New Non-Scientific Information About Not Good Enough Syndrome

By Andrew E. Kaufman, author of psychological thrillers 

I’m reaching a point in my current manuscript where I feel as though I’m starting to get a handle on things.

Well, that’s a relative term.

One never truly has a handle on things when one suffers from what is known as Not Good Enough Syndrome. You may have heard of this affliction. It’s non-specific, widely undocumented, and for the most part, difficult to diagnose.

Symptoms may include:

• Self doubt
• Self-loathing
• Second-guessing everything.
• Not liking anything.
• Lack of inspiration, ideas, or sanity.
• Isolated episodes of global panic (with intermittent aspirations of world-building).
• Private, self-contained tantrums, which can range in severity.

 And there are subcategories, and of course, I have a few of those as well. Currently I’m in the throes of, There Aren’t Enough Damned Twists in this Book! (Yes! There is an actual exclamation point at the end! A demarcation of severity!)

Here are how my symptoms express themselves: If you have a thriller, then you’ve got to have twists. The problem—at least for me—is they never come easily. Hard as I try, I’m never able to simply think those up. Usually, they must arrive on their own terms.  What this means is, there’s a lot of waiting. Some non-secular praying to nobody in particular. Perhaps what might even resemble a highly specialized, ancient ritual (translation: A lot of stomping and often loud, nonverbal communication).

This is my process, and as weird as it might be, and as hard as I’ve tried to change it, I’ve come to accept that I can’t.  In some ways, I suppose, this has benefits, because it doesn’t often allow me the luxury of resting on my laurels—that’s another condition known as, Good Enough Syndrome (or in the layman’s vernacular, Just Plain Lazy).

So, what’s the prognosis? The treatment? How does one manage such seemingly unmanageable symptoms? After years of intensive study and observation, I’ve found a few tactics.  Just in case you, or someone you love, suffers, I’ll share my detailed and highly non-scientific findings:

• Allow the ideas and words to come, and DON’T PANIC when they won’t—they will. They always do.
• Know that the harder the struggle (and if you don’t give up) the better the work.
• Never (Never!) compare your work to someone else’s. You are not them, and they are not you. Doing this will only take you to the Dark Place. I’ve been there. Trust me, It’s ugly.
• Exercise will clear the cobwebs and help hasten the muse.
• Externalizing your thought process is like breathing fresh air. It can be as easy has having someone sit and listen while you ramble on.
• Music can stir the emotions and ignite ideas in ways few other things can.
• Understand that anxiety will distort things and take you to Crazy Town.  Another ugly place.
• When you’ve reached a clear impasse, it’s time to stop.
• Don’t forget why you write.

Back to work for me.

Onward, brave soldiers.

Why?

By Andrew E. Kaufman, author of psychological thrillers

Photo courtesy: Nikopoley

It's a loaded question, yes?

As a small Andrew, I was what one might call a Why Kid—you know the type, right? Every answer to every question was followed with a Why?  This would go on heedlessly (and perhaps annoyingly) for quite some time, until the person being questioned—usually an adult, often a teacher, and sometimes another kid—would get frustrated and yell, Shut the hell up!

Then I would be annoyed.

If we were tracking trends (also something I do rather obsessively), we might surmise this is why I ended up making a career out of answering the eternal question: Why?

And really, isn’t that what being a writer is all about?

When people ask how I come up with my ideas, how I create my characters, or how I plot my stories. Guess what I say?

Why?

Why, of course I do. In this case, however, it’s not actually a question (a relief, I’m sure), but more, it’s a truth, because every story I write begins this way.

In my first book, While the Savage Sleeps, it was: Why are two people, who have absolutely nothing in common and live in two different cities having seemingly similar creepy experiences that seemingly have nothing to do with each other?  Well, there were perhaps quite a few bodies dropping like flies everywhere and in rather hideous manners, but that was mainly the mood music.

In the Lion, the Lamb, the Hunted, it was: Why did Patrick find evidence of a murder among his hideously abusive, and incidentally, dead, mother’s belongings?

And in Darkness & Shadows, I asked: Why did the love of Patrick’s life die twice? Well, maybe that one’s more of a how, but you get the idea.

 

The point to all this? There are a few (What, did you expect the Why Child to only have one?)  

First, I think authors write books for the same reason that people like to read them. We’re insatiably curious (read: insatiably nosey). It’s not just enough to know that an eighty-six year-old grandmother was planting bodies in her tulip garden. We want to know why the hell she was doing it.

Second, whether we realize it or not, we’re all students of the human mind. We like to know how people’s brains work, or, for those of us who write our slightly off-color stories (read: bent), what makes them not work so much.

And last, never tell a writer to shut the hell up.  Don’t do it.

We get very annoyed.

Then we kill you off in our books.

Dogs, Manuscripts, Parallells, and Other Seemingly Obscure Observations

By Andrew E. Kaufman, author of psychological thrillers

It’s kind of funny. Well, actually not funny, funny, but more, it’s interesting.

I’m talking about parallels and how life can often hurl them when least expected. I’ve always known this but still manage to sort of forget.

Sort of.

And when I sort of do, life sort of responds by sending me a gentle reminder. Actually, it’s more like a gentle kick to the ass.

Case in point: I recently adopted a new member to the family, a fuzzy, adorable ball of cuteness named Trick. I got her for my other fuzzy, adorable, ball of cuteness (brown variety) named Caleb, who seemed lonely and in need of a playmate. The other fuzzies wanted no part of him (Two of those. I know a 1:4 human-to-dog ratio. Don’t even ask)

Unfortunately, my good intentions didn’t work out as expected—that’s actually an understatement. What actually happened during the introduction, was a rather unpleasant and disagreeable scene. There was some growling. Some snarling. Perhaps even a few bared and pointy teeth. In other words, there was a problem.

I can’t quite remember clearly, but here’s how the events played out soon after: friends were called, a trainer was called (two of those). There was some panic, some frantic begging, and possibly some delirious and angst-ridden pleas for help (I’m not sure. I can’t remember).  In essence, the panic button had been pushed. Sirens went off. Red lights twirled and flashed. Mayday was officially declared.

The first trainer arrived.

And after Caleb maliciously attacked a stuffed Rottweiler (apparently the gold standard for ferreting out bad seeds among the pack), said trainer delivered a grim prognosis, along with a lot of frowning, hand wringing, and labeling.  In effect, she called Caleb a deeply troubled problem child with an irreversible, aggressive nature, and (gasp!) even dangerous. After throwing her hands up (well, she first used them to slap me with a hefty bill), off she went.

I didn’t like that.

Enter the second trainer, who presented an entirely opposite theory. According to her, Caleb got a bad rap. He wasn’t aggressive at all, just a bit overzealous in his excitement, and Trick misinterpreted it. A simple case of two dogs sending off the wrong signals. Her prognosis: good to excellent.

A few weeks later, as evidence of persistence (and testament to staying calm under adversity), I present to you, the bone chewing contest.

Yep. Two inseparable friends-for-life, who can’t stop playing and loving on each other.

Now, the parallel.

As all this was playing out, the timing couldn’t have been worse for dad (that’s me) who was in the throes of trying to complete his work-in-progress. A fast-approaching deadline was looming. My story and characters were being disagreeable and combative. The situation was tense, and nerves were fraying. To put it mildly, I was a wreck. To put it in context, the dogs wouldn’t hunt.

I didn’t like that, either.

Once again, there was some growling. Some snarling. Perhaps even A few bared and pointy teeth (This time, mine).

And again, I pushed the button and called in the trainer (well, actually, a good friend and trusted advisor), who had a look at the manuscript. We kicked some ideas around, and after intense, restructured training, the dogs were off and running, the kingdom safe from near-impending doom.

The lessons here (other than my apparent ability to string two seemingly uncommon events together).  I present them in numerical fashion for more cohesive and clear impact.

1. Persistence always pays.
2. Strong people ask for help.
3. We can learn a lot from the dogs
4. Never trust anyone who hates on your kid.
5. Don’t panic!

Oh, and when all else fails? There is always (always!) coffee. And chocolate.

Sometimes I know more than I think I know

By Gayle Carline
Mystery Author and Occasional Smarty-Pants

I'm actively involved in the Orange County chapter of Sisters in Crime, and often get to hear interesting and useful talks given by forensics experts. This month, I got a double treat.

I got to actually meet one of the other CFC bloggers, Sheila Lowe, who gave us a fascinating presentation on handwriting and behavioral analysis (and how they go hand-in-hand, no pun intended). It was great to meet her at last! Her information had my mind spinning with ideas of how to use handwriting in the next mystery.

Sharing the schedule with her was Dennis Palumbo. Dennis began as a screenwriter (he wrote the fabulous script for My Favorite Year), then somewhere along the timeline became a licensed psychotherapist, and now writes crime novels.

I joke about experiencing reincarnation while I'm still alive to enjoy it, but it seems that Dennis agrees with me.

Dennis spoke at length about PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), its roots and how it affects people from different backgrounds and experiences. He discussed this, not only as a therapist who has seen it, but as a writer sharing ideas for how to create three-dimensional characters.

According to Dennis, people handle traumatic events differently, according to their past and their culture. People who were traumatized as children tend to see additional assaults as inevitable. It is somehow their fault, and they are fated to be victimized. People who have lived without being attacked in any way tend to see a traumatic event as earth-shattering. Their world was safe. Now it is changed, forever.

I am simplifying it greatly, but why am I even talking about it? Two reasons.

One, I'm always willing to share what I've learned with you. By-the-by, if there's a Sisters in Crime chapter near you, I urge you to join and go to the meetings. We're not the only chapter who gets these high-quality speakers.

Two, listening to Dennis made me wonder if I had gotten my protagonist's actions correct in my latest book, MURDER ON THE HOOF (to be released this summer). Willie is attacked by a man who is later found dead in her tack room. As Dennis talked, I was reminded that I made a big deal about how she had never been assaulted, not even spanked as a child.

Uh-oh. Had she sloughed off the event too easily?

Of course, I ran home, opened the manuscript and started looking for where I had let Willie down. I anticipated adding a significant amount of words to have her trauma surface in unusual moments. In addition, I worried that it would take the plot down a different road.

That would suck.

I skimmed through the book, looking for the attack. What do you think I found?

Somehow, I had gotten it almost right. I added a few sentences here and there, but I had already set each scene up for Willie to overreact to stimulus, or have trouble sleeping, or be obsessed with this darkness, wondering if her life would ever be whole again. She was already a good character, but after Dennis' talk, I feel I took her from two-and-a-half-dimensional to full figured. And it didn't take much. I got lucky. Or did I?

I've never been attacked or assaulted. I had a few spankings as a child, but I can't say they traumatized me. I remember the events that changed my world, the way an attack would have changed Willie's. In hindsight, I had used my own view to shape how my character felt about what happened.

How about you writers? Do you instinctively reach for your own experience and reactions to build your characters? When you know you are writing someone completely different from yourself, where do you turn for insight?
 

Are You Legit?

By Andrew E. Kaufman, author of psychological thrillers

So lets say you decide to write a book.

You’ve always been a fan of the things, had a few ideas swimming around in your head, and have wanted to take a stab at it for as long as you could remember. Now, here you are, finally connecting with the courage needed to commit those hungry fingers to keyboard, passion to dream.

After X amount of time, your novel is finished, and then, BAM! Away you go, uploading your book to the KDP platform, ready to take on the world and be the next Nora Roberts or Stephen King or whoever you think is the bomb.

First question: are you an author?

Well, technically speaking, yes, because you’ve:

A. Completed a novel.

B. Published it.

C. Can call yourself whatever the hell you want.

And really, in this era of self-publishing, that’s how a lot of established authors got their start (myself included).

Next question: are you a legitimate author?

Here’s where it gets a little murky. Back in the day, it was all so black and white, the gold standard of legitimacy being whether or not an author had a publisher. But since authors can now do that for themselves (and not be called hacks), those lines have become blurred, if not completely tossed out the window.

That begs the question: what makes an author legitimate? Admittedly, in this era of self-publishing, the question feels a bit circular, trying to answer it much like nailing Jell-O to a tree.

But just for heck’s sake, let’s give it a shot, anyway.

Does selling a lot of books make you legitimate? Well, it might, but I’ve seen some horrendously edited, grammatical monstrosities reach the top tier of the bestsellers lists. Do we get to pull those authors’ Legit Cards based solely on that? In theory, I suppose we could, but since the readers have already spoken (and since, really, the market is driven by sales), you might find some resistance from the masses who have purchased those books.

Which brings us to the next demarcation: What about writing a good book? Nope, have to shoot that one down straight away, because good is a matter left to subjectivity, and unlike sales, there’s no unit of measurement to make a determination (Okay, there are ratings and reviews, but...well, never mind).

How about a level of commitment to your craft, or even better, your passion? Again, same as above: no quantifiable way to judge that. Except… there was the whole mood ring thing, but that blew up years ago, after it was exposed as a big thermochromic, flim-flam operation (oh gawd, did I just terribly date myself.)

On my quest for a more concrete answer (and again, just for kicks) I decided to ask The Google, which in turn, told me to ask The Webster, which in turn told me this:

Legitimacy: conforming to recognized principles or accepted rules and standards.

So there you have it, defined by Webster (the accepted authority on this sort of thing). As authors, and with respect to legitimacy, we are all hereby, created equal—that is, so long as we conform to recognized principals or accepted rules and standards. What are those? I suppose that’s a topic for another post.

As for me, I’ve taken a semi-praiseworthy crack at it. Anybody else want to give it a whirl?

In the meantime, while we wait for the comments to flood in, I've called on good buddy, MC, to  provide his spin on this weighty matter.

So without further ado, for your entertainment... It's Hammer Time! (Word).

Take it away MC!