DO NOT PANIC!

from Jacqueline


As Patty reminded you several times yesterday, we are having an hiatus, as in a summer vacation. We will be back. Click on the link below to receive an email the moment a new post appears on nakedauthors.com. Do not fret so much that you give yourself an hiatus hernia.

Oh dear, that just shows you how much I need a break! Mind you, though I will not be writing my posts, I will still be working hard, but am hoping to be able to have the odd day off here and there.

In any case, before I leave you for my hiatus holiday, I think this might be the moment to talk about fear, as in feel it and do it anyway. Whatever “it” may be, and for writers, it usually has something to do with hitting a send button or trooping down to the post office. I’ve just made the long drive down from the San Francisco Bay Area to Ojai, a journey I am well-used to as I make the trip about once or twice a month. I have become an avid fan of audio books and have learned a lot about pace, rhythm, language etc., etc., through listening to books on my six hours each way on the 101. On this occasion, I listened to a book that I have been putting off reading for years: Into Thin Air by John Krakauer, which tells the story of the tragic and unbelievably catastrophic series of events on Everest in May 1996. Much has been written and spoken about this misadventure, so I will not add to it at great length.

I had a peripheral interest in that one of my dearest friends is the great-niece of Eric Shipton, a man who scaled Everest (but did not reach the summit) and at one point drew back from further attempts because he abhorred the gathering commercialism and blatant disrespect for the mountain. Anyway, I was listening – riveted – to Krakauer’s book, and kept thinking to myself, “These people are all absolutely and completely mad.” Nuts. Devoid of all sense and reason. Why the heck would you want to go somewhere that cold and with such thin air, knowing it could kill you? This is why we have National Geographic, so that we lesser nutcases are kept well away from these places. Don’t they read their mythology? The highest places are the domain of the gods, and you don’t mess around up there. It’s Russian roulette Greek tragedy style.

In any case, with the book coming to a close (incidentally, as I came into Santa Barbara county on the 101, and saw the smoke billowing from fire after fire after fire atop the hills), I began thinking about fear, especially – and this is not such a leap – in the wake of the Book Passage Mystery Writers’ Conference and the various discussions that came up around fear. Fear of not being good enough, fear of rejection, fear of this and that. The fear that can paralyze a writer into inaction. My thoughts dovetailed with my post last week, about authors who have written a first novel while beset by difficult circumstances.

I once told someone that the reason I knew no fear when it came time to send out my manuscript, was that having almost killed myself in a riding accident, just sending off a manuscript was a walk in the park. What were the editors and agents I’d contacted going to do – come round and break the other arm?

So, for all of you who have promised yourselves that you will finish a book this summer, or start a chapter, or complete a manuscript by the end of the year, but you’re worried about this and that in connection with your work – get over it. You are not in Iraq, Afghanistan or Zimbabwe. Most of you know where your next meal is coming from, if not your next gallon of gas. You are writing, and that’s great. And you haven’t bitten off more than you can chew, because you’re not on a bloody mountain somewhere – at least, after what I’ve just listened to, I hope you’re not. And remember, editors and agents do not troll the streets at night breaking into houses to steal manuscripts. No, they wait for them to come in. If you’ve a finished manuscript, don’t let them wait a moment longer, because as soon as the summer’s over, they’re looking for good books all over again, and yours might be one of them. Tarry not. Thank your lucky stars that you have the freedom to write and get on with it. You do not need oxygen to breathe in order to send off a manuscript, though you may gasp a bit when your work leaves your hands.

And before I take the dog for a walk, I saw a great bumper sticker yesterday:

1.20.09 The End of an Error

And I shall add: We hope. Oh dear Lord, we hope.



Happy Fourth. Have a great summer. Sign up for the “We’re Baaaaack” notice, and we’ll see you later, alligator.