ‘cause he’s my true love.” As she hummed the lyrics to Petula Clark’s song, “Sailor,” tears flowed down Yolanta’s cheeks; she planted her right hand firmly on her chest to the words:

                       To the harbour of my heart

                        I will send my love to guide you

                        As I call across the sea

                        Come home to me

She hummed favourite love tunes that the couple sang to each other, in their past lives of marital bliss. Yolanta’s secret admirer looks through his dining room window, focusing on the tall, slender brunette and the fluttering lingerie.

Jamal Ali

"Hmm, interesting reading." or "Why are you so weird?"

Whether the reading is formal or informal, I'm talking about that awkward moment when…

You share your work with a good friend, small group, or large audience, and at the end they just kinda stare.

Okay. No big deal. At least they aren't throwing hot pennies or calling for a pox on your house. What's in a blank gaze anyway?

EVERYTHING YOU FEAR.

That's what. The non-reaction is a Great White Wall upon which you are compelled to project your dreadfuls. The following are just a few examples of what can be read into that blank silence.

"Sorry, what? Were you making mouth sounds just now?"

"I don't get it."

"Is there any way I can get this out of my brain before it sets?"

"I'm embarrassed for you."

Maybe that's just my wall. I can't say what you'd project onto yours. I don't know why glassy-eyed stares can't ever be a positive thing in my mind, like…

"I am rendered expressionless in the presence of this living treasure."

Bwahahaha!

For me the scariest part about reading isn't the worry that I'll stumble over a word or my voice might shake. It's the Wall. That white expanse demanding the harsh pigments of my interpretation.

Perhaps I need to work on that. Rewriting the wall. Or maybe just leaving it blank.

Thar Be Monsters

My critique partner is an awful good sport. She's tough and patient and knows how to handle me when I'm nearly unhandleable. She also indulges my wackadoo ideas of writerly fun.

I suggested an evening where we take turns reading aloud from a piece of our early work. I mean early, early. Stuff we wrote when we were so green that if we were stuck in the ground we'd grow.

Remember that stage? When you just wrote and wrote and wrote, careening along with no thought to the danger skulking all around you. The jabberwock of telling, the screaming cliché banshee, the morlock holes of thin characterization, adverbs breeding like wererabbits, and the angry unicorn of author intrusion. 

I thought sharing our worst writing would be good for a giggle, and thanks to our good friend Twobottles O. Redwine, it was a scream.

My partner read first, an excerpt from a spooky short. I was dismayed to find that aside from an ambiguous point of view, and a moment of oddly placed hyperbole, her story wasn't awful. What the heck, man? This was not what I signed up for, but we had a deal. So I read an excerpt from a romantic comedy novel that I'd exhumed for the occasion.

I won't bore you with the specifics of how and why my story was so dreadful. I will say that if the occurrence of adverbs could be turned into a drinking game, I would have been hospitalized.

Overall there were laughs a plenty. Hysterics, even. I might have inhaled a morsel of brie. But in spite of the silliness, I'm going to level with y'all and admit it was genuinely embarrassing.

It's weird to be mortified by the quality of your first 'serious' writing project. After all, wouldn't it be more alarming to pick up something you wrote as a newb and be as proud of it now as you were then? Being semi-horrified is a sign you've embraced the learn and grow, which is good. I was still embarrassed though, and that's not all. Stay with me.

I'm having a feel...

The last thing I expected was to be jealous of my novice self. She was a terrible writer with delusions of Salinger. Yet I miss her fearlessness and excitement. I miss the wild creative lightning that inured her to the terror I experience now that I'm aware of what lurks in the literary shadows. Bitey jaws. Catchy claws.

Writing is dangerous, but it's also a thrilling adventure. I think I've lost sight of that a little bit.

I challenge you to go back and read those first stories/poems/plays. It's humbling and hilarious. It's a reminder that as you venture into the darkened wood, you don't necessarily have to slay the jabberwocky, sometimes you only need to believe you can outrun him.