More on Magical Thinking

I didn’t intend to write a series on magical thinking. I planned just one post on the subject, my entry in What I Learned From People. However, this has been a learning experience all on its own. Because I used words that many people consider positive in a negative context, my message apparently didn’t get through to a lot of people. Perhaps the following little joke will put magical thinking in context.

A man of faith, Sam, answered a knock on his door to find a sheriff’s deputy standing on the porch. “Sir,” the deputy said, “the dam has broken and the river is flooding. Come get in my patrol car, and I’ll drive you to safety.”

Sam answered, “Thank you, but God will take care of me.”

A little while later, the floodwaters had reached Sam’s house and were starting to cover the porch. A man arrived in a small rowboat. “Sir,” he called out, “I’ll maneuver my boat right up next to your porch. Jump in the boat, and I’ll row you to safety.”

Sam answered, “Thank you, but God will take care of me.”

Some time later, the water had reached the second floor, and Sam was watching the rising river from a bedroom window. Two men appeared in a much larger boat. “Sir,” one called through a megaphone, “We’ll pull the boat up beside the house and toss you a rope ladder. Grab the ladder and climb down into the boat, and we’ll take you to safety.”

Sam answered, “Thank you, but God will take care of me.”

Soon the floodwaters had filled the house, and Sam was standing on his rooftop. A rescue team arrived in a helicopter. “Sir,” a rescuer called through a bullhorn, “we’re dropping a line. Grab the line; we’ll pull you up into the helicopter and fly you to safety.”

Sam answered, “Thank you, but God will take care of me.”

A short time later, Sam was washed away in the flood. When he came to stand before the Lord, he said, “God, I’ve been a man of faith all my life. I put all my trust in you. I knew you would save me. Why did you let me drown?”

“Son, I sent you a car, two boats, and a helicopter. What more did you want?”

Sam didn’t recognize his salvation in the ordinary people and tools of rescue. He expected God to work a supernatural miracle to save him.

In the same way, the man who expects the government to provide him financial security doesn’t recognize the seeds of his security in the entry level job he disdains because it’s menial work at low pay.

In the same way, the cancer patient who wants healing doesn’t recognize God’s healing hand in months of chemotherapy or radical surgery but wants an instant and miraculous cure.

In the same way, the writer who wants to become a best-selling author doesn’t recognize editing and revising and proofreading as early steps in the road to bestsellerdom but thinks her first draft should be good enough.

Magical thinkers rely on supernatural powers rather than the power of hard work. Magic can happen … but I don’t think any of us can count on it!

Authors and Magical Thinking

In the last post, I talked about magical thinkers, people with a sense of entitlement who believe because they want something, they should have it and who expect someone or something else (God, the government, society …) to provide what they feel they deserve.

Now, I’m going to bring the subject back to writing. My comments are not meant to be negative and critical. They are meant to make us take a close look at ourselves.

Many writers (especially novelists and writers of literary fiction) I’ve met through the years are magical thinkers.

• They don’t listen to good advice about their writing. Their consider their writing “art,” and they don’t want to listen to anyone who doesn’t have their vision. Certainly, writers must be cautious of whose advice they accept, but I believe every writer can benefit from objective feedback from other writers, editors, and even avid readers.
• They don’t think good grammar and writing skills are important. Either they believe their story is so good that grammar doesn’t matter or they expect editors at the publishing house who buys their book will “fix” any problems like spelling and punctuation. They don’t understand that their book will never reach an editor if it’s poorly written.
• They think their book is finished when they reach the end. They see no reason to waste time editing, revising, and proofreading their work. They haven’t learned that “writing is rewriting.”
• They don’t follow publishers’ and agents’ guidelines. I’ve heard stories from agents and acquisitions editors about writers who went to extreme lengths to get an unsolicited manuscript to the editor or agent of their choice. One writer followed an editor into the restroom and slid her manuscript under the stall door! They don’t realize that stalking editors and agents will get attention, but not the kind of attention they want.
• They believe “everyone” is their market. Even the most popular books don’t appeal to everyone. The Harry Potter books have sold more copies than most of us can even imagine, but still only a fraction of the reading public has bought and read the books.
• They don’t market their work if it is published. After all, they’ve written the Great American Novel so the world should beat a path to their doorway. They don’t know that marketing by the author makes the difference between failure and success of a book.

At one time, I was listed as a provider of editing services on the Web site of one of the largest subsidy publishing companies. Although I received a number of queries, I never got a client because the authors who contacted me didn’t really believe their work needed editing. They expected me to tell them their words were golden, and when my sample edits actually suggested changes, they didn’t agree.

One writer sent me the first chapter of a novel that was so unbelievable I found myself thinking, That couldn’t happen! The book began with a secret agent during wartime approaching a foreign woman alone in a bar in a country at war and recruiting her as a spy. I suggested he might consider whether it was realistic that a woman would be alone in a bar in an enemy country during wartime and that a secret agent from a third country would openly approach and recruit her without any previous knowledge or contact. (Note, I didn’t tell him this was a bad plot. I didn’t tell him he should change his plot. I simply suggested he consider whether readers would suspend disbelief while reading the story.) He informed me the book was fiction – that meant is wasn’t true, so it didn’t matter if it was believable or not. He couldn’t understand that fiction isn’t true, but it does have to be believable. Even if the plot is not realistic, the reader has to suspend disbelief and believe it could happen.

As far as I know, this writer didn’t hire an editor. He paid a lot of money for a subsidy publisher to print hundreds or thousands of copies of books that few people will ever read. I suspect he didn’t try to market the book, either, expecting hordes of buyers to order a self-published novel, written by a first-time author with no input from anyone else. And faced with a garage full of unsold books and a huge dent in his wallet, he probably found someone else to blame. Magical thinkers never blame themselves for anything.

In a post titled Will Your Book Ever Be Published?, Daily Writing Tips talks about the book 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might. The post lists a few of the reasons your book might not be published … and many of those reasons are the result of magical thinking.

If you want to succeed as an author – whether your publisher is a huge New York conglomerate or yourself, you can’t be a magical thinker. You have to take responsibility; learn the craft of writing and the publishing industry; write, write, write … revise, revise, revise; then once you’re published, market, market, market. Then you just might experience real magic – a successful book!

What I Learned from People with Magical Thinking

When I worked for the state employment commission as part of the federal government’s War on Poverty in the 1970s, I encountered some … different, interesting , unusual … characters. Our clients were “hard-core unemployed;” some turned out to be unemployable.

The program was a collaboration between several governmental agencies and nonprofit organizations contracted to provide training. Participants attended classes to learn the basics of the world of work – from how to dress for a job interview to why it’s important to show up to a job when hired. They received a small weekly stipend during their training.

We counselors created an employability plan to determine what steps were required to make them ready to hold a job, and the job developers tried to find employers willing to hire those who had been through the program. Clients had to report for counseling if they were absent from class or exhibited behavioral problems, and we referred them to other services as needed.

One young veteran of the Vietnam War did not disclose that he was discharged with a mental disability. (One of the problems with the program was that we weren’t allowed to verify information; we had to accept whatever the applicants told us.) He missed classes for an entire week but showed up Friday afternoon for his paycheck from the previous week. When I asked him why he had been absent, he said his wife had left him, and he had followed her to Houston to try to convince her to return. He told me she left him because he didn’t have any money, and he needed money so she would go back to him. I’m quite sure it was his disturbed behavior and not lack of finances that caused her to leave, but he couldn’t be persuaded that he needed anything except money. He did agree to an appointment for family counseling Monday morning – probably just to get me to authorize the release of his check. That night at midnight, he showed up at the back door of a fast food restaurant where he had once worked. Because the manager recognized the former employee, he opened the door to him while he was counting the day’s receipts. The veteran slashed the manager’s throat and grabbed the money. In his confused thinking, he believed that slitting the man’s throat without killing him would keep the manager from identifying him; he didn’t realize the man would simply write his name on a notepad. The disturbed young man was arrested, convicted, and committed to a mental institution.

In another case, a young lady with a two-year-child was found to be pregnant. She said and asked very strange things about pregnancy – things that most women would know, especially if they had already borne a child. One day, she came to me in a panic and said, “They took my baby.” When I finally made sense of her confused and confusing statements, I realized that she had taken her two-year-old to the county (charity) hospital for medical treatment, and the hospital would not release the child to her. I made some phone calls to find out what had happened and learned that the child was not hers. As a tiny infant, the boy had been left with her to babysit. When the parents returned a few hours later, the house was empty and the babysitter and baby had disappeared. I confronted the client with this information, and she said, “But God gave me the baby. I wanted a baby so bad, and I prayed to God, and He sent me the baby.” She was charged with kidnapping, but I believe she was determined to be mentally incompetent to stand trial.

These are tragic stories of people who were seriously ill. However, they are more severe cases of a phenomenon I see far too often, what I call magical thinking. A lot of people who are not clinically ill suffer from magical thinking.

There are two elements of magical thinking:

1. Magical thinkers feel a sense of entitlement. Because they want something, they believe they should have it.

2. They expect someone or something outside themselves to give them what they want. I believe in the power of prayer, and I know God gives us good and perfect gifts we don’t deserve. But he doesn’t answer a woman’s prayer for a baby by giving her the opportunity to kidnap another family’s child.

Often magical thinkers expect the government to give them those things to which they feel entitled: health care, education, job security, retirement income, a bailout from financial problems … Now, I’m all in favor of the government protecting the most vulnerable among us – but the Constitution says we’re all entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We aren’t entitled to happiness, and we aren’t entitled to a life free of challenges.

Robert Hruzek at Middle Zone Musings has challenged us to write about “What I Learned from People.” I’ve learned there are two kinds of people. Of course, there are many superficial differences – race/ethnicity, intelligence, appearance, personality, and dozens more. But these are superficial. At the core, we all want the same things – love, family, security, happiness.

The only real difference between people is whether they are magical thinkers or not. Those who aren’t magical thinkers recognize they aren’t entitled to everything they want and are willing to work to make their dreams come true.

“Pray like everything depends on God; work like everything depends on you.” (I couldn’t find the citation for this quote; if you know who said it, please let me know.) (St. Ignatius of Loyola) Thanks, Brad Shorr.