Life Off the Rails: Standing Firm vs Being Flexible

 This week's topic of "When Life Gets In The Way: Dealing with a schedule for writing when the world goes off the rails" boils down to the benefits of rigidity versus flexibility...and not in the toe-touching sense. 

 I am a creature of habit. I love my daily ritual. I am so set in my ways that an atypical morning freaks out the dog. Thus, you might justifiably believe I'd lose my mind if my routine was broken. Surprise! I don't. It's life. Shit happens. Routines, no matter how hectic, are a luxury. 

Change the things you can control. Get through the rest. Sometimes, "the rest" comes with pleasant surprises and benefits you didn't imagine. Other times, "the rest" is an exhausting crapstorm with no end in sight. During those endurance marathons, your mindset is yours to control. If it's not, then don't be ashamed to acquire professional help. Your wellbeing comes before everything else. Suffering is not a requirement to be an artist, no matter what pop culture wants us to think. 

Yeah, but what if there's no hope of ever returning to normal? What if your beloved routine is shot to hell and never coming back? My dear, dear readers. Make new routines. Remember the habits of once upon a time fondly, and establish to new ones. Even if new ones start with a can of Lysol in the morning and end with hosing off your Wellies in the evening. 

In whatever new normal you find yourself, take stock of where you are, what you can control, and what you actually want. Figure out your priorities. Rank them. Schedule time to attend to those priorities. Allow for flexibility. Permit yourself to say "No" when others try to make their problems your emergencies. Cut ties with emotional vampires. Remember "fun" is a good thing. So is rest. Et voila, new routine. 

If writing is a priority, then treat it as such. Be prepared to let other things go to make room for your creative pursuit. Delegate, if that's an option, or do without. It's okay if there is something or someone more important than writing, just be honest with yourself about how those higher priorities will impact your writing. When it comes to accommodating others, recall their expectations are relevant only if you want them to be (though criminal neglect will land your butt in jail, and that's a new normal you probably want to avoid). 

Sometimes you have to be a hardass when establishing or adjusting your boundaries. A moment of discomfort reinforcing those boundaries is a price worth the peace of existing within them. Remember, you are in charge of taking care of yourself. There are times to be rigid and times to be flexible. Teach yourself to know when to bend and when to stand firm. You gain nothing by beating up yourself whenever life goes off the rails.

Be good to yourself.

Antagonist Defined

 

The dictionary defines Antagonist as a person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something, an adversary. Which strongly suggests a need to comprehend the protagonist to spin up the antagonist.

Plenty of people espouse the idea of the antagonist being a mirror to your protagonist. If the protagonist is sitting on the sunny side of the mirror, the antagonist lives and moves in the shadows.

It sets up the story and the conflict so that everything the protagonist must thwart and overcome to accomplish their goal is not just their antagonist, it’s also a part of themselves. This is the old Western movie where what separated the good guys from the bad guys is the thinnest of lines. At the start of the movie, you get the sense that good stiff breeze could blow the good guy over to join the black hat gang.

But let’s return to that definition of antagonist for a moment. Remember how it specifies a person? If you’re of a certain age, you may recall that your high school English classes listed five different types of conflict:

Man vs Man

Man vs Nature

Man vs Society

Man vs Supernatural

Man vs Self

Only one of those five allows for a human antagonist. So more broadly defined, antagonists are obstacles. They can be anything and anyone standing in our way. But, you know, a wall is an obstacle, but I might not call it an antagonist. Sometimes obstacles are only obstacles and they don’t rise to the level of antagonist. I feel like there’s one crucial piece of the puzzle left – change.

Unless you’re writing literary fiction, protagonists need character arcs. They must change and grow in order to finally achieve their goals. Yet who among us likes to have their flaws pointed out to them, much less likes to have to root out and excise those flaws? Most humans only change under duress – when the pain of the flaw is greater than the pain of change.

It is the antagonist’s job to apply that pain. It is the antagonist’s job to force the protagonist to take a long, hard look at themselves and choose. It’s the antagonist’s job to leave the protagonist with no choice but to change.

How do I pick the right antagonist for my stories? It will come as a surprise to no one – I start with character. Usually protagonists. When a story idea rears up from the deep, an antagonist usually lurks in the idea, already. But as I begin sketching out the proof of concept and doing all the pre-writing character work, the protagonists’ arcs, replete with wounds, faulty beliefs, and flaws takes shape. I get a sense of each protagonists’ greatest fears. The antagonist must then embody those fears and force the protags to face and to overcome them.

In that sense, the antagonist is partially a hero of the story. They are the catalyst that forces reaction from the protagonist who would go on taking the path of least resistance forever and accomplishing nothing.

It’s a big relief to read or see a story where the protagonist is bounced off all the other molecules inside a story flask. Especially when the biggest obstacle most of us face is whether to fold the laundry the minute the dryer buzzes or let it sit in there over night moldering.

You Did What?

You want mistakes? How much time do you have? Don't worry. I won't list them all, if only as some kind of balm for my mortally wounded pride.

My first four books will never see the light of day. Each for very good reason. But the first one - oh the first one was SPECIAL. 

I wrote an entire 100k words of a contemporary romance aimed at Harlequin. It was called GROWING LOVE. It starred an American floral designer with a best friend who hauled her across the Atlantic to the UK to design said bestie's wedding - aaaaaand just maybe because bestie was setting up the heroine with her temperamental, rock star brother. I wrote this thing and I loved everything about it. Everything. I sent it off to a specific editor at Harlequin full of expectation.

Ah, the innocence of youth. 

I'd love to tell you I got a phone call or a glowing letter in response, but we all know what I actually got were crickets. Tiny, timid ones. Well. Then came my very first RWA conference and the editor I'd queried was going to be there. So I made sure to get an appointment with her. It was a group appointment, naturally. Thus, with sweaty palms and shaky voice, I described the book to her and mentioned that I'd sent it already. She promised to look for it when she got back to work.

Not only did she look for my packet, she wrote out a detailed rejection letter explaining why she couldn't buy the book. 

See.

I'd written 100k words and there wasn't a single, solitary shred of conflict. None. Neither internal nor external. It was 100k words predicated on snark. Shush. It was glorious snark. I admit I crept back to my local RWA chapter and had to ask what internal conflict was, cause I had no clue. Some days, I think I still don't. Regardless. Pretty big mistake. Pretty big learning opportunity that led me to dive into local chapter meetings where people like Stella Cameron would come to explain the difference between internal and external conflict and why a romance had to have both and why externals always wrap before internals in the romance market. 

I *still* take writing classes. Probably always will, because there are nuances to story telling that I pick up from every single class I take. And there are still mistakes. Hopefully all new ones that we can talk about in the years ahead. 

Actual photo of the author working on her current WIP.