Last month, I said I needed some time off. I was feeling kind of burned out on writing.  No, it was worse than that.  I was finding all sorts of problems in my manuscript.  Lots of little, annoying problems, and I felt overwhelmed.  I was angry with myself.  I felt deeply disappointed with myself.

So I took a break from my regular writing schedule.  And during that break, I got a surprise in the mail.  It came from… well, I guess you’ll see who it came from:

To J.S. Pailly, my dearest friend,

Hello, past me!  It is I, J.S. Pailly.  I’m you from the future!

I’m writing to let you know that in the future, everything will be okay.  Well, maybe not everything.  You won’t believe who’s President now (oh yes, it can get worse!).  But in your life and in your career, things will work out.

No, you’re not going to be the most famous writer in the world, and you certainly won’t be the wealthiest.  But you’ll do well enough to get by writing full time.  It’s a good life. It’s a good career.  You’ll be happy, which really is the most important thing.

Now I am not going to tell you how, exactly, you made it.  I won’t say what your big break will be.  I won’t tell you which of your books will sell well and which will flop. I don’t want to spoil the surprise!  And honestly, you’ll be better off not knowing in advance.  You’ll learn more that way.

But I do want to let you in on one secret to your future success.  This is perhaps the single most important thing your future self could tell you: stop worrying about the details!!!  You have a tendency to obsess over the little stuff.  Is it okay to end this sentence with an exclamation point?  Should that word be italicized?  Does this line of dialogue really need a dialogue tag?

You agonize over this stuff as if one semicolon will make or break your entire writing career.  It won’t.  Trust me.  I am you from the future, and I’m writing to let you know that none of the stuff you’re worried about right now will matter.  None of it!

Now get back to writing.  Your future depends on it.

Yours truly,
J.S. Pailly
(from the actual future!)

P.S.: Next time you go to that Chinese place (you know the one I mean), get the walnut chicken, not the beef and broccoli.  No, seriously.  This is important!

I’m not sure how seriously I should take this.  Here’s a picture of the actual letter, and, well… that does look like my handwriting.

But this can’t be real, can it?  Someone’s got to be playing a trick on me.  I don’t know. But one thing’s for sure: I will be having the walnut chicken for dinner tonight.

Since last month’s meeting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, I’ve been getting out more, doing new things, meeting new people.  It’s not like I took the “your life is soooo boring” thing seriously.  I didn’t plan this or anything.  It just sort of happened.

Anyway, if I’m going to be meeting new people, having more of a social life, and all that stuff, then I think it’s time to revisit one of my older IWSG posts.  So here, once again, is an open letter to anyone who’s had a conversation with me.

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This is an open letter to anyone who’s ever had a conversation with me.  You may or may not have been aware of this at the time, but I’m a writer. That means there’s something you should know: while we were talking, I was taking mental notes about you.

Okay, there’s no need to panic.  I’m not in the habit of taking people I know or people I’ve met and just dropping them into my stories.  Yes, some writers do that, but that’s not how my process works.

So I promise I will not create a character just like you; however, the things you said—especially the way you said them—may inform my character development process at some point in the future.  Well, maybe not in the future.  To be honest, I’m probably already using you as a source of inspiration.

If you used some particularly interesting turn of phrase of displayed some unique or striking mannerism while we were interacting, I may have actually written that down to ensure I wouldn’t forget.  I wouldn’t have done this in front of you. That would’ve been rude. But be aware that I probably did this behind your back, and I probably added you to a file folder when I got home.

I hope this doesn’t make you feel self-conscious or uncomfortable. It’s important to me that you behave naturally.  Or rather, I want you and need you to behave authentically, because authentic speech and behavior are precisely that I’m trying to replicate in my storytelling.

Thank you for your time.  I just thought you ought to know what you’re getting yourself into when you talk to a writer like me.

Sincerely,

J.S. Pailly.

Today’s post is part of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, a blog hop hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh.  It’s a way for insecure writers like myself give each other advice and encouragement.  Click here to see a full list of participating blogs.

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Today’s IWSG post might seem a bit strange at first, but please bear with me.  I promise it is writing related.

Several nights ago, I had a dream.  I was walking down a dark, empty hallway when I felt something touch my ankle.  I looked down but couldn’t see anything there.  I kept walking, but I felt it again, like a heavy weight crawling up my leg.  When I looked again, some shadowy, indistinct shape was now halfway up my thigh.

In time, I could see better what it was: a fat, dark scaled snake.  It wrapped itself around my torso, making it difficult to breath.  Soon, I heard the snake’s voice, its tongue flicking my ear.  It said things like, “For all the effort you’ve spent on your writing, you don’t seem to get many readers.”  Or, “You know that thing you saw in the store today?  You could afford to buy it if you went back to your old job.”  Or, “Are you sure someone with your health issues should be pushing himself so hard?”

My pace slowed.  I felt somewhat disconcerted, but, in my dream state, not nearly as terrified as I’d be in real life.  After all, this creature¾the whisper worm, as I called it¾made a lot of sense.  Even as it encircled and squeezed my neck, its soothing voice calmed me and made me realize what a terrible mistake I’d made trying to be a writer.  Obviously, quitting now was the right decision.  The sooner the better.

The whisper worm hissed a few final words of wisdom in my ear and unhinged its jaw so it could feed.  I didn’t even realize I’d stopped walking forward.

Then a woman who I understood to be my muse appeared brandishing a sword.  She ran toward me, her long hair streaming behind her, her dress magically luminous in the darkened hallway.  Her eyes flashed with fury, though I couldn’t tell if she were angry at the whisper worm or at me for listening to it.

In one stroke, she lobbed off the worm’s head and then hacked its long body into bits.  It was only then, as the monster dropped to the floor, that I realized how vile and treacherous this thing really was.  Somehow, I could literally see the whisper worm had been full of lies (don’t ask how to visualize that¾it only made sense in the dream).  These lies seemed to seep out of the squirming pieces like blood.

According to an article I read a few months back, scientists still don’t understand the purpose of dreaming.  One new theory says that dreams are like training exercises.  It’s a way for our brains to practice dealing with problems that the subconscious, for whatever reason, believes we may have to face.

I don’t know if my subconscious really thinks a talking snake is going to eat me, but it is true I’ve had more than a few discouraging thoughts since I left the regular job market to become a full time writer.  The whisper worm only echoed things I’d already told myself.  So maybe my subconscious is trying, in its own surreal way, to teach me how to recognize those thoughts for what they are: lies.

So this is my advice to all my fellow insecure writers: do not listen to the whisper worm.  For many of us, writing is life, and this creature (or at least the lies it represents) really will try to strangle the life out of you.