Got Ugly Voices? Kick Their Teeth In!

It still happens, every single time. Whether I'm submitting a poem to a contest, writing a query for my latest revised novel, or pressing "send" on a job proposal through a free-lance writing site, I hear those ugly voices.

You know them. If you are human, you have heard them yourself.

Mine are vicious. They say things like, "You know nobody's going to hire you," and "It's not like your novel is even worth reading," and "Your poetry/writing/blogging/hair/talent/voice/etc. just SUCKS!" They are insidious, taking little fears and blowing them up into cataclysms, trying to convince me that this one e-mail submission will absolutely RUIN my chances of EVER making it in the real publishing world.

Yours are unique to you, I am certain, but they cover the same sort of ground, saying everything they can to tear down your dreams, to keep you from taking chances, to make you crawl into a fetal position on the living room rug and stay there for the rest of your life.

They will drive you insane.

The solution? You KNOW what it is! You have mad karate skills, honed through practice and perseverance. So use those skills, and beat the snot out of these voices. Kick them in the teeth. Pull out their hair. Punch them again and again and again until they fall down or hop out of the ring. This is war.

As they grin at you, slicing at you with fear and criticism, bobbing and weaving, talking their trash, instead of trying out that fetal position, do the very thing they say you can't do. Submit your work. Finish that supposedly "crappy" novel. Write another sucky poem, and another, and another. Practice singing until you are hoarse. Play piano until your hands cramp. Try for that out-of-reach job. Kick them in the teeth enough times, and their teeth will either break into little pieces or they will simply GO AWAY.

Don't go insane. Don't let the voices take over. Don't be afraid. Embrace your fear, accept it for what it is--fear--and go on. I feel that fear every time, but I've decided that the more times I feel it, the more I'm working towards my dreams. I do submit carefully, but the point is that I still submit.

Funny word, submit. I wonder what I'm really submitting to...

Fan-Based Fridays: Write an Awful Poem

I know I should post a bunch of examples of my own horrifically bad poetry today, but my plan so far is to make Fridays fun for readers (and for me, of course). Your task? To write the worst poem you can come up with, along these specifications:

1. Your poem must use a high level of emotion--

anger, angst, love, depression, bliss--

you know, anything that might make a reader

writhe in his seat.

2. Your poem must rhyme--or try to. The more

obvious and pathetically awful the rhyme

the better.

3. Your poem must use a cliche. More points

scored if it uses more than one.

4. Your poem must use an obvious symbol of the

intense feeling you are trying to convey.

Of course, nothing is more awful than a poem that doesn't fulfill any of the poetic requirements, so treat these as guidelines, to be dropped when they don't suit you. And for those of you who claim you don't understand poetry, give me a break. Don't write in that you would write a poem if only you knew how. Just put the godawful thing down, and make it crappy!

And don't try to show us all up and write something brilliant. That does NOT fulfill the assignment, and you know it.