Ceara Comeau's Blog: Lessons From A Struggling Writer - Posts Tagged "life"

“A writer is only good as his or her own experience.” Have you ever heard this or a variation of this saying? Well, I have and for the longest time, I was on the fence about whether it was true or not. I always believed (and still do) that a story comes from within. It can emerge from an idea or really anything. But lately, I’ve been noticing a pattern in my past writings and present. In some way, my personal experiences find their way into my stories.

This isn’t always a bad thing as I have found that making a story personal to the writer tends to tug at the heartstrings of the reader. It allows people to see the real artist.

Now, what does this revelation have to do with anything you ask? For about a month now, I’ve been attempting to get back to an old story I wrote about a couple years back. But when I came back to it, there was so much that needed to be fixed. It was certainly salvageable, but something was missing with it and I didn’t know what until just within this past week. I had been focusing so much on one of the characters and I just couldn’t understand why she wasn’t “talking to me”, that was when I realized that she and I were facing similar obstacles in our lives. This was the origin of my insufferable writer’s block. How could I write about how that character deals with those obstacles if I didn’t know myself?

Well, I’ve been working along with this character to fight through these challenges. The more I look at it, the more I can see how educational writing is. Not from the standpoint of a class you would take in school, but a class you might take every day of your life.

We all go through periods in our life where we find ourselves procrastinating for one reason or another. That word just about sums up my entire month. My mind was consumed with daily concerns, whether that be finances or writing and I wanted an escape. So, I made levels for myself. I said to my husband, “If I get to level 10, then there’s no going back.”

Now, mind you, I said this mostly joking. But deep in my mind, I wanted to see how far I could go. Now, what could have caused me to procrastinate so much? What began this downward spiral toward the dreaded level 10?

The book I’m currently writing. That’s what.
“But you love to write, don’t you?” you might be thinking.

Yes, to infinity! But I was seriously struggling with future thoughts about the book. Money’s tight, where am I going to get the funds to pay my editor? Is the book too far out there that even my beta readers will lose interest? Will I have to put it off another year? If I don’t meet my goals and get one book out a year, people will give up on me. I don’t want to let my fans down!

Sure, a lot of these thoughts seem far out there and paranoid. But that’s what these levels of procrastination do to a person. I distracted myself with so many things this month, whether it be binge-watching the latest show, going to the mall and walk around, starting an entirely new project that had nothing to do with writing. Guys, I did it all. And I just fell deeper into that paranoid mindset.
Until I talked to my mom. (Which, by the way, moms do know everything! 😉)

I spent St. Patrick’s Day with my parents and although we had a lot of fun just catching up, I pulled my mom aside and told her my concerns with this book. And you know what she did? She gave me some serious tough love.

Now, she’s not a writer and not much of a reader, but she said something to me that was so profound, I still can’t stop thinking about it.

I expressed to her that I had no motivation to work on this book. I was concerned about money being tight and I was hoping that maybe when I get the money, I’ll get that motivation back.

She looked at me and said, “If you’re looking/waiting for motivation, you’re not going to get it. It’s what you tell yourself!”

Just that simple statement turned my mind around. She was absolutely right. Waiting for motivation to come is like running in circles. It won’t come, not unless I put one step forward and keep moving on. No, I don’t have a lot of money right now, but that doesn’t mean the upcoming events I have won’t give me the money I need.

Motivation is an easy thing to lose and a hard thing to get back. But in the grand scheme of things, life is always going to throw us curveballs. Things will come up that will dampen our motivation and cause us to seek out that level 10. But as Charles Swindoll once said, “Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.”

May has been filled with so many new beginnings for me and my husband. From getting a new car for me (and yes, it’s blue!) to house hunting at the end of this month (which is why this blog post was done at the last second).

But general new life beginnings aren’t the only thing that’s new in my life! Changes in the way I view my writing style have made a drastic change and, dare I say, improvement. I know I’ve spoken about my editing process in the past, probably when I first started this blog, but I’ve never really said anything in great detail. I mainly complained about how difficult the process is, which, to this day, still remains true.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve decided to take a different approach with my editing. Before I’d read my manuscript on my laptop several times and call it good. It’d go off to beta readers and then to my editor. But I finally took advice from my first beta reader (a.k.a my dad) and decided to print out my manuscript and read through it. At first, I honestly humored him. I didn’t understand what he saw when reading my book, but the second I started reading it, I saw what he meant.

Looking at my book from a different perspective gave me an entirely new outlook on the editing process. I read it from a reader’s point of view and I caught so many plot holes and grammatical errors. Had I continued my old way of editing and just read it on a screen, I can guarantee I wouldn’t have seen those errors as some were very small.

So, this month has seriously encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone even more, try new things, whether it be a new car, a new house, or something as simple as a new way of writing. And if I can encourage any new writers out there, I’d say, don’t be afraid to take chances!

At some point in everyone’s life, we all go through a situation that makes us question what we are doing. And sometimes a very familiar phrase will cross our minds, “This is such a waste of my time.”

Over the years, I have found myself saying that all too often, whether it be an Algebra class in high school or a new, artistic endeavor. See, that was one of my biggest fears not too long ago. I had a principal in middle school who once said to me, “I don’t mind wasting money, that’s something I can get back. But my time? I can’t get that back.”

And this stuck with me and any new choice I made in my life; I had his words echoing in my memory. Which, honestly made me steer clear of anything that I thought wouldn’t serve me a purpose.

But this past month has greatly changed my perception of wasting time.

As I’ve probably mentioned in the past, I LOVE doing family research for my family and for others. I’ve been doing it for about as long as I’ve been writing and through those years, there are still unanswered questions that I have. Sometimes I find different methods to further my “investigation” and sometimes my theories lead to a dead end and I have to wait for another theory to emerge. But, is each method a waste of my time? Absolutely not, because not only do I find more ways of utilizing the different DNA websites out there, but the stories I learn about my ancestors give me inspiration for the characters that I write. It gives them more life.

So, I want to encourage you to change your way of thinking this coming month. If you’re in a situation that you think is a “waste” of your time, ask yourself—how can you apply the situation to your career or passion? Because, if you can learn from something, then, it’s not really a waste of time!