The Wizard

Okay, so the universe is messing with me. Late last night, what was on TBS? The Wizard of Oz. And what line did I happen to flick on TV at? The wizard . . . behind the curtain. And so now you all must suffer through more blog posts on the Wizard of Oz because I really am convinced all of life can be explained through the movie.




Remember when the Wizard gave out brains, then courage, then the heart? And Dorothy realized there probably wasn't something in that bag for her?

What's the next line?



Come on, movie buffs? What does the Wizard say.

The Wizard says, "You force me into a cataclysmic decision." He is going to take Dorothy himself in a hot air balloon.

I think writing--and life--are like that. We rarely change of our own volition. Human beings seem to learn the hard way. Our habits--alcohol, sex, smoking, overeating--we often don't change until we lose someone, we lose our health, we lose our way so hopelessly we've hit a bottom.

And in writing, it also sometimes takes a cataclysmic decision to move us forward. For example, Writer A has suffered through 100 rejections of her various novels. She clings to the delusion it's the odds stacked against her, it's "New York," it's whatever it is that helps her cope. But Writer A never gets any personalized rejections. No nibbles. No requests for partials. And she would rather keep her Oz-like fantasy than share her work with seasoned writer-friends, lest they tell her what she's afraid to hear--that the work isn't good enough . . . and this is what she needs to do to get her hot air balloon off the ground.

We are forced into cataclysmic decisions when we come to realize that thought we LOVE genre A, we aren't the type of writer who is going to truly master genre A without a LOT of pain because really? Our voice is genre B.

We are forced into cataclysmic decisions when we realize it's been ten years and we've NEVER finished a book.

We are forced into cataclysmic decisions when we realize we've been doing this ten years and never sent a query letter.

Whatever it is, sometimes something comes along to shake us to our core. Someone has to pull back the curtains and get real and dig in.

Even with my output, my agent pointed out that I haven't been working on any new proposals--in months. I know the market sucks. I know I'm frankly tired. I also know I've got easily a half-dozen proposals on my computer but don't know what to focus on. So I committed to spending December getting two ready. I made a cataclysmic decision. I still feel half-paralyzed because I don't know WHAT to work on. But that's OK. 'Cause I can't go to Kansas unless I snap out of it.

So . . . any cataclysmic decisions in your world lately? Just remember . . . . there's no place like home.