by Holly Lisle
When before I said that Minerva cared, this time I changed it so that she did the thing that actually stopped the Unweaver.
She acted.
Caring without action is useless.
When I made that New Year's resolution, I acted, and because I acted — first by writing that first dreadful novel, and then by writing and getting rejected more than a hundred times over a period of seven years before I finally sold something — I moved myself from a life I’d fallen into because nursing school was affordable and at nineteen I didn’t have any better ideas to creating the life I wanted to live to living the life I wanted to live.
Caring without action is useless, but even tiny action in the right direction changes a life for the better.
Making a seemingly silly resolution at the age of twenty-four.
Buying a typewriter and teaching myself to touch type by painting all the keys white and pinning a diagram of the QWERTY layout to the wall in front of my desk.
Going into the spare room every day while the baby was asleep and typing stuff on cheap typing paper for half an hour, even though I didn’t know what I was doing.
Doing that whether I felt like it or not, because I had given myself that deadline, and in my gut, I knew it mattered, even if it only mattered to me.
* * *
But what does this have to do with you?
In the real world, as in this story, there are people in the world who create, and people who destroy… and people who hunger to do something wonderful but who never take the chance.
Who never believe that they could be good enough, so they never try.
I don't know you, or where you are on this scale, but I know that dreams matter, and that making them real is both possible and wonderful.
Way back when I was getting started, after I tried to sell the awful novel and got shot down by everyone, I began writing awful short stories and sending them out to science fiction and fantasy magazines… and getting shot down by the editors there.
And here's the thing… In spite of all the getting shot down, which sucked, the process of writing and telling myself stories was fun. It was exciting. Even though while I was learning, I was a terrible writer, I was learning.
I never liked getting rejections, but every once in a while an editor would write a personal note on the rejection. A comment about why my story didn’t work, (the one I remember word for word was “Much much much much too much exposition!”)
I had to look up exposition in relation to writing fiction to find out what he meant, which back then required a trip to the library and a complicated discussion with the librarian to find out what books might have the information I needed.
I did what I had to do. I learned.
When editors started writing personal notes to me telling me they'd seen some promise in the story and I could send them something else, I felt … stronger.
Funny, odd, but true.
Every time I finished something, every time I sent it out, I was telling myself, Your dreams matter. Fighting for them matters.
Studying everything I could find in the library about writing, getting writing magazines from bookstores, experimenting with new techniques, spending time fixing up stories that came back based on what I’d learned and then sending them out again — all of that was working toward this secret future I started daring to imagine for myself in which I would get paid to write fiction.
The process of building the reality underneath my dream was an incredible amount of hard work, but it was … joyful. Not always fun, but fulfilling.
Creation is like that. You do it and something inside you wakes up and comes alive and fills you with a small, private, personal joy.
If you're hungry… if you've always wanted to do something special but never thought that you were special enough to do that… know that you are. If you have ever dared to think, “I could do something better than what I’m doing now,” you can.
It take a special kind of courage to even think that.
It only takes one more step to make it real.
Dare to act.
It doesn't matter if what you do isn't any good when you start. Making something that never existed and pushing yourself to do it better the next time is enough.
Frankly, if you never get any better than making yourself happy with what you're doing, you win.
You have to like what you do. No one else does. Just you.
And to create, you have to ignore complainers, whiners, and critics (not reviewers — folks who recommend things they like or love), because complainers, whiners, and critics are small human versions of the Unweaver. Unlike the big human versions who destroy physically and revel in the mayhem they create, these little Unweavers attempt to destroy with words — they tear away at creation they don't have the courage or skill to make. They feed on pain, they feed on destruction, and if they can get you to quit, they'll consider themselves successes.
Avoid them, ignore their opinions. They have nothing to say that matters.
They can only add to the heat death of your universe if you listen to them and allow them to interfere with your pursuit of creative joy.
Instead, know that you are worthy of your dreams, and that you are good enough to create things you'll love.
Music, art, crafts, fiction, nonfiction, science, engineering, software, games, movies… what do you love enough that you want to make some of it? The list of wonderful things waiting to exist in the world is long and beautiful.
Whatever it is, when you know what you love and want to create, act.
Take time to pursue your love every day, even if it’s just for just ten minutes.
Push yourself to learn more, to add new skills, to be better. Challenge yourself.
Days that start with creation tend to be good days. You know that no matter what else happens that day, you have already added a little bit of reality to your personal dream.
Every day that you take action, you'll grow. You'll discover hidden talent. You'll give your life a new layer of meaning.
And in the pursuit of what you love, in the act of creation, you will find unexpected joy.
Your life deserves that.
Holly Lisle
Tuesday, November 1, 2016
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Holly Lisle has been writing fiction professionally since 1991, when she sold FIRE IN THE MIST, the novel that won the Compton Crook Award for best first novel. She has to date published more than thirty novels and several comprehensive writing courses. She is currently working on the second book in her Cadence Drake series.
Holly had an ideal childhood for a writer... which is to say, it was filled with foreign countries and exotic terrains, alien cultures, new languages, the occasional earthquake, flood, or civil war, and one story about a bear, which you can read here:
http://hollylisle.com/autobiography/
GET SOME OF MY FICTION FOR FREE
Because I write in multiple genres and because I’m now publishing independently, I can write anything I want.
Which is cool.
And I have many, many ideas that I work up into tiny test stories and partial chapters, and then stall on. I like them, but I’ve come to realize that even if I can write anything I want, I’d like for what I’m working on to be something people are actually waiting to read.
Enter my Fun With Teeth: Read Dangerously program.
Here’s how it works.
You sign up for emails from my reader list. You’ll get free stories and partials as I send them out (including one the first day), links to cover art I’m testing, links to titles and cover copy I’m testing, and occasionally other things for which I’m looking for intelligent opinions.
You tell me what you think is the best of everything by voting.
I’ll decide what I work on next by a combination of counting votes and gauging comparative enthusiasm for various projects, with the note that my own passion for any particular project gets the deciding vote.
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Some things I’m just going to write whether anyone else likes them or not, because I love them and they’re keeping me awake at night. But where I’m torn between projects I’m equally passionate about, votes will be enormously helpful in guiding me toward projects.
Vote items, test stories, and notices of new work that’s gone live will show up as they’re relevant.
My newsletter is a bit irregular, but my objective is to let you meet various characters in upcoming novels, throw in the occasional sneak peek from a work in progress, and from time to time answer reader questions about my existing stories or where I am on my re-e-e-e-eally long list of fiction projects.
I hope to give you a fun, sometimes funny look at what I'm doing and what it will become, and give you some say in how the books you want to read become finished fiction.
If you like the sound of that, join me here, and start into your first free story as my thanks.
https://HollyLisle.com/fiction/newsletter.html
MORE BY HOLLY LISLE
Settled Space—Cadence Drake Stories
Tales from The Longview: Episode 3 - The Philosopher Gambit (coming next)
Tales from The Longview: Episode 2 - The Selling of Suzee Delight
Tales from The Longview: Episode 1 - Born from Fire
(originally published as Enter the Death Circus)
Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood: Cadence Drake I
Warpaint: Cadence Drake II
The Wishbone Conspiracy: Cadence Drake III (coming soon)
Other Novels
Minerva Wakes
The Ruby Key: Moon & Sun I
The Silver Door: Moon & Sun II
Talyn: A Novel of Korre (reprint coming soon)
Hawkspar: A Novel of Korre
Midnight Rain (reprint coming soon)
Last Girl Dancing (reprint coming soon)
I See You (reprint coming soon)
Night Echoes (reprint coming soon)
Fire in the Mist: Arhel I
Bones of the Past: Arhel II
Mind of the Magic: Arhel III
Sympathy for the Devil: Devil’s Point I
The Devil and Dan Cooley (with Walter Spence): Devil’s Point II
Hell on High (with Ted Nolan): Devil’s Point III
Memory of Fire: World Gates I
The Wreck of Heaven: World Gates II
Gods Old and Dark: World Gates III
Diplomacy of Wolves: Secret Texts I
Vengeance of Dragons: Secret Texts II
Courage of Falcons: Secret Texts III
Vincalis the Agitator (Secret Texts Prequel)
Glenraven (with Marion Zimmer Bradley)
In The Rift: Glenraven II (with Marion Zimmer Bradley)
When the Bough Breaks (with Mercedes Lackey)
Mall, Mayhem and Magic (with Chris Guin)
The Rose Sea (with S.M.Stirling)
Curse of the Black Heron
Thunder of the Captains (with Aaron Allston)
Wrath of the Princes (with Aaron Allston)
Singles (stand-alone short fiction)
Light Through Fog
Rewind
Strange Arrivals: Ten Tiny, Twisty Fantasy Tales
Stories in Collections
“Light Through Fog,” The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance
“4EVR,” The Mammoth Book of Ghost Romance
“Last Thorsday Night,” The Mammoth Book of Time Travel
“Knight and the Enemy,” The Enchanter Reborn
“Armor-ella,” Chicks in Chainmail
“A Few Good Men,” Women at War
Nonfiction
Create A World Clinic: A Step-by-Step Course for the Fiction Writer
Create A Plot Clinic: A Step-by-Step Course for the Fiction Writer
Create A Culture Clinic: A Step-by-Step Course for the Fiction Writer
Create A Language Clinic: A Step-by-Step Course for the Fiction Writer
Create A Character Clinic: A Step-by-Step Course for the Fiction Writer
How to Write Page-Turning Scenes: A Step-by-Step Course for the Fiction Writer
Mugging the Muse: Writing Fiction for Love AND Money
Professional Plot Outline
Nonfiction Exclusives
(These courses are ONLY available on http://HollysWritingClasses.com)
How to Write Flash Fiction that Doesn’t SUCK: A Free Three-Week Course for Everyone
How to Think Sideways: Career Survival School for Writers (seven-month writing course)
How to Revise Your Novel: Get the Book You Want from the Wreck You Wrote (five-month writing course)
How to Write a Series: Master the Art of Sequential Fiction
TITLE. COVER. COPY. Fiction Marketing Workshop
7-Day Crash Revision: How to Do the Clean-Up Revision of an Entire Novel in One (Desperate) Week (7-Day Workshop, includes short fiction and self-publishing)
How to Find Your Writing Discipline (3-Day Workshop)
21 Ways to Get Yourself Writing When Your Life Has Just Exploded (Self-Directed Workshop)
How to Write Dialogue With Subtext: Give Your Characters Conversations that MATTER (Self-Directed Workshop)
How to Motivate yourself: Discover Your Hidden Triggers and Barriers and Use BOTH to Get Writing
(Self-Directed Workshop)
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