Project Flaw: Conceit of arrogance

Arrogance is believing you're good. No. Better. 

It's a type of confidence that can be inherent - a trait carried down the family line or acquired from an age of people fluffing up your feathers. 

It is the belief that you're special, and let's face it: Everyone is special. 

There are few stories out there that don't have "special" protagonists: Enviable skills. Royalty. The one that inherits. The war hero. The face of a rebellion. The one whose destiny has been fated.   The intelligent one. The unique one. The youngest. The oldest. The kindest. The forgotten one. The outcast. The chosen.

We're all a bunch of special snowflakes really. The difference?

Being arrogant, you know that you're special.

You don't need anyone's help.
You're certain you've made it to where you are completely on your own.
You know you're amazing.
You think everyone's running on your time.
You think your word is law.
You're painfully smug when proven right.
Everyone lives for stories about you.
You feel that it is everyone's duty to be outraged when you are (especially in regards to the bad reviews you get).
You don't believe you have anything to learn - and if you do, you don't think anyone should teach it to you because you know better.
You're almost never wrong.
Anyone who says otherwise is the one that's wrong.

The thing with arrogant people is that they're probably the most insecure people you'll ever meet.

They fixate on people's issues with them, usually spinning it into a personal attack on themselves even if it's a purely work/story related. They'll be offended, defensive and downright annoying when they "decide" they don't want to fight anymore (mainly because they can see that no one is supporting their argument). In the end, they want validation just like everyone else, and the only reason they act the way they do is because they've pushed their "fake it until you make it" mindset too far and might actually believe that they're above everyone else - experience and knowledge be damned.

Sometimes, however, they don't realize they're being arrogant, they just come off that way.

I know when I was younger all I wanted was for people to notice and acknowledge me (see the previous post), and following the "fake it until you make it" mindset, I came off more confident than I felt. The fact that I might have been arrogant as a child didn't occur to me, I just felt like a counterfeit and it pushed me more and more to pretend that I could do everything on my own to compensate.

Hermione Granger from Harry Potter is an example as well. Though she's clearly the brightest witch of her generation, at the beginning of the series as well as during, she came off as a serious smart ass. She was difficult to like for some people, and was a downright pain to everyone else in her year.

Unintentional of course.

She was very conscious of her position as a muggleborn wizard which I think was her reason for wanting to do so well (and show it by constantly raising her hand in class) - she wanted to prove that she deserved to be where she was, and that she wasn't just lucky to have magic to spirit her away from her muggle life.

Whatever her reasoning, she still came off as arrogant which of course meant people didn't warm up to her quickly.

Arrogance is a flaw that an individual has difficulty to recognize in themselves, and even in their characters.

It adds a layer of complexity that we as writers, don't have to think too much of (that's how Super Strong Mary Sues are made you know) and provides a reasonable flaw for a character. Plus, it's an added growth point for the character to try and rectify in the story so technically it's a pretty great flaw.

What's interesting is that arrogance isn't borne from being a horrible person who doesn't bathe, it's from trying too hard to make it seem like you're okay; it is the outcome of being in denial.

Project Flaw: Validation required

Validation is a human flaw.

It's a desire, present from our most conscious age of memory: everything from our first steps, performing at school plays, playing some sport and proudly waving about an awarded ribbon.

Having a skill is great. Being noticed for it is even better.

As a writer, I've always been told to write for me and not to care what people think. With the amount of naysayers out there, the "critics" that flood the web, the trolls and even worse, the real people in our lives who are just trying to be realistic -

But you know what? Write for yourself.
Easy as the advice is to give, the same can't be said for taking it.

We're told to develop that tough skin and grow a pair. Others have had worse, what's a little bad comment from some stranger on the internet? From that friend/family member you knew wouldn't really get your story? Psh ~ so what do you care what they think?
 
Don't kid yourself. 

Wanting and even needing to be noticed, praised and accepted is one of the biggest hindrances in anyone's life. Besides procrastination, this need has been crippling me even before I started my career in writing.

I wanted my story to be perfect.
I wanted to be flooded with glowing reviews (follows and favorites too!).
People making fan art and spinoffs based off my work.
Create such a well-established headcanon that fans of the original work (fanfic wise) couldn't tell what was canon and what was mine.
Having something of mine placed into those tv-trope wikis like I've seen with other stories that were the pinnacle of popularity - the coveted story people would refer to when talking about the fandom.

However, that is not to say that wanting validation is bad.

1) It made me listen to the critique I got - yeah sometimes it wasn't given very nicely and a few insults towards my intelligence were thrown in, but everything with a grain of salt right?

2) I started to develop that "tough skin" to the point where I can see a criticism as anything but a personal attack (even if the critic takes cheap shots) and yet still see that there's some use in the critique I've been given.

3) It made me look and crave for growth. The world turns nonstop, to stay static and in a rut can and should feel like a trap. Wanting validation forced me to look for ways to grow even when I sometimes couldn't bare to change my ways.

 and finally

4) During my attempts to have my abilities validated, I experienced failure. If I didn't care what people thought because it was better that way from the beginning, I wouldn't have realized the lessons I've learnt.


Nationally ranked sportswoman. High school cum laude. School's best pianist/violinist/vocalist. Youngest best selling author. 

I wanted those things when I was younger because it seemed like the only way to be noticed in any way by anyone. I wanted those things for other people. I wanted people to tell me how much I was worth in time, attention and love and it isn't worth it.

It's tiring to live off of someone else's validation.
 
No one lives for others. We're a selfish species at heart. So you know what? Be selfish.

Your story.
Your words.
Your life.

Own it so you won't need someone else to.

Project Flaw: The Fatal Flaw

I've been reading a lot of articles on Lifehack.org lately. Probably because I subscribed to it and now I get an email every now and again to link me to articles of interest and well...I'm interested.

Everything from 10 quality traits all introverts have, 50 incredible travel experiences to have once in your life and even Learning a new language can slow aging has popped up and I've spent countless hours reading every other article that interests me at the bottom the one I decided to read first.

Funny thing is, the only reason I subscribed to lifehack is because of it's one article about avoiding procrastination techniques and well...clearly, it hasn't worked all too well.

You see, I've started college again. I either try to study or write during the evenings. I have work on Saturday. On Saturday nights I try to see my friends for a few hours. On Sunday I try to reboot, watch some mind numbing tv and catch up on sleep. But I still find myself lacking the hours, not getting work done and doing just about anything to put everything else off.

It's probably because instead of studying, I lie in bed either trying to sleep or surf the web/facebook. Instead of doing my morning exercise t get me through the day, I sit on my phone reading fanfiction. Instead of getting chores done before I start homework or prepping for the next day of college, I end up on the couch watching tv until I'm too tired or it's too late to get anything done.

Unlike some issues in life, I know the root of the problem.
It's common enough, but it's also extremely unhealthy and a horrible waste of time.

This issue, problem, whatever you may decide to call it is called procrastination.

It's haunted me most of my high school career and now here I am, second year college student and still falling into the lull of "there's time later/tomorrow/next week/next month/next year."

The sad thing is that this preoccupation of unnecessary things is something a lot of people go through every single day.

Unfortunately not everyone has that undeniable urge, drive or ambition to push through the trudge of work to get to their goals. And it's pretty sad.

It isn't a great flaw, not something like selfishness or arrogance. But it's all consuming, completely wrong -

Selfishness can be taken as ambition to the extreme, a need to claim something as yours even when it's lost and then do everything to get it back, damn the consequences-people-what have you.

Arrogance can be taken from the "fake it 'til you make it" mindset. When you push too hard and delude yourself into thinking that you're better, so much better, than everyone else without really having the skill or desire to actually be better.

Both of these start off with good intentions. Procrastination does not.

We may think we're doing something useful, but in the back of our minds we know that we're just distracting ourselves, putting off whatever task we have ahead of us because we're not feeling up to it.

Procrastination is borne from laziness, a lack of urgency and the strange thought that something will just happen and all the time they have wasted would be worth it.

I've realized (not often enough) that all we really have in the world is time. It may be a man-made concept, but it's the truth.

We aren't entitled to the next day or the one after that, we're damn lucky to even get the hour or two that has passed. But procrastinating makes us think that we've got all the time in the world to put something off.

Speaking for myself, I've put off writing - a novel I've wanted to published, a story I've wanted to tell, all because I think I have so much time to do it. I'm young, pretty young anyway. If I want to be a bestselling author, the next Jane Austen or Oscar Wilde, I have decades to write that novel...

But what if I never do?

What if I wake up, dying, unable to even breath without assistance, barely able to remember my own name...what then?

I could be optimistic and say that I'd still push through, to my dying breath, I'd write. But that would be a lie.

As cliche as it is, I don't want to lie on my death bed with regrets.

I want to try - crashing and burning if I have to, just to say that I did.

Project Flaw: Why perfection isn't healthy

Everyone has flaws. Real people and fictional characters alike. Flaws are present in every aspect of our lives if we pay close enough attention.

Flaws have that effect of building character in something. If something were perfect, it wouldn't be particularly interesting, would it?

In stories, character flaws are important.

They make readers able to relate, understand and see things through the eyes of the character in charge of the tale.

But can the same be said for normal, every day, real life people?

I like to think I'm honest with myself. I mean, if I can't be honest with me, who can I be honest with?

Following the vein of the pilot episode of Mind Games (even though the show was cancelled, but that has nothing to do with this mm'kay?) I am going to be admitting just a few of my flaws as a person and more importantly as a writer:

I'm a weenie.
I hate making characters suffer.
I'm an idealist.
I'll only take a happily-ever-after.
I'm a romantic.
I'm afraid of 'breaking' characters, and not liking them if they have certain flaws or realizations I don't agree with even though I came up with it.
There's a part of my brain that comes up with stuff even I'm afraid to acknowledge and that I can't seem to accept as my own.
I'm selfish.
I'm arrogant.
I like to think I know best.
I'm easily offended.
I'm sensitive.
I can't compartmentalize.
I'm inconsistent.
I'm easily overwhelmed.
I'm easy to diagnose myself with depression.
I'm easily influenced when its the right person or the right words said.
I'm stubborn.
I lack confidence.
I feel overwhelmingly insecure.
Seeks validation.
I procrastinate.
I'm indecisive about practically everything.
I like to dream about a life rather than actually having one.
I'm afraid, terrified of moving out of my comfort zone.
I hate feeling lonely.
I don't like the ugly truth.

The point of all this, as it was mentioned in the Mind Games pilot, is to be able to open myself up and show that I have nothing to hide. The dangerous side of this is that I am also open to either ridicule or acceptance by others, and the question of me being "perfect" has been shattered long before anyone has even gotten to know me.

Not only from a writing perspective, but from real life situations I've always been told to "fake it until you make it". Confidence goes a long way especially when a tough skin is required to brave the trolls, negative responses and the like. Pretending that you've got it handled (via Olivia Pope) is a way of getting people to trust in you and your abilities and becomes a point from where you try to prove that you deserve this trust, or rather, expectation you have inadvertently put on yourself.

"Faking it", however, is problematic.

We get arrogant. We get closed minded. We get negative about other people. We only do things that make us feel good. All in an attempt to be our version of perfect.

And perfect is all a load a bull.

The more someone pretends to be perfect, the more they forget who they actually are.
The more someone closes themselves off to feeling things that make them uncomfortable in order to maintain that perfection, the more they limit themselves from experiences they can actually grow from.
The more someone craves perfection the more unhappy they are with everything they do and everything around them.

Until one day when that person decides they can't retain it, can't achieve it, can't emulate it, can't do it.
And then their whole world falls down.

This is different from wanting to do your best. This is about growth, and what it takes to get there.