How to Apply in Your Own Life
So there's a little analysis that can be applied to your own life, whether you're an author or not (e.g., what 20% of people in your life are causing 80% of your stress, what 10% of activities you engage in bring you 90% of your happiness and fulfillment, and so forth.) In a more complex sense, let's say there are a list of problems you're facing (I did this analysis myself recently), what 10% is causing the 90% of problems? States a different way, let's say you made a list of 10 things you wanted to address in your life, what 1 of those things could make most (or all) of the other 9 things less severe? This could be as simple as "get more sleep" - that one thing could be impacting the other negative things in your life, or it could be "save more money", or whatever. Just a little New Year’s advice from something I've found very valuable, and thank you all for being my 10%
---Christopher Harlan
2 Crappy Pages
1/1/2017
This is one of many quotable passages from Tim Ferris' excellent new book, Tools of Titans (not a plug, I don't know Tim - wish I did??, but the book happens to be excellent and actionable on many levels). I'm not going to write about the book, which is essentially an accumulation of all of his interviews from The Tim Ferris Show (his #1 rated podcast on iTunes), and instead I'm going to take those passages, excerpts, and pieces of advice from all of his guests and try to relate them to something in my own writing process, or life in general, for whatever value it may bring to you or I.
So to begin with the above quote, credited to Seth Godin (NY Times bestselling author of over 17 books), I must confess that writing book 2 is much more of a challenge than writing book 1. This is due to a few factors, some of which are personal to my own life situation as a father of 2 small children, a doctoral candidate, and a full time teacher. But some of it, I have to imagine, is somewhat 'universal' to the writing process in some way, whether it's a specific book 2 issue or not. For me, having the summer off, paired with the excitement of seeing whether or not I could actually go through this process and make my dream into reality, was enough of a push to get it written, edited, and published within a window of 2 months or so.
To fast forward to now, it's a much, much slower process. Some of that's just the practicality of not having much time, and figuring out how to make space to write within a life filled with responsibilities. But I'm hardly the only indie author with such a balance. Larger than that, I made the mistake of using that nebulous term that appears in the quote above, whenever I'd find myself (which is often) staring at a blank notepad, or struggling for ideas, or just straight up being inactive for days on end. "Damn, I must have writer's block.", I'd lie to myself, as though there were such a thing; as though 'writers block' wasn't just a name given (by writers btw) to a generalized feeling of being stuck in No Ideas Land. By then I read the above quote and realized how true it rang. So-called "writer's Block" isn't a cognitive disorder; it isn't neurological, it can't be prescribed medicine by a doctor. What it is is inaction- a sort of paralysis that can be caused largely by psychological factors that impact us all in our lives: pressure, insecurity, fear of failure, inability to concentrate, feelings of being overwhelmed, poor time management, and so forth.
So I decided to not just capture quotes that I find interesting or intriguing, but to make them somehow actionable in my own life, to some degree. Without that the quotes are meaningless; a mental handful of popcorn that tastes great for a few seconds and then is gone. So in this case I've decided to stop labeling a thing to take away its power, and instead find strategies to combat the actual things (listed above) that we choose to call 'writer's block'. Some strategies I've employed over the last week include:
A.) Creating free space - even if it's as short as 20 minutes.
B.) 2 crappy pages a day - this is directly from Tools of Titans. The idea here is getting out of a psychological rabbit hole of frustration and inaction - editing exists for a reason, so rather than setting goals that are difficult to reach (e.g., 3,000 words a day, every day), set the bar for success lower as a way to get unstuck (or, if you prefer, unblocked). This way you can produce every day, and accumulate pages in a way that (while in need of major edits) certainly won't make you feel 'blocked' - and if you can do more, then do so!
For more on this, there's a short, 10 minute video just published on Big Think (which I subscribe to on YouTube), in which Ferris himself discusses this regarding many avenues of life (e.g., losing weight, being more productive, etc.). You can find that video, if interested, here- and in the meantime I'm off to go write 2 crappy pages: https://youtu.be/4a9GTtTUsIc
Why Mia Does What She Does. . .
10/25/2016
The tattoo is on my left inner arm - each puzzle piece representing a different student who left a particular impact on me. I worked in the world of Autism just as it was gaining the traction of awareness it has in our culture now - I remember reading Temple Grandin's books before Claire Danes won an award for playing her in an HBO film; and I recall when the Autism puzzle ribbon was so uncommon that an elderly man approached my car in a parking lot to ask where he could get one just like the one that sat magnetized to my bumper. I had an extra one in my glove box, and I remember how happy he looked when I handed it to him. I sound like I’m 100, don’t I? I’m only 35, but that’s how quickly Autism has gone from fringe disorder to one of national awareness.
I’ve been lucky enough to do a few author interviews on promotional websites and/or the blogs of people I’ve met online. The questions in those interviews (as well as those from individual people who have contact me) always pertain to the degree to which Impressions of You was based on any personal experience. I like to joke that, yes, I looked in the mirror and saw Wesley, and just started typing. That’s a lie, of course, but there were aspects of the book based on myth personal experiences. Those who’ve read the blurb (or the book itself – thank you bloggers!) know that Mia is a special needs teacher who works with low functioning, special needs children. The inspiration for that came directly from my own experience, although I was never a teacher. As some may know, I worked in the exact same type of school that I describe Mia working in – a small, private school on Long Island, New York, for speech and language impaired children. Although on paper the school was for any students with speech-language deficits, in reality the vast majority of the population (at least at that time) was children on the autistic spectrum. I worked in classes of non-verbal, aggressive, severely autistic students as a TA and a 1:1 aid for seven years.
In my time doing that work (which I never considered work) I was bitten (like Mia) stabbed numerous times with pencils, scratched almost daily, hit in just about every part of my body with fists, head-buts, and spit at on multiple occasions. Even dealing with all of that, I can honestly say that it was the best job I’ve ever had.
We weren’t there to teach math as much as we were there to teach how to sit at the math table for more than 3 minutes. We had book reading circle time, but the book was secondary to the kids not attacking on another. In short, we had the most hazardous and most rewarding jobs simultaneously, and I saw many people come and go, for all the reasons I allude to in the book. Girls (mostly) coming out of college programs would spend a single afternoon in our class and quit their jobs; those who did come back usually reported sitting in their car and crying after their first day because of the stress. It was the most wild, rewarding, fun, and amazing job I’ve ever had, and I knew that I wanted to make the experience a part of my main character. At the same time I didn’t want to write about special needs at length – it’s a romance novel, after all – so instead I wanted to give only glimpses into the stress of that world, and ascribe Mia those characteristics that I witnessed in so many great women who I got to work with over the years.
What I describe in the book, based on my personal experience, is very specific. It’s called “Autism Spectrum Disorder” for a reason, and my experience was very small and very specific, and wha
t I write is in no way meant to be generalized, but I’m thankful every day for spending my days with those kids, so many years ago now. It was nice to revisit them as I wrote Impressions of You.
Writing the non-alpha alpha male
10/23/2016
A New York Times article that caught my attention long before I started the Impressions Series is titled “Tapping Your Inner Wolf.” The article caught my attention immediately because of sentences like those below:
“The main characteristic of an alpha male wolf,” the veteran wolf researcher Rick McIntyre told me as we were watching gray wolves, “is a quiet confidence, quiet self-assurance. You know what you need to do; you know what’s best for your pack. You lead by example. You’re very comfortable with that. You have a calming effect.” The point is, alpha males are not aggressive. They don’t need to be…”
I’m a huge fan of anything that questions the norm; and in this case it seemed to me that almost everyone who described the so-called ‘alpha’ male was literally describing the last person that would ever inspire any sort of following. When I read the article it interested me that the author captured the true essence of alpha qualities. After all, the very name ‘alpha’ would indicate a ranking; a place atop a hierarchy, as in the alpha of a pack of wolves. In pop culture, however, somehow the expression became coopted to mean the dominant, aggressive male monkey whose walking around with a bad attitude and a puffed out chest, ready to strike fear into anyone who stood in his way. Now, let’s transition to the writing of Impressions of You. . .
So when I set out to write the book, I knew that having a male character that women would want to read about was crucial to being successful. After all, it’s a romance novel! If the male character comes off as too abrasive, or too aggressive, or otherwise unattractive, all the well strung together sentences in the world won’t save your book. So I knew that who Wesley was would be key to the telling of the entire story, even though that story is seen through Mia’s eyes. So how did I go about crafting Wesley Marsden from scratch?
I knew that I wanted to keep him mysterious and that the mystery surrounding him would unfold as the story unfolded; and I of course wanted him to be physically attractive.
But then came this whole alpha male thing. . . although there are some great books that follow this model, I really had no interest in writing about a dominant asshole who was hyper sexual towards the main character the second he laid eyes on her. I wanted instant attraction, and I wanted to a strong connection, but I didn’t want to write 300 pages of a good looking douche. A handsome asshole is still an asshole at the end of the day, and more than anything I wanted to write a good man who was living with a few things that haunted him. At the same time, I wanted him to fight tooth and nail to confront those demons for the woman he ends up loving – Mia Careri. In writing, as in life, there’s a balance. The connection between characters, the sex, the banter, the drama of the story – all things must be balanced, and more than anything I tried to add complexity to the characters without devolving into too dark or too over-sexualized a story. That word – story – it always comes first. And I wanted a story of a guy I could relate to – not the guy who’d steal your girlfriend in high school and break her heart. Even with a six pack and chiseled face, that guy will always be a dick, and I wanted to write my alpha – the real thing – a guy who can be confident, caring, and most importantly puts the needs of those he loves above his own. Wesley is the most non-alpha-alpha I could write – and I wouldn’t have him any other way.
Acknowledgements
About the Author
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Impressions of Me (Impressions Series Book 2) Page 20