Writers: The Dangerous, Invisible Dog Fence Surrounding Your Creative Work
Are we sabotaging our work by imposing non-existent self-limits?
The real enemy of the writer is not other writers, critics, or too much competition. The true enemy of the writer is herself. We go into our craft with self-limitations — a proverbial electric dog fence around our work. When we limit ourselves we limit our potential as writers. And if we don’t recognize this and work to change it, our work may suffer in the process.
It’s time to jump the fence.
Electric dog fences work like this: a wire is buried along the perimeter of your yard. Your dog wears a special collar. As the dog approaches the ‘fence,’ the collar emits a warning beep, telling her she’s about to get zapped. If the dog gets too close to the fence the collar gives her a jolt.
Once the dog gets a few jolts and learns her boundaries, you can take off the collar and she’ll remain inside the yard. The behavioral training was strong enough and the fence shock is uncomfortable enough for the dog to stop leaving the yard.
No more batteries to change. No more shocks.
The dog stays because the plasticity of the mind re-wired itself to avoid leaving the yard, even if the dog can’t remember the initial training.
There’s another study with primates, where there was a rope in the center of a giant primate enclosure. As the roomful of monkeys, one at a time, tried to climb the rope, researchers punished the climbing by blasting the monkeys with a hose.
Over time, the monkeys stopped climbing.
Next, the researchers would swap out one of the original monkeys for a new monkey. The new monkey would immediately go for the rope and start climbing. But the researchers didn’t need the hose. The older monkeys that had been blasted all pulled the new monkey off the rope, punishing the exploratory behavior.
The researchers continued to swap out old monkeys for new monkeys.
Soon, there were none of the original monkeys left in the enclosure. However, the learned behavior continued. All the new monkeys pulled each other off the rope until no one dared use it, yet NONE of the animals in the enclosure had ever been blasted with a hose.
This is your invisible fence
Whether we listen to our peers too much, or we tell ourselves to color inside the lines, we’re build walls around our creativity. We let others pull us down from the rope and prevent us from escaping the herd — or trying something daring.
Maybe our genre has certain expectations. THEY say we should never challenge these expectations. THEY say we shouldn’t rock the boat. If it’s not broken don’t fix it — blah blah.
THEY will give you all kinds of great advice. Then, you know what happens? THEY are the first ones to go and buy a book from an innovative author.
But we like the rope-climbers and fence-jumpers
There’s a thing about electric dog fences — they work for most dogs but not all dogs. Some dogs — the brave few — get it. They see there’s no real boundary keeping them from sweet freedom.
These dogs go for it.
They take the risk. The fight through the momentary pain of the collar zap, as the leap over the invisible fence and chase after the squirrel. These dogs know they might be punished for their actions, but they do it anyway.
Their work (chasing squirrels) is too important to just give up, follow the rules, color inside the lines, and sit in the grass as all the squirrels thumb their noses from the safe side.
We need to be the rogue dogs.
When was the last time you saw a news story about the famous person who followed all the rules, did was she was told, and colored inside the lines? Never. We don’t care about the rule followers, because we’re rule followers. Inside we know it doesn’t feel that great, so why would we idolize someone just like us?
Instead we idolize the rebels, the innovators, and the risk-takers.
This doesn’t mean you should be an a-hole. This doesn’t mean you need to get arrested or harm someone to create writing that matters. You don’t have to plagiarize, use hate speech, or write for the sake of shock value.
This means we take a risk against the rest of the pack.
Fence jumpers matter. Fence jumpers get the attention. Fence jumpers sell books. Sure, Fifty-Shades sold almost as many copies as the Bible, but I’ll bet the pack of writers chasing E. L. James like a herd of cattle, didn’t sell a hundredth of the copies she did.
We need to carve our own path — jump our own fence.
You have a gift
As a writer, you’ve got the best job in the world. You can work from anywhere. No one tells you when to punch-in or out. You can work anytime and hire or fire yourself at will. You’re the boss, the HR department, and the party planning committee, all wrapped in one.
Why squander it with a self-imposed fence that isn’t there?
I write this, not speaking only to you, but to me as well. The invisible fence comes in many forms, but there’s one that plagues all authors (if it doesn’t bother you, you’re not trying hard enough) — impostor syndrome.
Impostor syndrome affects even the most-prolific authors. With each new book, no matter how many millions of copies were sold in the past, comes the cold hand on the shoulder — “you’re not good enough. You should put down your pencil and save us all the misery.”
We need you to push the creative boundaries of your writing.
There’s nothing original under the sun?
It’s a myth. We’re taught to believe it.
Nothing original? Unless your manuscript came from a photocopier, everything you do is original. But the question isn’t only in the originality of our writing, but how innovative are being, while entertaining or teaching the reader.
When someone tells you there’s nothing original, run the other way.
I’ve probably written it in previous stories. We’ve all heard it. It’s a coping mechanism for people who can no longer create original work. This isn’t YOU.
You spotted the squirrel.
You’re still inside the yard.
You’ve got to make a decision.
Sit and stay or jump the fence?
It’s time to jump the fence.
How do we jump the fence?
We write every day. No matter how we feel or whether or not we’ve got a great idea. We put in the work. We test the fence. We watch as the other monkeys pull us off the rope and we question ‘why?’
It starts with writing every day. This story I wrote might help:
When we write every day, we get a thousand chances to test the fence. We can take more risks, learn from our mistakes, and attack the fence from a different angle, so it won’t burn so much when we finally run for the damn squirrel.
When we write every day the ideas will come in abundance.
Not every idea you have will be a good idea. Most ideas are bad. But you only need one new innovative thought out of a thousand to build something incredible.
The choice is up to you.
Will you write periodically, slowly accumulating your 1,000 ideas over YEARS, or will you write every day and uncover dozens of brave, innovative ideas in a short time?
Don’t share your work too early, while it’s fragile. Here’s a story I wrote about the dangers of sharing your writing too soon:
What’s your superpower?
We need you to be innovative. There’s always more room at the top. It’s easier here — plenty of space to sit and spread out. The bottom is crowded — filled with copycats and also-rans.
Innovative writing is scary writing.
Sometimes it doesn’t work. Maybe it doesn’t work most of the time. You could be so far ahead of the curve it may take years for readers to catch on. But that doesn’t mean you should quit. As long as you’re writing work that matters — work that jumps the fence — please keep going.
And make sure you don’t write a book that sucks.
This method isn’t limited to fiction. Non-fiction requires just as many fence-jumpers, especially in the over-crowded personal development space (where authors repeat tired advice using different words).
There’s always room at the top, because there’s no ceiling.
There is a floor, however. The floor is hard, wet, feces-covered, and cold. This is where the monkeys live. They’ll pull you off the rope if you let them. They want to feel better about their own vanilla writing, so they’ll pull on your legs until you kick them off or join them in the detritus. We must be vigilant at all times. We must recognize impostor syndrome when it comes calling. We must NEVER give up.
This is your damned life we’re talking about. This is your WORK.
We’re waiting for you.
August Birch (AKA the Book Mechanic) is both a fiction and non-fiction author from Michigan, USA. A self-proclaimed guardian of writers and creators, August teaches indie authors how to write books that sell and how to sell more of those books once they’re written. When he’s not writing or thinking about writing August carries a pocket knife and shaves his head with a safety razor.
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