The Liar's Bible by Lawrence Block

Author:Lawrence Block [Block, Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Published: 2011-06-22T16:00:00+00:00

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What does all this have to do with writing?

It’s a fair question, in that you don’t buy this magazine and read articles like this with the hope of running a four-minute mile or changing a tire without a bumper jack. What can our personal beliefs about ourselves and our work do to help us write better fiction and achieve more success with it?

I submit that it plays precisely the same role for us that it does for the runner and the weight lifter. The more completely I believe in myself, the more I am able to employ the talent I possess. My belief in my ability and in the worth of my work will enable me to work to the limit of my capacity. I’ll generate the best possible ideas and make the best decisions throughout.

Does this sound suspiciously like The Little Engine That Could? Perhaps it does, but there’s more to it than that. If all you did was sit down for 15 minutes before your daily stint at the typewriter and tell yourself, over and over, that you’re a terrific writer and you’re about to do excellent work, I suspect that, in and of itself, would greatly improve the quality of your work and the success you’d have with it. But it wouldn’t do much to erase the negative beliefs that stand in your way.

Don’t you think you have negative beliefs? Of course you do. Everybody does, and trying to deny them by sheer force of will doesn’t accomplish a whole lot. Here are just a few of them; maybe you’ll recognize some of them as old friends of yours:

I don’t have enough talent. I don’t have the self-discipline. I don’t finish what I start. People won’t be interested in what I have to say. I don’t know anything about people. I’m not good enough. Editors don’t like my stories.

Are any of these familiar? And what others can you add to the list?

These negative beliefs, whether or not you are consciously aware of them, are powerful instruments of self-sabotage. If you believe that editors do not like your stories, you will act in such a way as to support this belief. You will write stories that editors won’t like. You will submit your stories to editors who won’t like them. One way or another, you will struggle to confirm that negative belief.

Years ago I knew through correspondence a successful businessman who insisted that all he wanted on earth was to have a story of his accepted for publication by a national magazine. He was convinced that editors would not buy his stories, and he went to great lengths to make this belief prove itself. He had plenty of talent. His narrative skills were more than adequate and his imagination was up to par. But he sabotaged himself incessantly.

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