When to walk away

Just a short blog today about knowing when to walk away.  No, I'm not talking about walking away from writing--like many of you out there I am so screwed up there's no way I could even if I wanted to (which, trust me, at times I do ;)).  Alas, I'm addicted and they haven't invented a patch yet for us.  So, this isn't about that.

It's about our characters.  Why do they do what they do?  Why don't they just walk away? Sadly, I seem to be finding a number of books where the motivation isn't there.  The WRITER wanted the character to do or act or say something.  To not give up the quest.  So the WRITER made the character do it.

And lemme tell you, when I read books like that the word WRITER is in all caps.  And sort of glows.  I'm annoyed when that happens.  I read to lose myself in a character's world.  Not see the writer behind the screen.

When characters do something, especially something painful, embarrassing, stupid, or dangerous it needs to be clear what is motivating them.  It needs to be logical.  And there really needs to be no other option (this holds true even if it is an internal motivation- aka an over active sense of justice for example).  

IWSG: Fear of Success

Happy IWSG Wednesday!!

For those of you who don't know- IWSG stands for Insecure Writer's Support Group.  http://alexjcavanaugh.blogspot.com/p/the-insecure-writers-support-group.html

Once a month, writers from all over shout their fears into the cyber void and hope for a little hand holding or at least a cup of tea in support.


Today I'm talking about one that I don't really have and don't really understand: fear of success. Now my educational background is psychology, so I understand it, it just isn't one of my many afflictions ;).

Fear of success often refers to a state of anxiety that can overwhelm a person just on the cusp of realizing their dreams.  They may appear to self-sabotage (or actually do it).  This can happen for a number of reasons including being found out to be a fraud, fear of loss of privacy, fear of the "other shoe dropping" (and bad things happening).

I think for me, my fear of failure is so overwhelming that the fear of success gets squished.  I will admit, the other shoe issue does pop up in my head when things go right sometimes.And I can see a loss of control if the success is defined as having a writing contract with a traditional publisher.  The author really losses control over what they write once they have a contract.  Plus, no control over when the book comes out, the title, or the cover.

But I don't know if that fear of loss of control is really a real fear for me and not sure if that counts as fear of success.  

So which are you- fear of success or fear of failure or a combo of the two?  How does it impact your writing?

Have a great IWSG Day and thanks for coming by!