A RUTHLESS ARMY RANGERFormer Army Ranger Cole Sawyer reacts on instinct he sees beautiful young widow Lisa Meador pull a gun at the bank. He foils the robbery, but when Lisa screams as the real robbers take off with her son, he realizes that things aren't as they seem. Driven by a painful secret, Cole makes the split-second decision to join forces with Lisa and trail the criminals across Texas.
A DESPERATE SINGLE MOTHER
Haunted by his failure to save Lisa's husband in Afghanistan, Cole is determined to help her rescue her son. But he's even more determined not to give in to his growing attraction to her. As they untangle clues and face the potentially devastating loss of their quarry, they soon realize that the kidnappers" motives run deeper—and darker—than they ever expected.
A LITTLE BOY'S ONLY HOPE
I've read a lot of books geared toward writers over the years, some fair, some good, and a very few (Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, and Donald Maas's Writing the Breakout Novel, to name a few) great. But Steven Pressfield's Turning Pro is the first that's had me thinking it could actually save lives.
Beginning with Pressfield's groundbreaking The War of Art:Break Through Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles and continuing with Do the Work, the acclaimed author helps readers identify and prevail against the psychological BS--everything from procrastination to perfectionism to mindless, destructive behavior--that prevents us from doing the work we sense that we were born to do. Both books, especially the former, are so helpful in framing the struggle to create in understandable terms that they have become a word-of-mouth sensation, as well as a tool that I recommend in every writing workshop I teach.
Pressfield's latest, Turning Pro, elaborates on the behaviors that differentiate an amateur/dilettante from a professional and, most helpfully, in my opinion, on the addictions and distractions that prevent all too many writers (and other creative producers) from reaching their potential. He talks about would-be creatives embracing--and often excelling in--less risky "shadow careers" that never fully make them happy, or, far more destructively, careening into negative behaviors to escape the pressure to produce.
In addition to the usual drug/alcohol addictions that you might think of, many creatives, according to Pressfield, become addicted to sex, to drama in their own lives, to getting into trouble. (No one expects a thing of you when you are broken, or in prison. The pressure's off, though the addiction might actually kill you.) Writers also become dependent on approval from without, which makes us so desperate for feedback from an editor, agent, judge, or mentor that we forget how to trust our own readers'/writers' instincts. Distractions, too, become addictions, robbing us of the ability to focus for more than a few minutes without checking our e-mail, Twitter feed, Facebook or sales rankings, and consigning us forever to the shallow end of the creative pool. (Favorite line of the book: "The amateur tweets. The pro works." Though, ironically, I'll probably Tweet this post once my day's work is complete.)
Speaking candidly of his own writer's journey (from the failures of nerve to the screw-ups to the suicidal moments), Pressfield doesn't set himself up as a guru (in fact, he warns against "gurudom," for both the guru and the follower) but as a scarred veteran of the creative wars who's sharing a few hard-won lessons. But through his examples and his wisdom, he might very well steer would-be writers from their most dangerous addictions. With this slim volume, he might save their physical, as well as their creative, lives.
Along with The War of Art and Do the Work, Turning Pro is very highly recommended.
Read Boxing the Octopus's 2009 interview with Steven Pressfield here.
For my review of Do the Work, click here.
Back in the bad old days of the Middle Ages, a device known as the branks, or scold's bridle, was used to torture women deemed to be too loud, too bitchy, or too inclined to cruel gossip. Locked into this hideous, metal gag, the unhappy female couldn't speak without injuring her tongue against the spikes.
I'm appalled, of course, but part of me says, "Heeeey, I've got a use for that. Finally, something to shut up the hellborne shrew sometimes known as the inner critic!"
You know her. She's the voice that mocks that daring new idea you just had, the one who sneers and rolls her eyes at your last paragraph, the bitch who whispers into you ear the cruelest lines of every rejection, nasty comment, bad review, or taunt you've heard since second grade. Is is any wonder you can't write, with this harpy from hell leaning in over your shoulder?
So you have to find some way to silence her to allow you to create. Some writers have tried blunting her sharp tongue with drugs or alcohol. Others whine incessantly. Countless more have given up their dreams (which allows her to sit back in smug satisfaction). But let's discount each of these self-destructive stop-gap measures.
One thing that's worked for me is to give the shrew her space - within limits. Every morning, before I get to work, I edit. During this time, I listen to her commentary and winnow out the wisdom (and it's there) from the patently-ridiculous. But the deal is that after that she has to keep her mouth shut when I'm writing. My evening sessions, especially, I consider experimental, a form of brainstorming on paper. And in brainstorming you save all ideas, no matter how bad you suspect they might be. My internal editor might raise an eyebrow now and then, but she's mostly content to bide her time, waiting for the morning, when she will get her due.
Once in a while, though, she gets out of control, so I whip out of piece of paper -- this has to be in longhand, since the computer's for "real writing" -- and try to make a list called "Ten Reasons I Can't Do This." Once I've written down each dollop of nastiness, I read the list -- and usually start laughing. On paper, the scold's "reasons" look so stupid, so self-pitying, that its easy to wad up the paper or tear it into confetti and toss it in the trash where it belongs.
These are just a couple of my methods. You can find more in two of my favorite writers' resources, The Artist's Way, by Julia Cameron, and (especially) The War of Art, by Steven Pressfield. These may be the most important writing books I own. Certainly, they're the two that I reach for most often -- because self-doubt never really goes away. It is only temporarily muzzled by the writer's act of will.
So does anyone else have a great method for silencing the inner critic? It's an arms race here in the trenches, and I'm always looking for new weapons...
Or maybe someone has a spare scold's bridle she could lend me.
Expanding on a comment I posted earlier in response to Dan Holloway's excellent post on The Cynical Self-Publisher about the difficulties of consistent branding in the current publishing/social networking environment. 
September will mark the release of (I can't believe it!) my twentieth novel, a Harlequin Intrigue romantic suspense called Relentless Protector.
People often ask writers where they got a particular idea. Usually, I have no idea, but this particular story had an unusual real-life inspiration, a brief news item on the local (Texas) news. A young mother out running errands was carjacked, then forced to rob a bank while the kidnappers held her baby at gunpoint.
Thank goodness, the real case ended quickly and with no one hurt, but as I imagined the poor mother's terror, my writer's brain took over and started twisting the truth. What if, I wondered, the robbery didn't go off as planned? What if, say, a veteran, fresh from a recent overseas tour, took it upon himself to play the hero and frightened the abductors in the getaway car into taking off with the heroine's child? (You'll probably understand why my working title, then, was Relentless Pursuit.) Many more what-ifs ensued, until the plot ended up miles from its inspiration.
But one thing that's never changed is the stomach-dropping jolt of pure empathy I felt as a mother for this mom put into an impossible situation. I'm hoping readers, too, will identify, and come along with me for the ride.
Relentless Protector is available for pre-order online in mass market paperback, large print, large-print hardcover, e-book, and audio format. Or you can wait for September and pick up a copy from a local vendor.
Today over at the League of Extraordinary Authors blog, I'm sharing my discovery of a very special artifact of life, one that linked me to my family's Civil War history--and the Civil War-set historical I was writing at the time.
Sorry about the photo quality, but I thought you might enjoy a glimpse!
...I wish all of you the best in reading it because I had delight in realizing that my ganglion and my antenna are still functioning and the darned thing makes, I believe, a good read.
