TURN UP THE HEAT

by Anne Mohr

Maybe it’s because now that I live in Southern California and it really is sunny most of the time, I’ve been thinking about the sun a lot lately and I wondered. What if a nuclear weapon was fired at it?  What would happen to the sun? I theorize that being the hot ball of fire that nothing would happen to it. I think the weapon would disintegrate and basically fizzle out before it got anywhere near the surface. Now I’m not a scientist and I don’t know any that I can ask, but I think my theory is reasonable and here’s how I’d like to apply it to writing.

Imagine having the kind of power within to ward off any bad thing that comes your way, or conversely, the ability to disperse warmth and light that allows life to flourish in your own galaxy. Whether we know it or not, this strength is within our capacity. And, as writers, we should draw on it to help create our stories and get them published.

While we can work out every detail and try to plan for every eventuality, the truth is that there are no guarantees. You can write the best story making certain that it is as close to perfect as a story can be, submit it to the editor that is absolutely looking for the type of story you wrote, maybe even asked you to send it to her, and still get a rejection.

Regarding rejection, if we can blow away the aspect of rejection that can sometimes be felling, we can then focus on only the part(s), if there is/are any, that we can learn from. This leaves us free to do what Albert Einstein defined as insanity, “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Of course when writers submit again and again, it’s not insanity. Well maybe it’s a little insane. However, we call it perseverance. As an unknown author put it, “when the world says, give up, hope whispers, try it one more time.”

Just like when writing, we have command of the worlds we create in our stories, we absolutely have the ability to control how we react to what is going on around us. Be it passion, money, fame, all of these things or just some, whatever motivates us to write, we have to be dogged in the pursuit of perfecting not only our work but our reactions to how that work is received. By making ourselves impervious to the things that may hinder our ability to write, we can focus on what is in each of us that compels us to continue writing. It is not arrogance when we take control and decide that nothing bad will stop us. It is a conscious effort to keep moving forward regardless.♥

Anne Mohr has been a member of RWA/NYC since 1993. She lives in Southern California, and is a real estate agent in both California and New Jersey. She writes as Jacqueline Stewart, Helen St. James and Max St. James, and is published in short fiction (magazines.) At the forefront of several writing projects, she is currently writing a screenplay.