Backing Away From the Cliffs of Insanity

By Beth K. Vogt

Any Princess Bride aficionados reading this today? If so, when I drop the phrase, “The Cliffs of Insanity,” you’ll instantly envision the harrowing cliffs scaled by Vizzini, Inigo Montoya, and Princess Buttercup – with thanks to Fezzik – and then later climbed by The Dread Pirate Roberts.

If you’re not familiar with The Princess Bride – Gasp! – you may have read “The Cliffs of Insanity” and thought, “Oh yeah. I’m a writer. I’ve spent some time perched on the edge of those cliffs.”

I get it. Being a writer is crazy-making.

• You bet your life on maybes, dependent on the kindness of others. Agents, editors, publishers, reviewers. And, really, their decisions determining your success have nothing to do with kindness. Publishing is business, bay-bee.

• You balance your hopes on the seesaw of contradictions. Write your passion vs. write what the market wants. Traditional publishing vs. indie. Which do you choose?

• You hear – and listen to – voices. There’s no ignoring the imaginary characters in your head that tell you what they’re going to do. Meanwhile, there are ever-present voices real world voices. Your boss. Your spouse. Your kids. Your friends. All demand you focus on the here and now. 

• You face unending professional challenges. The changing world of publishing. Waiting and waiting for the longed-for yes. Accepting rejections. The mixture of joy and jealousy when a friend earns "the call." 

The craziest part? You chose this life. You're committed to this insanity, a.k.a. “the dream.” Here are a few suggestions for managing the madness:

• Pick your mentors wisely. Writers like Poe and Hemingway battled the writing craziness by indulging in mind-altering escapes. Look elsewhere for your role models. I admire my mentors for their faith and life choices, not just their writing skills. And if you’re farther along the writing road than other writers – and you always are! – mentor to someone else.

• Don't let all your dreams be based on maybes. I have limited control over my success as a writer. There is more to my life than writing. I'm pursuing other dreams with both short and long-term goals.

• Choose between your passion and writing for the market. Or not. Maybe you'll be the lucky author who hits the market when your passions collide with what "they" want. (Romantic-Amish-Vampire-Time-Travel-Steampunk-with-a-moral, anyone?)

• Jump off the seesaw. The whole "balancing the writing world with the real world" challenge? I may never master that. Sometimes my mind seems to be inhabited by shrieking eels, all screaming, "If only my husband, my kids, my friends would leave me alone, I could accomplish the more important goals!" That’s when I know it's time to shut down my computer, walk away from what I’m writing, and reconnect with family.

• Acknowledge how you’re feeling – the good and the bad. If a wide range of emotions is good for our fictional characters, why are they bad for us? Sometimes we're conflicted: over-the-moon-happy for our friend who landed a contract and also disappointed we're not the one signing on the dotted line. That's reality. I’ve found the best way to battle jealousy is to purposely celebrate someone else’s success. Write them a note or post a “So happy for you” message on Facebook.

How do you back away from the Cliffs of Insanity? (And do you know what cliffs were featured in The Princess Bride?)

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Beth K. Vogt is a non-fiction author and editor who said she’d never write fiction. She’s the wife of an Air Force family physician (now in solo practice) who said she’d never marry a doctor—or anyone in the military. She’s a mom of four who said she’d never have kids. Now Beth believes God’s best often waits behind the doors marked “Never.” As a contemporary romance novelist, Beth is a 2016 Christy Award winner and 2016 Carol Award winner for her novel Crazy Little Thing Called Love.  She was also a 2015 RITA® Finalist for her novel Somebody Like You, which was one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Best Books of 2014. In 2015, Beth introduced her destination wedding series with both an e-novella, Can’t Buy Me Love, and a novel, Crazy Little Thing Called Love. She continued the series in 2016 with the e-novella You Can’t Hurry Love (May) and the novel Almost Like Being in Love (June). Her novella A November Bride was part of the Year of Wedding Series by Zondervan. Beth enjoys writing contemporary romance because she believes there’s more to happily-ever-after than the fairy tales tell us. Find out more about her books at bethvogt.com. An established magazine writer and former editor of Connections, the leadership magazine for MOPS International, Beth is also part of the leadership team for My Book Therapy, the writing community founded by best-selling author Susan May Warren. She lives in Colorado with her husband Rob, who has adjusted to discussing the lives of imaginary people, and their youngest daughter, Christa, who loves to play volleyball and enjoys writing her own stories.

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Writer Quotes with a Twist by DiAnn Mills

by DiAnn Mills

Writers appreciate a solid writing quote. We share them and tape them above our computer screens. These precious gems of wisdom can inspire, encourage, make us laugh, or kick us in the seat of the pants. Sometimes writer quotes dump reality into our veins.

Listed below are a few favorites that I use when I need a prescription for what ails me or my story.

Inspire:

To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make.
Truman Capote

A wounded deer leaps the highest.
Emily Dickinson

Pick your idea and write!

Choreography is writing on your feet.
Bob Fosse

The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe.
Gustave Flaubert

Encourage:

Writing's still the most difficult job I've ever had - but it's worth it.
John Grisham

Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
E. L. Doctorow

It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way.
Ernest Hemingway

Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything really good.
William Faulkner

Out of the gray morning came a ...

The most difficult and complicated part of the writing process is the beginning.
A. B. Yehoshua

Kick in the Pants:

You fail only if you stop writing.
Ray Bradbury

Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.
E. B. White

Writing is an extreme privilege but it's also a gift. It's a gift to yourself and it's a gift of giving a story to someone.
Amy Tan

The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.
Sylvia Plath

Nothing haunts us like the things we don’t say.
Mitch Albom

Make us Laugh:

So I can still keep my day job?

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.
E. L. Doctorow

I can’t write five words but that I change seven.
Dorothy Parker

Half my life is an act of revision.
John Irving

If Moses were alive today he’d come down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments and spend the next five years trying to get them published.
Anonymous

Asking a working writer what he thinks about critics is like asking a lamppost how it feels about dogs.
Christopher Hampton

Reality: My personal favorite

Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I’m always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it’s very shocking to the system.
Flannery O’Connor


DiAnn Mills is a bestselling author who believes her readers should expect an adventure. She combines unforgettable characters with unpredictable plots to create action-packed, suspense-filled novels.
                                                                                                               
Her titles have appeared on the CBA and ECPA bestseller lists; won two Christy Awards; and been finalists for the RITA, Daphne Du Maurier, Inspirational Readers’ Choice, and Carol award contests. Library Journal presented her with a Best Books 2014: Genre Fiction award in the Christian Fiction category for Firewall.

DiAnn is a founding board member of the American Christian Fiction Writers; the 2015 president of the Romance Writers of America’s Faith, Hope, & Love chapter; a member of Advanced Writers and Speakers Association, and International Thriller Writers. She speaks to various groups and teaches writing workshops around the country. She and her husband live in sunny Houston, Texas.

DiAnn is very active online and would love to connect with readers on any of the social media platforms listed at www.diannmills.com.

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