Tina Haapala, Excuse Editor

Let me tell you this: failure is normal. Especially when you are trying to be a writer. When you love something so much, you may think that success should come easily. But that is often far from the truth. There are countless people around the world who want to write, who want to tell their stories, but once they hit an obstacle, they wonder, “Is it worth it?” Rejections hurt; it doesn’t matter if they come from that Evil Editor in your head, or if it’s in an actual rejection in e-mail form.  You’ve heard the stories about the multiple rejections from those who would become successful authors, but what about in business (which is really what writing for publication is)?  If you ask any successful businessperson about the path that they took to become successful, you will likely be surprised to hear about the many pitfalls, obstacles, setbacks, and outright failures that they experienced before they finally achieved success. After all, there is a reason that they say that fo...

I’m writing this on December 29, and I'm thinking about the weight we put on this time of year. Your focus these next few days may be on many “lasts,” the last cigarette (THIS is the year you will quit), the last overindulgent meals and snacks (the cleanse begins on January 1), your last morning of laziness and sloth (new workout regimen starts at 5:30AM, January 1, er, 2 nd —you really can’t expect to start anything at 5:30AM after New Year’s Eve, right?). Your writing goals may be following the New Year’s Resolution script, as well. Starting on January 1, EVERYTHING WILL BE DIFFERENT. Just like last year. You will have daily, weekly, and monthly writing goals to keep you motivated, and you will start, as soon as you wake up on that first January morning. OK, well, maybe not THAT morning. It is a holiday, after all. You deserve a little break. One day will not put you that far behind. As soon as you get home from work on January 2 nd , that will be perfect. No, you won’t wa...

Excuse Editor began when I stepped back and started paying attention to the dialogue going on in my own head about all things “Writing”. I was shocked at the misinformation, false conclusions, and all-or-nothing rhetoric I was feeding myself. It was like my mind was taken over by a political super-pac in an election year.  Problem was, like an ill-informed voter, I was making decisions about my writing life based on this nonsense. I had to take a critical view of all this fluff, make myself a fact checker of my own superstitions.  And sometimes I had to laugh. Because struggling through the writing life can be full of a lot of baloney. Bunch of Baloney Bullet Points: Writing is a Job Killer o    For years, I told myself that I could not write and hold a non-writing job as well.  If I held a title from 9-5, I argued with myself, that’s who I was. I couldn’t try and be something else. Writing was something I would have to do AS a job in or...

The excuses we make about our writing are often reflected in excuses we make in other parts of our lives. Here's an example, "based on a true story" (or two). Recently, I left work and headed for the gym. I really was not in the mood to go. It seemed pointless: I sweat inside the somewhat too hot gym just to leave and hit the too hot outside, with humidity, and get in my too hot car that cools off just in time for me to pull into my too hot garage. Recently, I had decided that I was going to set aside an hour a day for my writing. The first day, I was pretty sure that Today wasn't the best day to start this endeavor. I was sure that the writer's block that plagued me the last time I sat down would just come to visit again, so what was the point? Anyway, I was not in the mood to go to the gym. I got to the first light. Right was the way to the gym, left, home. I couldn't get over to the left. Cars in the way. I started up my computer anyway, thinking that ...

You are probably familiar with " hoarders ". Those are the people who have buried themselves under mountains of stuff, and are so sure that they need this stuff to survive, they cannot find a way to stop. Now I certainly have no expertise on the psychological ramifications of hoarders, but while watching a recent episode of Buried Alive , I was struck by the excuses hoarders make for not changing their lives. Their rationale was similar to the people who say they have a drive to write but never shift out of neutral. Piles upon Piles For the writer, what at first seems like a tiny setback or two can build up if not tended to over time. Seven days of making the excuse that you cannot find 30 minutes in the day to write piles up to over 3 hours of lost writing time. Where did it go? Somewhere under that pile of excuses, apparently. The Writer's Blocks you've been claiming for weeks have now stacked on top of each other, cutting off the path to your next scene. You ...