I’ve created all kinds of neato things. Books, videos, music, and of course being ex-VFS I have written a ton of scripts.
But it’s all basically meaningless because I can never bring myself to submit the wonderful things I make to anywhere that might do something with them.
Like a publisher. Or a studio. Or a contest. Or even a frigging subReddit.
And I am far from alone in this conundrum. It is reflective of a fundamental tension beteen the kind of people who become writers and the writing game itself.
We writers tend to be a shy, furtive, introverted lot who prefer to work alone and who instinctively avoid the limelight.
Swing the spotlight towards us and we scatter like cockroaches.
This is exactly the kind of person who is going to find it very hard if not impossible to do something to deliberately attract attention to themselves.. like show their work to others.
It’s an especially acute problem for us Avoidant Personality Disorder types. Avoiding draw attention to ourselves like we’re hiding from the Nazis is kind of our thing. We have been programmed by circumstance to feel like exposure is death and only in being completely hidden and alone can we find any degree of safety at all.
And we desperately want to be safe. Our inner worlds are hostile places full of demons, ghosts, and raging whirlwinds of unexpressed rage and grief and terror and all the other emotions we can’t handle so we banish them to our Jungian shadow.
And then we wonder why it’s so hard to be us. Um, maybe it’s the cyclone of unprocessed emotions you create with all your suppression of emotion.
Nah. That makes too much sense.
So the problem of promotion is simply that the kind of people who become good writers are the same kind of people who avoid drawing attention to themselves which is kind of a problem when you want to be famous or at least to make a living at it.
Me, I want to be famous enough to get invited to conventions, all expenses paid, as the guest of honor.
That’s if I go the science fiction author route, obviously.
If I write for TV I just want huge stacks of money. Fame can go fuck itself.
Anyhow, for me, this problem is especially acute. Whenever I approach the problem of promoting myself, that cold and bitter wind of fear and doubt that makes so many things impossible for me starts up and I freeze up inside like always.
And the thing is, it’s not that I don’t think I am talented enough. I am hella talented. I totally deserve to be scooped up by some agent and/or mentor and/or editor and groomed to be the fantastic writer I know I can be.
But when I approach that precipice and the cold wind blows, suddenly I have no confidence in anything I have ever written and it all sucks and I would make a fool of myself if I showed it to anyone and the Trog wins and I go back to squat in my cave.
Hence my recent ego trips. I am doing what I can to build up my belief in self to the point where I can go out into the world and practically demand my piece of the pie.
Not in so many words, obviously. That would be strategically unwise.
But with that kind of attitude.
There is something to be said for having a raging, out of control ego. It might not be nice to be around, but it gets things done.
More after the break.
Not so great feeling
Everything was fine until I had to pee.
There I was, bopping along, playing my game. I was happy because I had solved what I thought was going to be a major pain in the ass situation relatively easily and was looking forward to implementing the rest of the solution.
But then… (portentous music sting) I realized I needed to pee.
My legs were still tired from doing Wound Care earlier oday, so decided this would be an um… receptacle job.
I have a big plastic jar I have been using as my short to mid term urinal for a while now and it was once more pressed into service.
Everything was fine during the operation but the second I stopped urinating, I got this not so good feeling in the general aea of my bladder.
It was like when I finished peeing, my body suddenly and violently slammed on the emergency brake and my bladder got caught in the middle.
Accompanying this new sensation was a feeling like I had been lightly kicked in the balls. My testicles also decided to get in on the fun.
I tried to keep going with my game, hoping it would pass, but it did not. So even though it was already 8:30 pm and I hadn’t had supper yet, I had no choice but to save my game then lay down for a while.
I wake up at around 10:30 pm with a lot less urinary and testicular pain but CRAZY frigging hungry, probably because I hadn’t eaten since 3:30 pm or so.
See, this is why I can’t do the 10 hour fasting a1c diabetes test. Only seven hours and I slreaqdy feel like gnawing off my own leg.
So I got Julian to bring me some food. But I knew it would not be enough. So now I have ordered some this n’ that from 7-11, and the future where I will technically be due for my midnight snack soon be damned.
I will figure something out. The easiest thing would be to simply skip my snack tonight but that would be dee you em bee DUMB because the last thing I need right now is to miss a fucking meal.
I could hasve skipped the 7-11 and counted on the midnight snack to pick up the slack, but again, that would mean missing a meal.
So I will have to figure something out. Maybe instead of my usual snack, I will make myself a couple of sandwiches for later.
Or just make the snack and… not eat it right away. We will see.
So that’s tonight’s adventure. Wow, it’s a new Hell every day!
I will taqlk to you nice people again tomorrow.
)