Author: Scott William Carter

Change is hard. We all know that. If you’re like me, sometimes you feel like your life is a freight train on rails, and that the only way to change the train’s direction is to lay down new tracks. But here’s an exercise I thought of recently, a variation on ones you may have heard before, and I’ve found it to be a powerful tool for creating positive change in your life. It’s also the type of exercise that seems to fit well into the things I usually write.

Imagine today is your 100th birthday. You’re having a party, and you’re surrounded by people who care about you. A grandfather clock in the corner ticks away the passing moments. You’re sitting in a rocking chair looking at a birthday cake. It’s your favorite kind. You don’t see so well these days, but when you squint you can make out all those shining candles quite clearly. You’ve lived a long life, a life that is rich and textured with memories like patches on a quilt. However, you do have a few regrets, things you would change if you could. Perhaps you wish you would have tried a little harder to achieve some personal dream. Become a professional fiction writer? Made a go of being an actor in Hollywood? Taken a stab at being a dancer on Broadway? Maybe you wish you would have seen more of Europe. Or Australia. Maybe it’s something smaller. Did you ever rock climb? Did you ever learn to sail? Or sing? Maybe you wish you would have reached out to people who slipped by you, or mended fences with people who faded into your past. Perhaps you wish you would have gotten closer to a few people in particular, the kindred spirits you met along the way. Your soul would have been richer for it. You know it’s true.

It was a good life, a great life, but you know it could have been better. It could have been a lot better.

So you close your eyes, take as deep a breath as you can manage, and blow out all the candles. You make a wish, and the wish is this: you want to be transported back into the body of whatever age you are right now. You want one more chance to make the most of things. And when you open your eyes, you find that you have been miraculously transported through time. You find yourself sitting in this chair, staring at this computer screen, reading this message. A life of promise and possibilities lies before you, but it’s up to you to make things happen.

Somewhere in the future, the grandfather clock is ticking.

What are you going to do now?

Taking care of my two-year-old daughter while my wife visits a friend this week, I have a growing appreciation for single parents who also manage to be productive writers. And then there was our exchange last night when I was putting her to bed, which makes me afraid she might be a budding critic . . .

Katie: Daddy, I love you.
Scott: Oh, I love you, too honey. I love you very much. I love you as much as the sky is blue and the grass is green.
Katie: (thinks a moment): Daddy?
Scott: Yes, hon?
Katie: I’m not grass. I’m Katie.

Got a letter from Janet Hutchings at Ellery Queen this past Friday saying she wants to buy my suspense story, “Road Gamble.” The letter came in an Ellery Queen envelope that bore the words “The world’s leading mystery magazine” under their logo. And this pretty much sums up how I feel about the magazine. For a commercial writer, a writer who embraces the label rather than shuns it, as so many other writers seem to do (with few exceptions, writers considered classics today were the commercial writers of their time, so we pulp writers usually have the last laugh), Ellery Queen is the Carnegie Hall of pulp writing. And if you think I mean that in a derogatory sense, think again. When I got the letter, I had one of those sappy Leonardo diCaprio/Titanic moments: I threw up my arms and roared triumphantly.

Okay, so I’m a sap. But-but-but, it’s Ellery Queen!

Short story sales to Asimov’s and Ellery Queen within ten days of each other, my first to both of those markets, has made for a dizzying time. I’ve been pretty steady the last couple of years, writing through all the highs and lows, but finally it got to me. I thought about how far I’ve come, and the writing has been tougher because of it.

In a workshop not long ago, a professional writer said to a group of us, a group that included many emerging writers, “Just don’t look down folks. You’ll be stunned at how far you’ve come.” At the time I didn’t understand why it should be so perilous to look back at what you’ve accomplished, but this past few days, I’ve come to understand exactly what he meant. It’s easy to keep climbing so long as you keep looking up. When you look down and see how far below the ground is, any thought of continuing upward flees your mind and everything inside you screams to just hold tight to the rope. You just don’t want to slip, you see. You like it up here.

But when it comes to writing, holding tight to the rope is not really an option. If you’re not moving upward, if you’re not taking risks, you’re dead. At least that’s the way I see it. You’d think it’d get easier the more your skills improve, but there’s also a lot more psychological pitfalls. It’s easy to start worrying about things outside your control, to focus on things other than just climbing that rope.

In my office there is no phone. There is no email. It’s a tiny room on the backside of the house, where I can’t even hear the doorbell. There is only me and the computer. And when I’m in that place, with the door closed, alone with only the voice in my head, everything feels right. It’s all about telling a story, doing it as well as I can, and nothing else. I like that place. You see, it’s not really about the office. It’s about building that place inside yourself and protecting it fiercely, a haven for your creativity and your ego, keeping out the wolves that would tear it down. These wolves vary from writer to writer, but you’ll know them when you see them. So if you don’t see me posting often in this blog, or showing up at writing-related conventions or conferences, or engaging in discussions on newsgroups, it’s not because I’m being anti-social. Well, at least not completely. It’s because I’m in that place. It’s a place without critics, without editors or agents, and really, without even readers.

Just me and the rope, climbing and doing my best not to look down.