What's Your Flying Monkey?
The Wizard of Oz is one of my favorite movies. As I recently discussed with a new acquaintance, all of life can be summarized by the Wizard of Oz. I even did a whole long series of blog posts a while back about Oz.
But this post is about Flying Monkeys.
Because I can remember the first time I watched the Wizard of Oz. My parents built this up for weeks--the FRENZY over it. After all this was PC (pre-cable), and movies like this didn't come on every day of the week, 24 hours a day. My God, but at some point, every station ran a FLAG and the Star Spangled Banner to signifiy that they were done with programming for the night. Remember those days?
Anyway, so we watched it. I remember thinking I wanted a Scarecrow friend of my very own. Perhaps a Munchkin. I remember asking my parents if Oz was REALLY over the rainbow. And I remember feeling absolute TERROR at those Flying Monkeys. Yes, since I've grown, the whole idea of a Zombie Apocalypse is pretty frightening, but Flying Monkeys? Come on! They cannot be reasoned with. And they can pull the straw out of your best friend! And they come out of nowhere. Shrieking across the sky.
I've decided Flying Monkeys are fear itself--at least for me. Flying Monkeys can keep me from writing. I simply can't write through anxiety. Flying Monkeys fill me with doubt. The good news is I usually slog through it. I have two days of panic and then roll up my sleeves and fight them off.
Mark Terry has a great post about getting serious. A must-read. Getting serious for me is battling my Flying Monkeys right now.
Every writer has a Flying Monkey. What's yours?
Labels: writing fears
posted by Erica Orloff at 6:47 AM
31 Comments:
They're all over on Mark's post!
Hang in there. The inner conflict you're going through will drive your writing to be better because you don't quit.
Also if he is neurotic and she's level-headed then think in terms of how people who love each other then to take on each other's traits. That can create conflict.
Ah, flying monkeys. Nightmare catalysts for children everywhere.
But she always scared me more.
I guess my flying monkey is the old doubt demon, a fear that I'm just spinning my wheels.
For me, it was The Birds. It was on TV one day, and I caught it when I was little, just a bit of it, and it totally freaked me out. NO! There was this floating, flying hand thing that gave me nightmares for YEARS! I kept seeing that arm floating around the corner and strangling me.
Writing: Writing faster. I need to write faster. There's just so much to do, so much to write. I need to write faster, much faster.
PS: I just went to Mark's post to read the comments, and my heart did that skip-beat thing it does when you hear a great hook. I think your girl story sounds WONDERFUL.
Thanks for the shout-out.
Well, I thought the flying monkeys were pretty freaky. Scarier for me were the talking trees, which also show up, I think, in "Babes in Toyland."
I think my final comment in last night's e-mail to you--about trying not to think about marketing--may be my current flying monkey.
When I start to think about the possibility that a novel WON'T get published, I start to freeze up. That's where my "oh, what's the point" thing starts going.
Prior to getting published I didn't seem to have this particularly monkey, but getting published and dropped, this monkey really dug its claws in.
Hi Richmond--
Great suggestion.
Actually, just brainstorming yesterday, I realized something--that at some point in the book it becomes about finding out the truth . . . and it ceases to be about the money, the glory of finding this manuscript. So . . . that set up some conflict.
E
Jude:
My doubt demon is . . . can I keep selling in this market? The news every day is so depressing!
E
My parents taught me to try to please people. So I always have anxiety about whether my work will "hurt" someone. That kills good writing.
Only after sixty years did it occur to me that I have a mild anxiety disorder, and that I ought to thank God for it. It fuels my writing.
spy:
Oh . . . the whole Psycho shower scene wrecked me.
E
spy:
Cool. Thanks. It's really a love story. And what if the person/thing you loved was not what everyone else said is healthy but they completed you somehow. She loves Death. Doesn't intend to, but she does.
E
Mark:
You know, I hadn't thought about it, but yes. I used to write whole pieces with no concern for whether they'd ever see the light of day. Now that I make a living at writing, I view it differently. Which is why this wip is so neat because I just don't care.
E
Joe:
When I wrote The Roofer, it was so personal, and there was a moment--which was probably more like a couple of hours--where I wondered, "What will people THINK of me or my family if I write this? What if they think it's all real? What if they think x or y . . . what if this is too personal?" And then I knew if I went down that path, I wouldn't write something emotionally honest, so I just abandoned that thinking, except for this general anxiety about it. I totally hear you . . . it would be the kiss of death for a writer.
E
Flying monkey's and lions, and tigers, and bears...oh my!
Yep. I pretty much got 'em all.
I'm on a roll with the e-shorts at the moment, and don't get me wrong, I'm happy to be getting things out there and thrilled with most of the feedback, but I have this chronic little twinge of--okay, lets be honest and call it terror--that that's all there is for me. That I'll never hone my manners well enough to be able to sit at the big kid table.
lainey:
Oh, you're ready for the big people's table. :-)
All right--big question . . . did you send the requested manuscript to NY?
My flying monkey is the fear that I'll never get published by NY. I'm using that fear to write a book so good they'll have to publish it.
The premise of a girl who loves Death is fabulous!
edie;
Thanks. Now I just have to write the Beast. :-)
E
GReat post, and so was Mark's - I wound up leaving a really long comment there, too... bloggy procrastination is at least interesting.
My flying monkey right now is rejection. I haven't sent out any more queries on my middle grade since the summer. My beta readers tell me that it's good and publishable, but that it hasn't hit the right desk yet - which is possible, but I can't tell. I don't know if I can't tell because it's mine or if I can't tell because of fear, so instead of barrelling through queries like a marine, I shelved it in favor of brand new shiny wip, which I love, but I know on some level that it's a cop out to shelf the earlier manuscript without pushing further.
I don't think it was a matter of not being ready for publication - I think it might be a matter of not knocking on enough doors yet. But I have this lack of excitement with it, I think largely because I'm so excited over the one I'm currently working on which is completely different from the middle grade.
Ugh, flying monkey. How do you get far enough away to get the right perspective? Is it a crap shoot or a matter of time?
The flying monkeys freaked the bejeezus out of me. And the Birds. And the Exorcist. Jason. Swamp Thing. Maximum Overdrive (lol, we had a trucking company in my town when that came out).
... oh, you asked about writing, didn't you?
My monkey right now is that I'll A) be boring, and B) never have another idea.
Hi Merry:
I think it's all about introspection. If you think you grew as a writer, or found your voice now, then I think it's fine to shove an old manuscript aside for a Shiny New Idea. But if you think it's really the fear of the rejection, then it's something to work through, I think, while STILL writing the new one.
I can tell you I have 200 pages written of a novel that came BEFORE Spanish Disco. I abandoned it. It's not terrible. I have blogged before that I could adjust one of the main characters (in the IRA) to make him more palatable in a post-9/11 world. Make the politics current. At its heart it is the story of a HUGE betrayal and about redemption. BUT . . . . when I started Spanish Disco, I found my VOICE. It was totally different, totally me, and represent an enormous step forward as a writer. I wasn't simply telling a story as plot points and character but finding MY unique writer voice. Booklist has several times said my characters are my "trademark." It's because I found that voice, I think. So it wasn't fear of rejection, just a realization I was a different writer.
E
melanie:
I fear boring people too. HUGE fear for me.
E
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My fear is that my very best manuscript will never get published. A few years ago I wrote a book set in Katanga, the Congo during the war of secession in the 1960's. It concerns a mercenary fighter pilot and an English journalist. My uncle was a mercenary fighter pilot over there and so I had a lot of material to draw on to create this dark fictional story. Donald Maass was excited about it but thought it should be first published in England and put me on to an associate, who hated the subject matter, but suggested other agents. They were all not taking submissions so I gave up at that point.
I have written other books since, and that one sits there haunting me. I don't want it to be e-pubbed. I guess I need to break through with a contemporary story first and then pull that one out later.
I think my biggest flying monkey, was that I would get to 90 with my teeth in a jar, and have not taken a risk I wanted to take.
With writing, I'm not sure that's true now. But I have flying monkeys in other areas.
Today's Flying Monkey* is - what to leave out of the current story so that it can become part of a series since everyone's so hot on series. But if I leave that out, then this book might seem incomplete or piss people off because it leaves loose ends. And if I never write the rest of the series, I'll have people pissed at me like I'm pissed at some of my fave authors who left me in the lurch.
Yeah, whatever. I think I think I think too much!
*Flying Monkey subject to change, grow, shrink, clone, converge, mutate, gestate, and other assorted ates without notice, rhyme or reason.
Those flying monkeys scared me but good too! I use to fear the, what if I can't do this again. So, I faced the bugger and wrote several novels to squash that notion. Whenever that particular fear crops up, I remember that I onced played the piano too. And if I sat down, I could play again.
"... did you send the requested manuscript to NY?"
Yes!
So, if I seem a bit dizzy (or dizzier than usual) it's because I've been holding my breath 4 weeks! LOL.
Mark's post was awesome! And so true. (I should probably tell him that, eh?...yeah, I'm not good at inviting myself to strange blogs...not that he's strange of course, I meant 'new'. Yes, NEW blogs)
Sarah, I'm not a thinker (well, duh) but my sister takes 500 steps sideways for every one foreward and I found this line somewhere that I think suits perfectly: "analyze to paralyze"
But, yeah, IF I were a thinker, I think I'd think carefully about series too. I LOVE them...but when an author doesn't wrap the current story, it does piss me off! Leave threads of what is to come for the secondary characters, absolutely...but I must admit, I like the 'main plot' of the book I'm reading in a neat bow I want to untie to dive into the coming plot.
(LOL LaDonna, like riding a bike? Hmm, wonder if I can still do 'chopsticks')
suzanne:
I have a couple of books like that--unfinished, really good stuff, that I am not sure fit market at all right now. Maybe ever.
E
zoe:
With four kids, I never worried about that because it always seemed like my life was very full. But I hear ya.
E
Sarah:
Subject to change. Yes. YES.
E
lainey:
PROUD OF YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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