Three Ways New Authors Sabotage Themselves
And what to do to stop making the same mistakes
by Emerian Rich
As writers, we have many bad habits that hinder our careers. I am just as guilty as the next author and some of us don’t even know we’re doing it. I’m going to bring to light three self-torturing habits we have, in hopes that we can all help each other stop the madness.
1. We don’t support ourselves.
Sounds weird, but it’s true. We wrote these stories, we love them, but are we going to stand up to the masses and say, “My story is good enough to pay $10 for! Get it now!” Most will back out of this quicker than dodging a trip to the dentist. We are writers and as a rule introverts. We’d rather write the 100 page essay than give the 3-minute oral report. We also sabotage any self-confidence we may have by discounting our gifts. We tend to separate ourselves from “real” authors.
What to do: Stop it. No really, STOP IT!
2. We overuse the word JUST.
I’m not talking editing 101 here, I’m talking about thinking of yourself in JUST terms. I’m JUST self-published. I’m JUST a short story writer. I’ve JUST got one book out. I’m JUST with a small publisher. I’ve JUST sold two short stories. Cut out the JUST! What is the standard you hold yourself to? Stephen King? How many millions of horror authors out there are not Stephen King, but are still living their dream of being respected, valid writers, with something to say that people will listen to? It’s okay to set your sights on the Stephen King ideal, but don’t make it all or nothing.
What to do: Believe in yourself. Believe in your message. Stop JUSTing yourself. Stop discounting your gift. Set your sights high, but reward yourself at every milestone. Keep track of your milestones and look back on them every year. This writing biz goes really fast and you’ll be surprised (if you take baby steps every week) what you can accomplish.
3. We take editor responses, critiques, and reviews too personally.
Yes, our writing is our baby, but the more I’m in this business, the more I realize that it’s all about timing. Most declines have very little to do with the story content. So, what if you’ve submitted your story 57 times and never got a bite? Is it about you? Do the editors not like you? This is true in only the rarest of occasions ie… camping outside their hotel room at Con chanting “Sign me! Sign me!” all night until they give in – probably not a good idea. But to most editors, you are a nameless, faceless number. You’re number 902 in a pile they’ve received to read that month. They are under pressure to get through them all and they are looking for ghost fiction only this year, not zombies. You missed your window. It’s not personal. It’s not even about your writing half the time because they read the title: “Zombie Apocalypse” and because they aren’t buying zombies this year, bam… it’s in the reject pile.
What to do: Make sure your work is as perfect as you can make it so if an editor decides to give you a chance, your writing will stand on its own. As far as reviews go, they are completely subjective. The reviewer could be outside your target audience, against your message, or have religious differences. You may have said MOIST in the first paragraph of your book and from then on they just knew you were trying to gross them out. Every reader takes something different away from your writing. That’s what you want to happen. If you are a self-published author and you didn’t have money for a full edit, expect grammar slams. Expect them to point out errors. Don’t take it to heart. Don’t let yourself get caught up in what you did wrong in the past. And those crazy reviewers that suggest 10 different ways you should kill yourself because they hate you so much? Let it roll off your back. Anyone with that much hate over a book review obviously has emotional issues. Take what reviewers leave with a grain of salt. Try to evaluate it in a removed way, see if there is any truth in it, and then move on. Put out that next book. Do better. Learn from your mistakes and grow as a writer.
Emerian Rich is the author of the Night’s Knights Vampire Series and Sweet Dreams Musical Romance Series. She is the Horror Host for the international podcast HorrorAddicts.net and regularly commits author sabotage on herself. To find out more about Emerian, go to her website at www.emzbox.com
Edited by Emerian Rich
Night’s Knights (#1)
Relationship with Cemeteries, Death’s Garden Revisited, and Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues: True Tales of the Unsavory, Unwise, Unorthodox, and Unusual. Her short stories have appeared in the books Best New Horror #27, Strange California, Sins of the Sirens: Fourteen Tales of Dark Desire, Fright Mare: Women Write Horror, and most recently in the magazines Weirdbook, Occult Detective Quarterly, and Space & Time. 
podcast horror hostess with an international audience and a vehicle with which to promote, HorrorAddicts.net.
My story “Left Behind” is set during the polio epidemic in New York City, 1916. A girl who is supposed to be dancing at cotillions and being courted by handsome young bucks, has been struck by this illness. Her mother keeps the house dark and ancient as the vibrant city around her installs electricity and revels in the happiness of progress.
Was our full version with week-by-week updates too much for you? Now we have a slim version that is only the month spreads plus all the other sheet goodies in the back. Need a thin version to carry with you? Don’t want to have to write in it everyday? This new SLIM version is for you!
Contrary to what the cover and write up leads you to believe, the star of this manga is not 
Loren Rhoads
Visiting the retired, permanently moored RMS Queen Mary is an experience in itself. You don’t have to experience ghost activity to feel the history on board. They offer awesome tour packs where you can see the engine rooms, one of the exposed propellers, and the rumored haunted “Vortex” near the dilapidated—but beautiful—pool. I’ve been fortunate to visit several times and even stay overnight a few years ago. I will give you a tour and then explain my experience. You can decide if the place is really haunted or not.
The ship in general is a fantastic place to visit with so much history to explore. For Titanic enthusiasts, it’s a must-visit. As part of the White Star Line, this so closely resembles Titanic, that you will find yourself doing double-takes as you pass the promenade deck, the dining room, and even the inner room halls. Not only does it resemble the famous iceberg-disabled ship, many movies, and TV shows have been filmed on the Queen Mary so you might find the place familiar as you step on board, which adds to the mystique. The Queen Mary has graced the sets of movies like Titanic II, Pearl Harbor, Aviator, The Natural, The 13th Floor, and television series such as The Search for the Next Elvira, Moonlight, Murder She Wrote, Unsolved Mysteries, and Quantum Leap. They also have historical exhibits that run for a short time. If you are into the royals and fashion, you might enjoy the pricey but beautiful exhibit on now, “Diana: Legacy of a Princess” where you can see many of her iconic dresses in person. They also have other royal history and some of the clothes from the current monarch. For military buffs, the QM played a big part in the WWII effort as a transport ship for Australian and New Zealand soldiers. Per Wikipedia,
In the engine room, our tour guide told us of one such haunting. Although somewhat “set-up” by and ominous number 13, the guide recalled a sailor was crushed by this water-tight door. They aren’t clear on the “why”, but it’s attributed to him either playing chicken or going back to grab something in an emergency. The ship’s underground system of working tunnels is certainly creepy, but as for ghosts? Who knows?
Another creepy location on the ship is the ominous 1st Class Pool. Those horror buffs out there will swear it was the pool in the movie Ghostship, but it’s not.
I took a picture standing right in the middle of the “Vortex” although warned by the tour guide, “It may not come out, or your phone might die.” He said reports of this happening are frequent and that several people have found light spots or “ghost” images in their photos. I played along, and it was fun to imagine, but as you can see, that did not happen. My picture is clear of “ghosties” and I didn’t feel anything but the same creepiness you feel when entering any derelict structure.
First, when we were walking through the bowels of the ship, I kept feeling like someone was behind me. I was the last one in the tour at that time. I kept looking behind me and would catch just a shadow or a blur. Not really anything tangible, but enough to creep you out. This was before the tour guide told us about the crewman of hatch 13 that was crushed there. It creeped me out, but only because I kept feeling the presence the entire time we were in the down below.
My second experience happened in our suite. We stayed in the Eisenhower Suite. If anyone knows me, they know I am so not a history—especially political—buff. If I know history, it’s usually fashion or something I’ve had to research for a book. I knew nothing about Eisenhower nor did I have an impression of the president before I stayed there. The suite was beautiful. It felt luxurious to have not only a quite sizable bedroom (for a ship) and bathroom, but also another servants quarters where I could lay out my stuff and put on my makeup. 
Probably the posh-est place I’ve stayed, not counting the inconvenience of the bathroom on a ship. (We kept stubbing our toes on the raised bathroom entry and in the shower, the tub was so circular, you had to stand with one foot in front of the other like walking tight rope while washing.) Laying down in the fresh clean sheets with my husband next to me, I thought there couldn’t be any place more comfortable.
During this night, I kept hearing the tinkling of a dog’s tags and the light pressure of a small dog hoping on the bed. It was so real to me, I woke and looked down at the foot of the bed several times, sure it had actually happened. I haven’t had a dog since I was a child and I haven’t felt that dog jumping on the bed thing since then, but it was unmistakable. The next morning, I related the story to my husband and he agreed, he had been kept in REM sleep for what seemed like all night. Although he had the same trouble sleeping, he did not feel or hear the dog. After telling a few people of my experience—and not connecting it at all with Eisenhower and his dogs—my friends started a discussion about his dogs and which one might have been alive when he traveled on the Queen Mary in 1946. The connection is interesting.
agents and publishers later this year.
ER: First, we have a good number of guitar-based stories. Your story, “Audition,” “Circe’s Music Shop” by A. Craig Newman, “Loved to Death,” by Sam Morgan Phillips, “While My Guitar Gently Bleeds,” by Benjamin Langley, “Six String Bullets,” by Cara Fox, and “A Whisper in the Air,” by Jeremiah Donaldson really reflect the cover. Then, we have piano themes in “Solomon’s Piano,” by Jeremy Megargee and “They Don’t Make Music Like That Anymore,” by Kahramanah. There are cursed objects like Daphne Strasert’s, “The Music Box,” and Sarah Gribble’s, “The Legend of Crimson Ivory.” “Lighthouse Lamentation,” by R.A. Goli involves a haunted lighthouse, while Calvin Demmer’s, “Keep the Beat,” is about a cursed village. H.E. Roulo’s, “Become the Music,” is about a child who is allergic to music and my story, “Last Lullaby,” is a re-imagining of the Phantom of the Opera tale.
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