What Change Can Teach Us

Posted on by sereichert

Ah, sweet homeostasis. That divine little holding pattern that so many of us humans cling to. Cute little creatures of habit, we like to find our lane, our niche, the familiar, the expected, the routine. I’m almost even inclined to believe that we not only enjoy it, but the longer we spend in our well-loved ruts, the harder it is to leave them. Even when we need to. Even if we want to. Even as the world changes around us. Isn’t that just when trauma and painful growth usually happens? When we are forced to change? Or are left behind because we refuse?

I could probably write a good 10,000 words alone on what change does to us as humans, but this blog is about writing, so I’m going to narrow it down.

Every writer has a rut. The niche you gravitate towards, the style you use, the genre, the POV, even your character choice…we have familiars that feel good to write in because they come easy. We know the pattern, the trope, the arc of a plot and all its points. And we could write this way forever and do, probably, quite well for ourselves (James Patterson and Nora Roberts own prime real estate on this front). But we don’t do very much growing.

Why is it important to grow?

Well, unless you ARE James Patterson or Nora Roberts (and if you are, holy shit welcome to my humble blog, thanks for reading) the chances of you scoring big on mass repetition are slim. Plus, the world of writing is changing and trending and learning to understand and at least try out these new waves, will help us adapt to the new and dynamic tides of readers. It will also help diversify your portfolio for future projects. Sounds like a 401k investment plan, right? Well—in a way it is.

Changing up your routine, your genre, your trope, your characters, even your plot is scary and hard and it may feel like you’re stumbling around in the dark. You may get tangled up, and blocked. But the best thing happens when you struggle and even when you fail. You learn. You learn what works, you learn how to take chances on solutions you might not have thought of before. You learn that you are capable of writing a flash fiction piece when all you’ve ever written were 200,000 word novels. You may learn you can plot a novel when all you’ve tried before is a 1200 word magazine article. You learn that you can explore different avenues of writing and still keep your voice.

You will learn. And learning empowers us, it invests in our ability and talents so when the next project, idea or work in progress comes around, we are armed with experience and inspiration to deal with it. So submit to a contest or journal that takes something you’re new to trying. Sign up for a class not in your genre. Try out a magazine article, or a poem if that’s not your normal route home. Do it. The worst that can happen is rejection and that’s not the worst that can happen in the grand scheme of things.

Get out of your comfort zone and face change and challenge as if they were opportunities for bigger, grander landscapes ahead. Say yes once in a while, even when it scares you.

We don’t always get to choose the changes that happen in our lives, but we can choose how we move forward with our art. We can jump out of the rut and careen into the unknown. We can fall. We can get scraped up. We will rise, take the lesson and keep leaping. To the end, that someday, we won’t be afraid of any new endeavor and will jump up to the opportunities that come by. And every time we do…we learn how to land on our feet. We will learn to navigate all kinds of bigger change if we chose to jump into the small changes.

You never know where your next great adventure will show up. Don’t let your head be buried in your rut when it does.

Photo by Ksusha Semakina on Pexels.com
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Opportunities, Potential, and Failure

Posted on by sereichert

I’m winging today’s post. It’s due tomorrow and I really didn’t have a direction to head (did I mention I lost my blog ‘plan’ for the year–there will be a lot of winging it in the next couple of months). So today, I wanted to talk about opportunity, our own potential, and reframing failure.

What do all of those things have to do with writing? So very much.

Whether you write for the love and fun of it, for yourself, for a small base of fans, for your dog, or for millions of avid readers, we are all engaged in a delicate balance of these three elements. Let’s take a look at them from a writerly perspective.

Opportunities

As a writer, or artist of any sort, when you decide to commit to your craft for whatever end result, you should look at ways to not just get those words in, but to improve them, challenge your writing’s boundaries, and explore different dimensions. Examples of creating and pursuing opportunities include:

  1. Submitting your work to journals, newsletters, publishers, or any other outside source for consideration.
  2. Signing up for classes, workshops, critique groups, retreats and conferences
  3. Writing outside of your genre or comfort zone as an exploration (you can do this concurrently with the two suggestions above)
  4. Sign up to give talks, open mic nights, teach a class (adult, young adult, children) about what you do know that would be helpful for other writers/artists.

The key to opportunity is to not limit yourself by your own doubt. You may see a dozen different submission calls, or invitations to teach or whatever, but if you’re constantly thinking your work won’t be good enough, your experience not deep enough, then you won’t ever put yourself out there. And the fact is, opportunities are rarely about stumbling into the ‘right place/right time’, they are usually more about putting yourself in the right place and the right time (creating and fostering the glints of opportunity you do find). So don’t limit your potential with self doubt. You never know what you’re capable of until you step up and try. That leads us to:

Potential

I’ll tell you the only real thing I know about human potential. It’s limitless.

Often times we are held back by our beliefs, our history, our trauma and our fears. Any thing ever in our life that told us we were not good enough, undeserving, or powerless, seeps in and builds little walls inside our brain. And we often think that once we reach those walls, that we are at the end of our capabilities. Reframing how you think about your potential is the key to opening up new roads. How do you reframe? Well, I guess first you have to set your sights on something without killing it.

How often do we tell ourselves, “I can’t do that”, “That’s impossible”, “That won’t work” even before we let ourselves think through the logistics? Probably a lot. Now–I’m not saying that EVERYTHING is possible. We can’t time travel (yet) and change mistakes from our past (why would you want to?). We can’t/shouldn’t aim for goals that hurt or destroy others. I’m saying in the field of your writing, you have no idea what you’re capable of.

So find out what drives you, what you want, what you dream of and write it all down (you’re a writer after all). Follow it up with small and manageable goals that move you forward, a little each day. This is the way we get over those walls. By building a ladder, one rung at a time, by destroying the wall, one brick at a time. Stay constant, stay consistent. And remember that self-doubt is an insult to your potential. If you want something, if you’re willing to work for it, then you deserve it and are capable of having it.

Well, that little pep talk was kind of exhausting let’s move on to my favorite of the three.

Failure

Failure! Fuck yes. Failure is my favorite and I’ll tell you why. Because failure means you were reaching for something better, something impossible, something unlikely and unsure. Failure means you stepped past your line of ‘acceptable risk’ and went rogue. Failure means you believed in something strongly enough to leap over that wall blocking your way. Failure is never a failure.

I’m already 102 submissions into my 100 rejections in a year challenge. Before I started this challenge, every rejection letter I got was a tiny little knife in the heart. A potential dream killer, a step closer to hanging up my pen and getting a real job. But you come to learn a few things:

  1. Failure is rarely fatal. (Ok–there is a disclaimer that you can totally fail something and end up killing yourself, so let’s not get into any discussions of Evil-Knievel stunts) Getting a rejection letter, even the worst and harshest one imaginable, will not kill you. But it may just teach you something.
  2. Failure teaches us. Failures aren’t setbacks as long as we learn something from them. Look I’ve had this kooky little story that I love, rejected like 40 times. Which tells me that even though I love it, there is something missing or needing cleaned up about it. I’m learning what makes a better story every time I write and send out a ‘less-good’ story. I learn that I can tweak and re-read and edit and cut out what doesn’t work. I learn to send it to the right markets. I learn to follow the submission guidelines. I learn that maybe my freak-flag is too much for some. Maybe it’s not enough for others.
  3. Repeated failure is a lesson book that you can take with you. In writing, especially, you learn what works and what does not. In life it is the same. And we gain these lessons and this experience from exploring and creating the opportunities for ourselves.

And just like that, I brought it full circle. Opportunity, Potential, Failure–rinse and repeat.

Go out there today and find or make an opportunity. Submit someplace new. Query an agent. Finish that novel. Get through that hard scene. None of these things need to be pretty or perfect. But they do need to get done.

Like this blog post.

The Beautiful Writers Workshop: Lucky Number Thirteen

Posted on by sereichert

Let’s talk luck.

Serendipity is a fickle and chaos driven goddess. Sometimes she saves us from that random bus only to drop us into an elevator shaft while we’re reveling in our good fortune. As a writer, it can often feel like some guys (and gals) have all of her attention and the rest of us are left, toiling in the trenches for even a kind rejection letter.

But most self-earned successful people will tell you its not so much about being in the right place (or write place?) at the right time, so much as creating the right place consistently.

How do we create an open door for “luck” in our lives? It’s not too difficult, but it does require patience, perseverance, and consistency.

“Damn it! I knew there was a catch! This is bullshit! I want overnight success!” 

Don’t we all, skippy…but unless you’re planning to marry a train wreck of a Kardashian you’re gonna have to do it the old fashioned way.

1.) Just like the lottery, your chances of winning increase by how much and how often you play.

You can’t expect to get that six-figure deal with one query letter to one big agent. Think of querying like a giant firecracker filled with the sparkly goodness of your novel, not a single-tipped arrow. That doesn’t mean you don’t bother aiming the damn thing, but you find the publishers and publications who take your kind of crazy, you follow their guidelines, and then you fire that baby off into the universe.

Wile-E-Coyote
Don’t singe yourself

 

2.) Make the chances you get work for you

Okay, you’re not always going to get the acceptance letters you were hoping for, you’re not always going to get the speaking gig or to meet with the agent you’d planned on at a conference. That doesn’t mean there’s nothing but a blank slate out there. Serendipity  exist in the overlooked opportunities.

Maybe they’re in things that you feel are beneath you, maybe they’re in jobs or gigs that you feel you aren’t exactly qualified for, maybe they’re unpaid or paltry in payback. But part of building your platform is taking risks, chances, and putting out there what you do have.

Volunteer to teach a writing class to an elementary school, offer up your book for free or discounted to book clubs that may be interested, try selling it at local coffee shops, be a beta reader for a fellow writer, guest speak at conferences or writing group meetings. It’s not just about marketing, its about seeing where the world can use your talent and opening your arms to offer it. Sometimes when we do this, Serendipity takes our hand.

two person hold hands
Gosh, I hope she washed it first. (Photo by NEOSiAM 2020 on Pexels.com)

Disclaimer: When I started out as a writer, it was a non-negotiable fact that you took any guest blog, free article, un-paid ad copy you could to build your resume and presence. But you can’t work for free forever, and please don’t. You should reach a point where you request and follow leads that will compensate you for what you’re worth. If they don’t, load that shotgun, and take a new aim.

3.) Finally, luck is made, not stumbled upon, by those who look for it, work for it, and build their lives and routines around the openness and willingness to jump at the chances that come their way.

Saying yes. Especially when it scares you. Saying yes, even when you might stumble down that elevator shaft. Saying yes even if you’re not sure you’re good enough or bright enough. Saying yes, even if it means stepping off your life-path for a glint of time.

Yes, I’ll send my novel out to three agents today. Yes, I will write that article. Yes, I will stand up in front of a crowd (well, a ZOOM meeting these days) and talk about what’s worked for me in plotting my sci/fi/cowboy/romance/horror trilogy (hint: its probably a lot of post-its and some mind-altering substance).

Serendipity is a seedling. She might show up randomly in our garden, in a burst of color. But we increase our odds of seeing her if we tend the ground, water and feed her, and give her plenty of light.

person holding a green plant
Photo by Akil Mazumder on Pexels.com

How will you make your own luck today?

 

Last Call

Posted on by sereichert

Okay, Y’all.

This is that golden hour, wherein if you want a chance at something, you’d better stand up and grab it.

You know those moments– those deciding moments that can change the course of our lives for better or worse. That instant you have to take hold of an opportunity, say yes to that job, kiss that girl, let go of that dream, grab hold of another.

Today is the final call for poetry submissions for the 2019 Beautiful Stuff Poetry Anthology: “No Small Things”. I’ve already gathered an amazing collection of beautiful stuff and am only looking for a few more slots to fill.

While this isn’t as life-changing as a new job or as thrilling as a kiss, it can be a launching place to your belief in yourself and your work. It can be the one step closer to your dream. It could be the declaration, anonymous or not, you’ve always wanted to write to that girl, or the world at large. A lightening of the weight in your soul, so to speak.

So take a chance. I’ve made it a safe place to land. Submit your poetry via these guidelines and see where this last call can take you. Submissions will close December 1, 2019. The anthology’s expected release date is January of 2020.

Here’s the boring part:
Poems may not exceed 80 lines, must be previously unpublished (unless if it was on authors own website), and must be the original work of the author. Please send all submissions to: sereichert@comcast.net, or via The Beautiful Stuff website: (https://thebeautifulstuff.blog/contact/) with the subject line “VerseDay Submission Last Call”.

Please include the title of your poem, your name, and a short bio in the body of your email. You may submit as many times as you would like and up to three poems per email, but please no repeated work sent. If your work is a simultaneous submission please let me know.

There is no fee for submitting.

Every submission will be read and, if selected, the author will be notified of the date of their poem’s publication on The Beautiful Stuff. Promotional links will be provided to make it easier to spread the word about your poetry.

Poets selected for the anthology will receive a free copy of the finished book and the option to purchase more at a discounted rate.

You may email me or message me via Facebook with any questions or concerns you have about the contest rules and submissions.

That’s the long and the short of it. So send me something good. Give me guts and heart, all the dark and light of your thoughts. I look forward to reading your work!

Soul Food

Posted on by sereichert

 

Sometimes opportunity knocks on the door…sometimes it knocks the door down.

 

Gentle readers, this week I’ve been filling my life up with a few new opportunities though time is sparse and energy is waning.

 

Times like these often make me question my ever-lovin’ sanity.

 

I know that we’re all busy. I know that we’re all overworked, and underpaid, and hanging on to the ledge by our fingernails. But sometimes…

 

Sometimes a light breaks out of the storm clouds above you and shines on a seemingly small and inconsequential moment. Everything else around it falls away… And you just know that this is something worth exploring.

 

This, a diamond in the rough.

 

When that kind of light shines in your life, the reason you tend to drop everything else is that what you’re looking at isn’t just an opportunity; it’s something more.

It’s food for your soul. In a world where we’ve been starving our spirit for lack of genuine sustenance, these moments and opportunities strike a stark contrast.

And we have to re-learn what we so often forget; that the soul will not be dissuaded.

Despite that fact, sometimes we fight the idea. We shy away. It’s too brilliant, it’s too bright; it could burn us or illuminate all of our own shortcomings. It will be too much work and presents a slippery a slope.

It could be our downfall.

It’s the sun and we, Icarus.

T’was ambition that killed Caesar… and all that jazz.

 

 

But what if this light is something so much bigger than you and your human fears of failure? And what if it’s not just an opportunity for you but for a better world, a small piece at a time? What if it’s a hand to someone who’s been too long forgotten. What if this dangerous journey, hard-pressed and gritty, means more than just your own happiness?

What if it’s a chance to use your voice to change the world?

 

Well then, you chase that light. You open that goddamn door.

 

You don’t hesitate, you don’t reconsider. You fling it open and feed your soul.

 

Times in this country are pretty fucking dark. I’m not even kidding, ya’ll.

We’re spiraling down the bowl of a very large toilet. Hate, hurt, injustice, anger, suicide, depression, gloom…it’s all a shadowy mass, constantly pressing in.

I’m asking…nay, tell you—chase the light. Find a way to be of some use…not for the perpetuation of hate and hurt but for the healing of our country, our world, and our place in history.

How do you want your grandchildren…your great grandchildren to remember your actions in this time? Will they remember your hatred? Will they look back to see disgusting and disrespectful behavior towards your fellow human beings?

 

If that’s your idea of legacy, you can go kick rocks, kid…I don’t want your kind in my playground.

 

It is no longer enough to sit idly by and just do no harm. It is time to actively participate in doing good. In lifting the downtrodden, and striking out against those who keep us all underfoot.

 

So go out there, find your brilliant light, your opportunity to make a difference, and throw yourself into the fire of it. Feed your soul.

Expecting The Unexpected

Posted on by sereichert

Remember Darkwing Duck?

Anyone? Anyone out there?

A child of the late 80’s and 90’s will remember the daring and billed crime fighter and his catchphrase of “Expect the Unexpected.” I’m pretty sure that phrase has since been taken over by an insurance company, or pregnancy tests, or police searches; but once, it was the mantra that a hero lived by to always be on the ready.

Adults live by it in more boring ways (insurance, family planning measures, radar alert gear on the dashboard of our cars). We’re taught to prepare for the unexpected. At least, in all of the adult ways we live by. But to expect the unexpected isn’t just about saving for a rainy day or assuring ourselves, in the most pessimistic of ways, that something bad will inevitably happen and we must be prepared for it, it’s also about preparing for opportunities.

How do we prepare for something that can’t be predicted? In a similar way as with expecting the worst; by keep open in our mindset that anything can happen and allow for flexibility in our plans.

Now, I’m a big believer in the fact that the only constant in our lives is inconsistency. Change. We can always count on things to change. The world turns, human’s doot around in their peculiar and quirky little ways and the tides of life fluctuate. Sometimes they recede, sometimes they tsunami. The more ridgid we are, the harder we are pushed against by the ever-changing, chaos-driven shift of time that swirls around us. Or the more disappointed we become when that tide draws ever farther away from us.

But if we can shift our mindset to accommodate this certainty of the quirky dance of life around us, then we will be prepared to deal with the challenges and also find opportunities in them. Because when you open your mind, you can look past the immediate hurdles of a change, to the bigger picture beyond. This is the important part. Remember how I italicized that “anything” up there? Pay attention to that.

I like to call this the “Anything Can Happen” moment. Here’s the caveat; shhhh…come closer and I’ll tell you…little closer…little closer… okay that’s too close, did you have onions at lunch? Back up a bit, here’s it is:

You have to look at what’s beyond the obvious challenge, with a positive lens.

UGH! Positivity! No! I’m a bitter and jaded, starving artist! I don’t DO positivity! It’s sooooo naive!

Yep. Sometimes it can be. Trust me, I’m a former, card-carrying member of the Pessimistic Society of Debbie Downers. I still get stuck in that rut too. But, it always leads me to nothing but dead-ends because I’m limiting myself by the perceived constraints change seems to bring.

I’m not asking you to be all zipidy-do-dah-Disney-slap-happy-blind to reality. I’m asking that you take a step back and be a realist with an eye for what good can come from the situation. There’s always something good.

Expecting the unexpected means being at the ready. Not just for danger and doom, but for the possibility of something better. To always be in a position where you can slip through the crack of those opening doors and explore new paths, different ideas, an unobstructed view. I don’t want to ruin the surprise, but this can lead to an ever-increasing sense of well-being and a little more calm when faced with upheaval.

Stagnation may seem safer, but it will leave you treading water eventually and you’ll look back on the things you should have, could have, done but didn’t have the open mind and the faith to try.

In your writing life, which can often seem to err on the side of challenging rather than rewarding, I urge you to keep your mind open. To throw yourself into opportunity and be willing to accept with a sense of curiosity and humor the outcome. Life is chaos and beauty; destruction and creation. Remain flexible and willing to see the challenges in your life as opportunities to grow, to learn, and thereby succeed.