Putting Yourself Out There

I’m gearing back up to return to the university in the fall. After a heck of a couple of years, I’m resuming my very slow attempt to get a few extra college degrees. Mostly, it’s an excuse to listen to people much younger than myself learn cool stuff, and an excuse to listen to people somewhat younger than myself share their expertise.

I get inspired by all of that.

I’m searching class schedules and realizing that my Spanish has gotten rusty again, so there is probably a summertime online refresher in the complicated tenses on the horizon. Even though, really, using the proper tense is not my problem so much as finding the correct vocabulary word. As in any word that might suit in that circumstance. The vocabulary was the first thing to flee my brain in the hiatus.

The thing that fascinates me the most, though, is watching the theater kids, particularly those who are (at 18, 19, or 20) convinced they’re going to be Actors! (and yes, the exclamation point is there for a reason). Most won’t be, not because they’re not good enough, but because they don’t listen well and they already think they’re God’s gift to the profession.

Mostly, I watch the ones who are insecurely secure in their dreams. These kids know exactly what they want in their lives, but they’re not sure they’re good enough to get there, so they work extra hard to figure out where they should be.

Sometimes it is not where they expect to be. In the theater department in particular, they have to take courses in all aspects of theater, and they sometimes learn that they love a part of theater that they hadn’t expected to like at all.

Surprisingly enough to my younger self, the one who didn’t have the courage to follow her musical abilities into a music degree or to even walk into the theater department at the University of Wisconsin, there are a lot of introverts in theater. Some of those introverts are writers, yes, but many go onstage and perform. Most, in fact, because they like being someone else in front of a group. It’s safer for them.

I get safe. It makes sense. I also get the fear of doing something revealing in front of a crowd. Mostly, that fear is gone for me now. Years of public speaking and talking on panels at sf conventions eased my mind.

Still, I was pretty shocked when I learned that a lot of actors and musicians suffer severe stage fright—people you’ve all heard of. If they have to go onstage, they sit in the dressing room and shake, or, in some cases, puke, because they’re so scared.

Had I known that…well, I doubt I would have done it, because puking is not something I voluntarily do, even for art…but it certainly would have eased my mind about what for me is relatively minor stage fright (in comparison to what these folks have).

Really, though, it’s what they are willing to do for their dreams and their art. They put themselves out there. More importantly, they figure out how to put themselves out there.

Every year, I have a conversation with at least one of my writing students who is terrified for some reason I never probe of putting their work in front of an audience. It always boils down to the fact that they’re afraid of being seen.

Sidebar from a nearly 65-year-old person who has worked in the arts her entire life: You are never seen. Not in your entirety. You may reveal all of your secrets and no one will care. Or they’ll comment on the portrayal of something minor, like the cat, and kvetch about that. It’s disappointing…and freeing.

However, the fear of being seen is a real and crippling fear, stopping a lot of prose writers and poets from following their dreams. Writers, unlike actors and musicians, can hide from the world. You can use a pen name, set up a legal entity that doesn’t use your real name (in an obvious manner), and never let your picture out into the world.

You can hide and publish your work. That’s the great thing about being a writer.

Usually when a writer figures out their own personal workaround, they put their work on the market, whatever it means for them.

I had one of those discussions this past week with a couple of different writers, some in person, one online, and when I photo-bombed the Writers’ Block webinar on Wednesday.

After that moment on the webinar, I spent a few hours thinking about how universal that fear is among writers. I’ve been in this business almost fifty years now, and I’ve seen it every year.

Then Dean and I watched a little bit of The Voice. We often watch something to rest our poor brains, usually at dinner. We’ve moved away from news (since there’s no way that will relax anyone), and gone to documentaries and The Voice.

We usually watch a segment or two and then go back to whatever we were doing. It will take us days to watch an entire 2-hour episode.

So that Wednesday night, we watched two members of Michael Bublé’s team duet on a song he wrote, called “Home.” Most of you know it as a super hit for Blake Shelton, but Bublé wrote the song and released it first.

Before the battle, Bublé talked a bit about writing the song. I can’t find the clip for that (mostly because I’m lazy, but also because it’s not that relevant), but I did find the one that caught my attention.

It got me thinking, and I went up to my office and made a list.

Most people who work in the arts realize that their work has to be put out into the world.

• People who write music must perform that music to sell that song/sonata/whatever. They may be terrible singers. They might be shy as hell. But they need to make, at minimum, a demo tape.

Often they perform their own work, in some kind of concert, and it is that work that ends up catapulting them into whatever level of fame they will reach.

And then, partly because of the vagaries of the (exceedingly complex) music copyright laws, they may hear someone else cover their song. They might be like John Legend, who has said on The Voice that he cannot listen to a cover of one of his songs fairly. Or they might be like Bublé who not only assigned the song, but was honored by the way the singers performed it.

• People who write plays write them with production in mind. What is the point of writing a play if it’s just going to languish on your desk? The problem, though, with writing a play is that when it is performed, there will be an area that the performers cannot do or cannot say.

In early drafts of a play, the playwright will have to be nearby to do some kind of work to smooth out that section. Sometimes it’s because the star is a doofus and can’t say a word with more than two syllables, but mostly it’s because that section of the show, when performed in previews, did not work. Neil Simon deals with this a lot in his autobiography Rewrites.

• People who write screenplays know that they’re writing something that will be performed as well. I had a very famous writer friend who wrote the wordiest damn screenplays ever and had, in his contract, a clause that said not a word could be touched.

After his early years in Hollywood (when he didn’t have enough clout to have that stupid contract), he rarely sold a screenplay and when he did, it was a charity sale from a friend who would buy the screenplay so that the writer could retain his Writers Guild membership. (And then the charity friend would do a shooting script.)

• Artists know that their paintings or photographs will be displayed or used on covers or put on t-shirts and prints and everything else.

Even the lowest of the low, graffiti “artists,” the ones who deface buildings, understand that their art needs to be seen. (I’m grumpy about graffiti these days since Vegas has a lot of wall murals all over the city—and the freakin’ graffiti “artists” will deface them. Grrr. I hate people who deface other people’s art.)

• Even young poets these days understand that they might have to get up in front of a crowd at a poetry slam and declaim their poem.
• And let’s not talk about comedians, who are also writers, who get in front of a crowd, and risk bombing night after night after night. Dean and I saw one of George Carlin’s shows in his last years, and Carlin was testing material so new that he was holding paper torn from a notepad.

Some of it was funny. Much of it was not.

Fiction writers—people who write novels and short stories—are the only artists I know who expect someone else to publish their work. Fiction writers, particularly those who are traditionally published, believe that all they have to do is write it, and everyone will flock to their feet.

That’s an ingrained attitude, and a hard one to fight. Heck, a lot of these writers are worried when they decide to give a copy of their manuscript to an editor at a book publishing house or (worse) an agent.

Writers do not expect to have their work in the public view, and often fear it.

I’m not sure why this is. I think it’s just part of the culture.

There are movies that show writers at work, and someone else dragging that “brilliant” manuscript off the writer’s desk. Or the writer “gets discovered” in an English class (never happened when I was in school). Or someone else mailed off their manuscript.

That myth goes hand in hand with the idea that writing should be hard and writers should suffer while doing it. That myth also goes with the idea that anything written fast is terrible and anything labored over is brilliant. And that myth goes with the idea that being prolific is a sin. (Tell that to Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare.)

Indie writers have a similar problem, but it’s couched in other terms. I don’t want to learn how to publish. That’s going to be hard. It’ll take too much money or I can’t do covers or…or…

Okay, I want to reply, whatever roadblocks you want to set up for your work, go ahead.

But real artists—be they musicians or painters or (yes) writers—need to have their work seen. They need to figure out how to get on that stage despite their stage fright and put their art in front of an audience.

Otherwise the art will be destroyed when they die, tossed out with the trash or deleted off their computers.

Oh…and let’s talk “covers” for a minute. Blake Shelton’s version of “Home” is very different from Bublé’s version, which is different from the duet that aired on The Voice this past week.

If you’re lucky as a writer, and if you put yourself out there, at some point, someone will want to do make another piece of art using yours as inspiration. Maybe a movie, maybe a TV show, maybe a dramatic reading or an audio book.

That’s a “cover” for lack of a better term. (It really is a derivative work, and it does fall in a different place in the copyright law, but go with me on this for a minute.) Instead of being all protective and saying that you must control all things, say yes…if the contract terms are good.

That’s all.

A singer doesn’t have to get permission to cover a song. I can sing “Home” badly in front of an audience if I want to, but if I get paid for it, I need to let the songwriter know that I’m going to be covering the song. The songwriter cannot say no.

It gets complicated after that. (Okay, it’s already complicated.) But implied in all of this is that the music needs to get in front of an audience. The play will be performed. The screenplay will become the basis for a movie. The painting will hang on a gallery wall.

What makes writer-artists any different? Why should we fight so hard to create something and then be afraid to put it in front of an audience. Particularly since we’ll never see that audience. We don’t have to hear from them either, if we keep our email private and don’t go on social media and don’t read reviews.

What makes fiction writers so dang delicate? Every artist has fears. All of us do. If we want to make a living at our art, we learn to overcome the fear.

It may take a dozen workarounds. It might mean the writing equivalent of puking in the bathroom before stepping on the stage. But if you value your own work and your own dreams, you learn how to get past whatever is stopping you.

Just like other performers do.

“Putting Yourself Out There,” copyright © 2025 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Picture of Gavin is there because, despite appearances, he’s terrified of putting himself out there.

Then there was my Spanish class, which really has been a godsend. I needed to focus so hard on it that there wasn’t room for the pandemic or the election or the economy or my writing or my various other projects. If I needed an escape, I would take a practice vocabulary quiz or work on the various forms of the subjunctive.

The class was kicking my butt, though. I couldn’t fudge my way through it, not that I wanted to. I’m back studying the language because I don’t have enough vocabulary and I don’t know what I’ve been calling the “fiddly little words,” meaning words like “de” and “por” and “para” and other conjunctions that can sometimes mean the same thing in English, but in Spanish hold a lot of subtle differences. I’m educated enough to know there are differences, but not smart enough to figure out what those differences are.

Then there was the never-ending election which, for five days, I couldn’t look away from (not even for Spanish), and news of the vaccine, and the new COVID restrictions and the alarming rise in cases and and and…

I had blogs to write and other projects to finish, and exercise to soothe my mind. Email got jettisoned. Reading got jettisoned. In some instances sleep got jettisoned.

I didn’t feel like I was on any kind of treadmill because I knew that the pressure would leave by December 7. That was my final exam, and I could rest, if I needed to.

Whoa, boy, did I need to. Me, myself, and I planted ourselves on the couch and watched a movie we’d been longing to see. I still had other obligations to fulfill, but I only did a few of them.

Today, December 8, I’m doing a few more. I’d hoped to write a longer blog. I have four sketched out. Yes, I’ll be doing some year end stuff. But I don’t really have the mental bandwidth to explore the things I want to explore. I will in the next few days. I’ll be revising the big honkin’ Diving book, planning future projects, and writing some blog posts, as well as doing some editing.

And, believe it or not, that’s less work than I’ve been doing.

I’m actually feeling organized, even though I’m not. I realized that the uncertainty caused by the election and the virus had taken my brain and held part of it hostage. As Dean said to me just last night, now that we know what contours the future will have, we can plan.

Until November 7, we had no idea who would be sitting in the Oval Office come January 20. The two men running for president have two such different visions of America that, for once, the paths ahead of us were starkly different as well. If Trump remained in office, then our future veered in one direction. With Biden, the future will veer in damn near the exact opposite direction.

When it comes to planning, politics really doesn’t matter. Certainty does. I have no idea on a day-to-day level what Biden will do. But I know what kind of president he will be, just like I knew what kind of president Trump would be in his second term.

The problem was this: Until we knew the result, we couldn’t see past January 20. Now we can.

Add to that the pandemic. It has injected a level of such extreme uncertainty into our lives that we all feel jangled. Here in the States, things are particularly fraught, because we have anti-maskers and anti-science people who refuse to take the virus seriously. I’ve lost several friends because they live in areas where the virus is essentially out of control, and someone got too close to them.

For all the hope of a vaccine, we didn’t have one until this fall, and now we have three possibles. People smarter than I am are planning how the vaccines will be distributed, who will get them first, and where they will go.

Yes, that will be dicey and sometimes fraught, but it will get done. By the fall—if the anti-science people don’t fucking poison yet another well—we will have about 80% or more of the U.S. population vaccinated. And, our experts tell us, that’s enough to “starve” the virus, and make it almost—almost—impotent.

Which means we can hug our friends again, go to concerts, walk into a crowded bar, and sit in a classroom without worrying about getting sick. Yes, there will still be restrictions, maybe even masks for a year or two, but hell, that’s a small price to pay for peace of mind.

Those two things—knowing what kind of government we’re going to have and knowing that a year from right now we will no longer be dealing hourly with the restrictions caused by a terrifying virus, freed my mind.

I can now look forward with some degree of confidence. Not certainty, because on a micro-scale, a personal scale, there’s still a lot of uncertainty, but with confidence that we (the world) will be moving to the next phase of our lives quite soon now.

We will have to deal with the wreckage this virus caused, and that will be a post in the next week or two or three. We don’t know the entirety of that wreckage yet, but we will, eventually.

We are seeing pieces of it, though.

For example, in the past two weeks, I’ve also heard from my movie/TV partners, all of them wanting option extensions. I’m not the only one feeling like projects can move forward again. The entire film/TV apparatus is beginning to feel that way too, even as LA and the rest of California are moving closer to lockdowns again.

The film/TV industry is changing so dramatically that I doubt we’ll recognize it in two years. For example, Warner Bros. will release all of its 2021 films on HBO Max as well as in theaters. All of the films, including the big tentpole blockbusters. The implications of this are just beginning to be understood. Take a look at this article in Variety to understand why this is such a big deal. Variety, The New York Times, and other outlets aren’t quite able to wrap their minds around what this all means yet. Neither can I, which is why I’m saving this for a post when I actually have a brain to assist me.

Then there’s the big publishing news. Two weeks ago, the news that Bertelsmann (Penguin Random House and more) was going to buy Simon & Schuster, giving Bertelsmann more than 50% of the traditional book market. There’s all kinds of controversy around this. See this Publisher’s Weekly article for just one take on that.

In order to “prove” that they weren’t going to take over more than 50% of the market (which isn’t allowed here in the U.S.), Bertelsmann cited self-publishing books, which Bertelsmann had previous dismissed as unimportant. Frankly, I doubt the argument will hold, because the publishing industry is splitting into the Ancient camp, which this merger is part of, and the Future camp, which is indie/self publishing. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out over the next year. I can tell you this, though. If your dream is to be traditionally published, your hopes of actually retaining your copyrights and making a living have just decreased dramatically. And they weren’t that good to begin with.

The third little tidbit that I have for you isn’t earthshaking at all. It is just a tiny little fact I discovered on the way to something else.

Apparently, the classic holiday movie, It’s a Wonderful Life is based on a self-published short story. According to Christmas in the Movies by Jeremy Arnold, writer Philip Van Doren Stern couldn’t sell his short story, “The Greatest Gift.” And believe me, back in the last 1930s/early 1940s, there were a lot of markets to try.

When he realized the story wasn’t going to sell, he made it into a holiday card and sent it to people he knew—including his Hollywood agent. The agent “promptly” sold the story to RKO, but RKO couldn’t get a satisfactory screenplay. So they eventually sold the rights to Frank Capra, who ended up making the film.

Even in the tight-as-tight-could-be old days of gatekeepers and people who looked down from on high at self-publishing, some writers still believed in their work. Rather than looking for validation, Stern believed enough in his story to make a gift of it.

And that gift gave back on a rather amazing level.

When I tell writers that they need to believe in themselves and their work, this is what I mean. Because writers who believe in their work never give up on it. And when you believe in yourself and your work, you make things happen, rather than let them happen to you.

Now, I’m going to make a few things happen. I need to answer a week’s worth of email, figure out how I’m going to schedule the rest of my week, and then find yet another nice comfy spot on the couch to give my poor tired brain a rest.

I don’t think I’m going to focus on the subjunctive much either for a while. At least until next semester. Which starts in just 42 days, not that anyone is counting…

P.S. The photo is a random holiday shot of my cat Gavin, just because…

“Business Musings: Tidbits and Rest: A Process Blog,” copyright © 2020 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Image at the top of the blog copyright © 2020 by  Kristine K. Rusch.

A note from Kris: Yeah, we should have the next installment of Target Audience stuff here. I got sidetracked on my blog-writing day, and decided to come at the installment later with a fresher mind than I have right now. Also, I did this process blog a few nights ago, and worried that it wouldn’t go up on the website for weeks and weeks. I think it’s better to illustrate my revamp as it happened. Or that’s the theory anyway.

Enjoy this post, and we’ll be back to our regularly schedule topic next week.

My cat died in June. He wasn’t just any cat. He was what Dean and I call “a heart cat.” We have cats whom we love and cherish, and then we have special cats—the ones who simply take over our hearts and hold them hostage. Galahad was the best of the best, and we had him for fifteen years.

I’m telling you this not to get sympathy, but because Gally’s death factored into my process this summer. I knew he was going to go at some point, but he went fast. Fine one week, gone the next. Not as fast as our Ella, who literally died in an instant (vet thinks heart attack or stroke) in February, but still, faster than expected.

That, on top of the deaths of several friends since the first of the year, some close and some not as close as they once were, left me reeling. I hadn’t realized how down I was until I figured out that my writing had nearly ground to a halt.

In fact, the one thing that kept me going was the schedule I had drawn up earlier in the year, the one I wrote about in the second process blog in March. I hit my targets—except the week Gally died, and even then, I was close.

But my targets didn’t stretch me. That’s what sunk in after I lost my beautiful kitty. I realized I hadn’t been working as hard as I wanted to. I’d been dealing with outside issues. I decided to turn inward, deal with my grief and upset while getting back to work. (I process things better when I’m writing than when I’m not.)

My word count returned to its pre-2016 levels. I became happier, except when I realized the orange kitty in my office was Young Gavin, not Galahad. And even then, Young Gavin made me smile. He’s seven months old and promises to be the next heart cat, because he is such a character. He already runs the other two cats ragged.

With the increased production, I finished the Diving novel I’d been working on, and finished five days early. I was going to get to another project on the schedule, and a few short stories, but my brain wouldn’t allow me to. I figured I was simply tired from writing, but I didn’t feel tired.

So I decided to revamp the schedule—and ran into my two-year-old subconscious. (I figure all writers’ subconscious are two years old. They want to play, not work, and they want to do it their way.)

I had planned two more Diving books by year’s end. They’re more or less plotted out. I know where I’m going and why…

And my two-year-old writer self screamed No! I’m done with science fiction! Done with space opera! Done with Diving! Wanna do something else! Wanna do this and this and this and this—and oh, yeah, this brand new thing. Because it sounds cool.

I tried to revamp the schedule keeping Diving on board, decreasing word count on the novel(s) and going to the brand new thing in my spare time, but nooooo. Subconscious wasn’t having it.

Besides, I had promised a bunch of short stories, and I wanted to write several more, and doing only one per month (as I had at the front of the year) wasn’t going to work on the back side. I got in trouble in late May when I tried to shove an extra story into the schedule. I managed, but it was a close call, and I realized that wouldn’t work again.

So, I just spent tonight reworking the entire next six months schedule. I started with an I Wanna list, especially for my inner two-year old. She got to write down everything she wanted to do.

Then my adult self added everything that I had promised to do.

Surprisingly, I hadn’t added a lot. Seems that I wanted to do what I had promised to do, at least most of the time.

The biggest problem was what my biggest problem always is. I want to write a dozen books all at the same time. I can’t, and dang if I find that nothing but annoying.

Anyway…

I then made a second list—short stories by deadline. Turns out I had promised 13 of them before the end of the year. Writing down the deadlines meant that I had to finish three in some months, two in others. The deadlines weren’t just vague ideas in my head.

They became real.

Then I went through the same process I used the first time. I figured out how many writing days I had in the month, minus four days per month for the blog, and inserted the short stories. The leftover days were for novels.

It took a while (including about ten minutes to deal with Gavin, who insisted on squirming his way across my lap and keyboard and desk and pens and paper, purring the whole time. It’s hard to be sad when a kitten purrs while creating chaos…and eventually falling off the desk). I checked and double-checked my days, my teaching schedule, my time off, and my other obligations.

But, if I hit my targets—and I seem to be good at that with this new process—I will complete three more novels, all 13 short stories, and a few special projects I’ve wanted to do.

And, my two-year-old kindly added January to the mix. She pointed out that it would be Just Fine to finish that Diving novel then. It sounded like fun to write more Diving in January—to her, anyway. I guess she figures she won’t be bored with sf any more.

I knew I would have to revamp the schedule halfway through the year. I got derailed a bit by life (or rather, death). I decided to put off the reschedule until I finished the novel in July…which I did just a few days ago. And then I revamped. Twice. Three times.

Now, I’ve finally come up with something I like.

An ambitious schedule. I’m ready for it, and excited about it.

And gosh! When I finished, I decided to blog about it.

I’m not even counting this blog toward my totals, although I appear to be banking some blogs ahead, probably for a few tough weeks in the fall.

New schedule starts tomorrow.

I’m ready.

And so is Gavin.

***

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“Business Musings: The Third 2017 Process Blog,” copyright © 2017 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Image at the top of the blog copyright © 2017 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Okay, that’s a long title. But I couldn’t come up with anything pithy. As I type this, explosions shaking my house. Not because I’m in some kind of danger or because something bad has happened, but because I live in a tourist town. Here in the States, it’s our national holiday, the Fourth of July, which Americans have celebrated with fireworks since our founding. I used to think that the fireworks tradition started in the 19th century, and then I found out that, no, our Founders decided that they’d bequeath us with explosions every Fourth because, apparently, revolutions don’t end. Or some such nonsense. The new cats are getting acquainted with their new home, which includes an exploding July (just wait until the official fireworks at 10 p.m., kitties!) and more traffic than our roads can handle.

And then, of course, there are the people who like to start early. Exploding things early and often, and ignoring danger signs like the gale-force winds we’ve had all day. Such an adventure, living here.

What I want to do is crawl into my comfy chair and read about murder and mayhem, since the tourists are providing the soundtrack for it. Fortunately for me, I’m part of the Dark Crimes Storybundle. I have my bundle downloaded, fortunately, because the bundle disappears in two days or so. If you want excellent novels by Melissa Yi, Rebecca Cantrell, Dean Wesley Smith, O’Neal De Noux, J.F. Penn, Libby Fischer Hellmann, Annie Reed, and me, or two excellent short story collections (including the Year’s Best Mystery & Crime), head over to Storybundle right now, and get yours. You can get five books for five dollars, or spend fifteen and get everything–which should take care of your July reading, if not all of your beach reading. While you’re there, throw in a few dollars for our charity, AbleGamers. Make someone else’s summer while getting reading for yours.

While you’re thinking of anthologies, you should pick up two that have come out of WMG’s Fiction River imprint. The latest Fiction River, Editor’s Choice is a tour de force of editing by Mark Leslie, working with a disparate variety of stories. You’ll see if you read the introduction. Also, if you’re a Kris Nelscott fan, and want to meet one of the central characters for my upcoming novel, A Gym of Her Own, pick up Fiction River Presents: Readers Choice. That volume has some amazing stories and is another editing tour de force. The Fiction River readers voted for their favorite stories, and since Fiction River doesn’t separate stories by genre, editor Allyson Longueira had to figure out how to put together an anthology that runs the genre gamut from historical romance to thriller with everything in between. I just read the volume and think it’s quite amazing. The readers made excellent selections, and Allyson found a way to make the volume flow.

And…speaking of upcoming novels, I promised you Diving fans that I’d let you know when The Runabout is available for preorder. You can now preorder the ebook and the audio book. The paper book probably won’t have a preorder, but I’ll let you know if that changes. The Runabout will appear on September 22, so if you preorder yours now, you won’t have to remember that date. The book will just show up in your device, whatever that might be. (I love preordering. I have a dozen books on preorder at any given time.)

So there you go: Lots of reading to get you through the explosions. Oh! Wait! I’m the one who has to survive the barrage. Where did I put my noise-canceling headphones? I think I better head off to find them. I’ll leave you with a cat picture, from calmer times earlier in the summer.