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During a visit to Houston last week, I found the sign above in my hotel shower, and was so enthralled that I took a picture. If you can’t read it, I’ve re-typed the text below.

refresh yourself

restore our world

One of your Heavenly Shower heads has been turned off in an effort to minimize water usage and protect one of our most precious natural resources.

To experience the most out of your Heavenly Shower, you can turn the second shower head on by pushing the small button behind the lower head.

WESTIN HOTELS & RESORTS

I’m imagining the conversation that must have led to this sign being installed. In my head, it goes something like this:

Executive: A lot of hotels are doing green stuff. We need to show customers we’re green, too. Tell them we’re all about saving water.

Writer: Okay.

Executive: Except, we’ve spent a lot of money promoting this feature that uses a ton of water. I mean, we named it after the place you go to spend eternity with God. So we want to keep people excited about that, too.

Writer: Okay. Good. Um. I think they might be mutually exclusive.

Executive: And?

Writer: To be clear, our message is “Please don’t use this amazing service we have, but if you do, it’s oh-my-goodness so amazing.”

Executive: I think “being clear” is something we want to avoid.

Overanalyzing, I know. Rant over. Logical issues aside, it was a very nice hotel!

Writers talk a lot about their Muses. Searching for a Muse, waiting for the Muse to strike, even musing over plot ideas. Yet for as much lip service as these ladies get, I doubt many of their alleged devotees even know their names. Who are we talking about, exactly? What are they up to? Are they friend or foe?

Here’s what we’re dealing with:

1. Calliope. Muse of Epic Poetry. Of all the nine, Calliope (pronounced ka-LIE-ah-pee) has surely been the laziest in the last hundred years or so. There just ain’t a lot of epics anymore, y’know what I’m sayin’? But she redeems herself by lending her name to a totally badass steam-powered musical instrument.

2. Clio. Muse of History. Now we’re talking. This lady’s got her own cable channel. Granted, she might not be thrilled with their “Ooh, shiny!” approach to the subject, but then, a personification of a neurochemical process can’t exactly complain about sensationalism.

3. Erato. Muse of Love Poetry. As long as teenagers exist, she’s not going anywhere.

4. Euterpe. Muse of Song. Like all Muses, she’s the daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Memory). With a name like “Euterpe,” she might have more need of Mommy’s help than some of her sisters.

5. Melpomene. Muse of Tragedy. Doesn’t get invited to a lot of birthday parties.

6. Polyhymnia. Muse of Hymns. She’s kinda poaching Euterpe’s domain a little, isn’t she? Think they picked their own areas, or just got them assigned?

7. Thalia. Muse of Comedy. Probably the most active in today’s Internet. Inventor of the LOLcat.

8. Terpsichore. Muse of Dance. Man, I could use her help. I’ve always invoked Samuel Adams in the past, but he only makes you think you’re a better dancer. Also, her name is the most fun to say: “terp-SIK-uh-ree!”

9. Urania. Muse of Astronomy. Yeah, astronomy. Don’t get me wrong, I love the subject, but there’s a definite “one of these things is not like the others” vibe going on here. Maybe scientists were just a lot more creative back then?

Anyway, for those keeping score, there’s not a single Muse of the nine devoted to prose. Story-writers and novelists will have to, er, be creative when it comes to invoking their inspiration. Personally, as a sci fi writer, I’m going for Urania.

Which Muse do you choose?

As you can guess from the title, my story was not chosen for the Machine of Death Volume 2 anthology. So it goes. With 30 spots and 2,000 entries, I figured it was a long shot. At least the waiting is over now.

I guess it’s human nature that, while winning makes you excited, losing makes you…philosophical. You get to thinking about how acceptance and rejection are like yin and yang, how each one leads to the other, how neither can exist alone. Hell, we’re writers, after all. Thinking about this crap is pretty much what we do.

You’ve probably heard before about the power of rejection. It sharpens you, keeps you focused, spurs you to improve yourself (if you let it).

The joy of rejection, however, is a strange creature. It isn’t obvious and ecstatic like the joy of acceptance. It’s reclusive, hiding shyly behind disappointment. But it’s there all the same.

Why? How does it survive? What does it feed on?

It’s simple. Rejection means you’re still in the game. It means you’re still trying. It means your writing is still alive. Because, look: the real enemy of a writer isn’t rejection. The real enemy of a writer is – and has always been – giving up.

The joy of rejection is the joy of acceptance.

Blah, blah, blah. So what am I going to do with all this fortune cookie wisdom?

Well, for starters, I’m going to finish revising the story I’m on now. My deadline for that is Thanksgiving, as I mentioned before. Then, I’ve decided, I’m going to write and submit another story every month for the foreseeable future. I had been planning to get back into the novel again, but I think I need to focus on short stories for a while, keep my work out there, improve myself, and try to get a publication credit. Then I’ll be better prepared to return to the novel. Because, let’s face it – until I can get 2,000 words published, what makes me think I can get 100,000 words published?

That’s the plan, anyway.

Tell me, have you been rejected lately?

As I’ve mentioned before, I submitted a story back in July to the Machine of Death Volume 2 anthology. They were planning to get back to everyone by October 31, but due to the sheer volume of submissions (over 2,000!) they pushed the respond-to-everyone date back to Friday, November 4.

For those playing along at home, that’s tomorrow. Which means that sometime in the next 48 hours, after more than three months of waiting, I will get an e-mail that says one of two things: “Congratulations, you’ve won $200 and the first major publication credit of your entire life!“ OR “lol nope.”

Here’s what the two halves of my schizophrenic brain are doing right now.

Okay there are 2,000 entries and they’re going to pick 30. That’s only 1.5%!

Shush, it’s not like they’re using a random number generator. You have much better odds than that. It was a good story.

It was an OKAY story. Here, let me open it up and point out every conceivable flaw in –

That, uh, won’t be necessary. Look, this isn’t Armageddon here. If you get rejected, you just move on to the next story. The important thing is that you tried. You’ll get there sooner or later.

I WANT IT NOW

I couldn’t have guessed.

They’re probably contacting the people they accepted first, in case some of them back out and they have to find backups. They’ll e-mail rejections last. We haven’t heard back yet so that probably means they already rejected us and just haven’t told us yet.

I feel like that line of reasoning might be considered “unproductive.”

WHAT IF THEY REJECT ME OH MY GOODNESS

You know as well as I do that judging a writing contest is extremely subjective. A rejection doesn’t necessarily mean the story was bad. Sometimes it just comes down to the judges’ individual tastes, or even what mood they’re in.

BUT WHAT IF WE GET IN WOULDN’T THAT BE THE GREATEST THING EVER EVER

You keep this up much longer and we’re going to start looking crazy.

Oh please. You want it just as bad as I do.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

It’s cool. I didn’t want to sleep tonight anyway.

I’ll post the results on Monday.

I’ve noticed a pattern lately, both in myself and others. People say things like:

“I wish I’d started keeping a journal five years ago, but it’s too late now.”

“If I were younger, I might start learning to be a writer, but now it’s too late in my life for that.”

Granted, there are exceptional cases where this logic is valid. “I want to be an Olympic gymnast, but I’m seventy years old.” Okay, probably not going to happen.

But 99% of the time it’s balderdash, because here’s what happens: a year later you look back and say “Well, if I’d started a year ago it would have worked out, but now it’s too late to begin.” And the irrational cycle feeds on itself.

Don’t believe it for a nanosecond. If you’re eighty-five and you start a journal, then when you’re ninety, you’ll be glad you did.

Whatever you want to do, do it today.

Don’t worry, I’m not a NaNoWriMo hater. (Hatin’ is bad.)

Sure, there are reasons not to like it. Agents, naturally, don’t relish the flood of half-baked queries they get on December 1. Some authors bristle at the notion that the unwashed masses will claim a place in their hallowèd pantheon after just thirty days of wild scribbling. I even hear a few of the dumber critics worrying that we need better books, not more books (as if the classics they revere sprang fully-formed out of Zeus’s forehead).

But the sheer joy and enthusiasm of the event outshines all these quibbles. It gets people writing, and that’s what matters. I live in a country where 25% of the population doesn’t read books. We need all the help we can get.

I love National Novel Writing Month.

Nevertheless, NaNoWriMo is about getting people past the notion that novel-writing is some insurmountable task. As someone who’s already written three novel drafts (and put two of them through lots of revision), I know I can do it. I’m there. The focus now is not on Getting It Done, but on Doing It Better.

Of course, it’s still possible to use NNWM as a sort of Five Hour Energy shot, giving you the burst you need to crank out the rest of that manuscript. I’ve done that in the past, and it works well. But for me, the overwhelming focus on word count only lends itself to first drafts, and at the moment, I’m revising. I’ve set myself a goal of getting this story ready for submission by Thanksgiving, so I can get back to working on the novel by December.

What do you think about NaNoWriMo? Have you done it before, and did it help you?

H ordes of children
A ll excited
L icorice ready
L anterns lighted
O ne night only
W arlocks creeping
E vil waking
E vil sleeping
N ine-letter words make acrostic poems difficult

I know what you’re thinking. “I don’t need a guide. I already hate myself.” But look. If you’re going to get serious about being a writer (or any kind of artist), this amateur stuff isn’t going to cut it anymore. You can’t just haphazardly criticize yourself and hope for the worst. Happiness will find a way to creep in, and who ever heard of a happy artist?

If you want to achieve truly professional-grade self-loathing, you’re going to need a plan. Luckily, I’m here to help. I’ve identified seven key actions you can take right now to dramatically and permanently decrease your self-esteem.

1. Blame yourself for failures, but give yourself no credit for successes. No, it’s not rational, but you’ve got to learn to give up on rationality. Why, just imagine if you congratulated yourself for the days you do write as much as you berated yourself for the days you don’t. Think how much precious self-hatred would seep away! I tell you, it’s a total non-starter.

2. Attribute all failures to internal, not external, causes. A rational person realizes that many of the bad things that happen to them are not their own fault. Say you’re late to work because of road construction. Normally you’d blame the construction, right? Learn to twist that around. Blame yourself for not having left earlier. It’s important to do this consistently. Again, letting go of rational thought is key.

3. Confuse self-improvement with self-destruction. Of course, rational people do criticize themselves for failures. The voice of your conscience is supposed to push you to better yourself. That’s healthy. But this voice of improvement can actually be an ally in your struggle to bring yourself down. With practice, you can actually attribute all your poisonous, pointless internal nagging to your own conscience, which simultaneously lends credibility to the nagging and makes the real conscience less credible. It sounds tricky, but it’s easier than you think. Give it a try!

4. Dislike yourself more than others dislike you. Suppose you inadvertently say something hurtful, and someone gets offended. You apologize, life moves on. That person will probably forget all about it in five minutes. Can you imagine if you forgave yourself that quickly? It’s crucial to be your own worst enemy, because frequently, other people just don’t have the time or resources to hate you the way you deserve.

5. Worry, don’t think. You’ve probably noticed a theme so far: thinking is bad. The more you honestly and rationally evaluate your life, the less genuine self-destruction is possible. But it’s tough to give up thinking cold turkey; we’re just too used to it. Instead, substitute worrying for thinking. It uses mental energy and it feels sort of like real critical evaluation, so with luck, your brain won’t know the difference. But you can be sure you’ll feel the effects.

6. If you must think, think in terms of absolutes. Let’s say two or three people criticize you today. If you leave it at that – “two or three people criticized me” – it’s not very menacing. Turn it into something more potent: “Everyone hates me.” Exaggerate both the scope and the degree of the problem. Be careful, though, not to turn this the other way. Imagine if you started to think, “Everyone likes me.” Disaster! Remember, thinking isn’t so bad, as long as it’s not rational thinking.

7. Don’t get enough sleep. It doesn’t sound like much, but trust me, nothing undermines rational thought like a lack of sleep. By the way, this one’s probably the easiest rule of all. Follow #5 diligently, and #7 will happen on its own!

Of course, you weren’t born yesterday. You probably knew about some of these techniques already, and maybe you’ve even discovered some extra tricks of your own. Share your expertise! How do you drown the voice of confidence in your own daily life?