September 30, 2009

My good writing friend, Sherryl, and I were Skyping this week about a seriously time-consuming writing project we’d like to take on together. Since we both spend our lives constantly trying to squeeze out five more spare minutes, we realized that something in our schedules would have to give.

“Where’s the dead wood in your life?” we asked each other. “What can be cut?”

Take a Closer Look

I thought about it a lot last night and couldn’t come up with much of anything. I have a couple of writing jobs, I hold offices in a couple organizations, and I lead a couple of church groups. Some are new responsibilities this year, and some I’ve helped with for years. I was clueless about what to cut–until this morning.

I do a weights routine while I listen to Joyce Meyer online, and this morning she was talking about this very dilemma. As she put it:

“If the horse has been dead ten years, it’s time to dismount.”

Put It Out to Pasture

I made a list of my paid and unpaid jobs then. Which lifeless “horse” was I still trying to make gallop? Which job or position that once was fun and satisfying and productive was now just an unproductive time drain? Which things had run their course? Where should I “dismount”?

Some of our time drains are just habits we’ve had for years. Or they’re community or school obligations we took on, and somehow we feel they’re life-time commitments. Take a close look at your stable of horses. I hope this weekend to dismount a couple of dead horses so that I have time to ride a new one!

September 28, 2009

I’m back home after seeing Laurie off to her deployment. This will be a catch-up day for marking lessons, but first I wanted to thank the many blog readers who commented last week or emailed from my website about Laurie. Your caring and your prayers are soooo appreciated by our whole family.

It was a special three days with Laurie, and I got to see her more than I had mentally prepared myself for. It’s always a lovely surprise when life exceeds our expectations! You can see a couple of photos of us here and click on them to enlarge them.

Writing and Families

I’ve long suspected that writers juggling family issues is a much bigger challenge than writers trying to figure out how to plot or write sparkling dialogue or deepen characterization. Being able to focus when life is “happening” to your loved ones is a bigger challenge to me–and always has been.

We flew to Phoenix to see Laurie, then drove her car home to store here (a fourteen-hour drive). I decided ahead of time how I was going to practice what I always preach to my students and make good use of my time. I took along a huge bag of books (which made me re-think buying a Kindle!) I had a middle-grade Newbery book to read, a book on writer’s voice, and a fun adult mystery.

Using the reward system I’ve blogged about, I spent fifteen minutes on the voice book and exercises, then fifteen minutes on the Newbery book, and then rewarded myself with the adult mystery for fun. When my eyes gave out, we listened to a book on tape in the car. (I realized I was blessed by two things: a quiet husband who likes to drive and the ability to read without becoming car sick.) Yes, I interspersed a lot of praying for Laurie, but then I got back to making good use of this rare long period of quiet.

Heading into the Year

I know from past experience that this year will be difficult. I worried myself sick through Laurie’s first deployment. I was better the second time. And this time I’m determined to pray a lot more, worry a lot less, and get a lot more writing done.

I don’t know what challenges you are personally facing, either in your own family and marriage and health or with someone else’s. But I encourage you to do whatever is necessary so that it doesn’t overtake your writing life. It so easily can, but with enough determination and the grace of God, it doesn’t have to.

September 25, 2009

I was wrong–again.

For twenty years, I’ve told students and wannabe writers that you have to put the writing first! Do it before other things take over your day.

Fight the impulse to clean your kitchen first, or straighten your office, or clean up the mess the kids made before leaving for school.

“But I can’t work in chaos,” writers protest.

You know what? Neither can I anymore–at least not well! And when I force myself to, the work is doubly tiring. Doubly stressful. Much less satisfying.

Energy Drains in Disguise

Something I read today made me realize my advice might be a tad off. Not wrong altogether, since if we don’t make writing some sort of priority, we won’t do it. However, to eliminate energy drains in your life, you need to look at the whole picture. Certainly all the things you do in a given day take your energy. Every action you take on your lengthy “to do” list uses energy.

What you may not realize is that actions you don’t take use energy as well. Your disorganized office, the piles of laundry on the bedroom floor, the stack of bills to pay, the two birthday gifts to buy, the clothing needing repair–all this drains your energy reserves as well. It happens whether you are looking at the unfinished business or just thinking about it.

It siphons off energy that could be used in a much more positive way. “These items on your mental ‘to do’ list, the ones you’ve been procrastinating about, distract you or make you feel guilty and drain the very energy you need to accomplish your goals.” (So says Cheryl Richardson in Take Time for Your Life.)

NOT an Excuse to Procrastinate

Taking care of the unfinished business that nags at your mind–and keeps you from feeling like you can settle down to write–may be necessary before you can tackle your writing assignment. Don’t go overboard though, or you’re just procrastinating. Washing the dirty dishes is one thing–taking time to replace the shelf paper in your pantry is something else.

Figure out the things that you MUST have done to feel at peace in your environment, and do those things ONLY. (It helps to do as many of them as you can the night before too.)

Eliminate the chaos in your environment, and you’ll eliminate a LOT of the chaos that blocks your writer’s mind. Now…off to clean my office.

September 23, 2009

What fuel are you running on?

Many people these days are frantically running from place to place, working too many hours, volunteering for too many projects, working nights and weekends because of a need for approval.

They are fueled by sugar, caffeine, cigarettes and adrenaline to keep going. You might get more done short-term this way, but you’re injuring your health in the long run.

I don’t need to tell you that we live “on alert” these days. We are bombarded from so many information sources. We allow ourselves to be at the beck and call of anyone who rings our cell phone or shoots us an email. Adrenaline is used like a drug, pushing tired bodies to work faster and harder. The end result is a crash-and-burn depletion of your reserves.

Go Against the Flow

Do you want to have a long-term writing life? Then while you still have time–while you still have your health–I urge you to develop a counter-cultural lifestyle. Look at your life now. Make a list of the things that have stressed you out this past week.

(No groceries in the cupboard because a meeting ran late and you couldn’t stop at the store? Phone call from a teacher saying little Johnny forgot his required permission slip for the day’s field trip? News of a violent crime in a part of your city you considered safe? A bounced check? Having to work late at night while everyone else is sleeping, just to keep life from derailing?) All of these things make us run on adrenaline that wears down our bodies. And all of these things are preventable.

Replace the Old with the New

Habits that cause you to run on adrenaline are habits that need to be replaced. I can’t tell you which habits you need to exchange, but I can share some of mine.

For one thing, I’ve noticed that for six months, I’ve arrived places out of breath and a little bit late, and I go tearing into meetings or classes after the program has begun. So embarrassing. I sweat it on the way to the meeting, and backed-up traffic skyrockets my blood pressure. I hate to waste time, so I hate arriving somewhere early and waiting. From now on, to avoid the adrenaline rush, I plan to leave early enough to arrive early, but take work or a book along, stay in the parking lot and work, then walk in calmly ten minutes before the class starts.

I have also noticed that the days I DON’T run on adrenaline are the days I start with exercise and positive reading and prayer. And yet, too many times lately, I’ve awakened feeling energetic, considered the two hours I’d lose if I stuck to my exercise/relaxation regimen, and jumped into work instead. Make hay while the sun shines, right? Mostly, I’ve made headaches and a sore back and neck. I need to remember that my health regimen actually saves me time in the long run. And I run those days, not on adrenaline, but on healthy energy supplies.

I am going to set a boundary on working in the evenings. I couldn’t see what difference it would make if, while watching a good movie with my husband or chatting, I also answered some email questions and deleted hundreds of blog spam and updated my websites. Most of it was “no think” activity, so what did it harm? A lot, I think now. My mind wouldn’t shut off when I shut off the computer to go to bed. My neck and back hurt terribly by then. And I felt disgruntled, like I hadn’t had any free time at all that day.

Mostly, I think I need to convince myself that it’s not selfish to slow down and live at a sane pace, to build in a buffer zone or margin around activities so you can make a slow, smooth transition from one thing to another. What’s that old saying? “We’re supposed to be human beings, not human doings.”

It’s Up to You

No one can make the change for you. And frankly, many people in your life who are used to calling the shots and like all the work you accomplish won’t help you make changes. But make them you must. If you want to have a decent quality of life, you’ll have to step outside this current “hurry frantically” electronic culture of ours, and figure out what works for YOU to have a saner, happier life.

Running on premium fuel instead will make you more productive, less stressed, and be better for your health. Saner writers are happier, more productive writers. And doesn’t that sound appealing?

September 21, 2009

I sat down to write four times this morning, but my mind simply wouldn’t stop jumping the tracks.

One second I’d be thinking, “This backstory paragraph slows down the opening and should be moved.” The next minute, with a catch in my throat, I was thinking about Laurie again.

My daughter is being deployed to Iraq, and we get to see her on Friday for a few precious hours before she leaves. This is her third tour, so you’d think I’d have a better system for mind control, but not today.

I pray a lot, email her, try to write, and it lasts for just a few minutes. So, like all writers who can’t focus, I check email. I love Thomas Kinkade paintings, and someone had emailed me the above picture. I just sat and stared at it for a moment, feeling the peace steal over me.

Peace Like a River

While I don’t often have time to steal away and sit by a stream–something always so calming–I plan to “sit” by my Thomas Kinkade stream several times today. I made it the photo on my desktop, so all I have to do is minimize what I’m working on, and there it is!

Without leaving my computer, I can walk along that little footpath, sit on a rock by the stream, and watch the water flow by. What a great use of technology and our imaginations. When my worries have floated away, I can go back to work.

Writing is a mental activity, so emotional issues interrupt that activity. Find things that work to calm you…and then pick up your pen again.

September 18, 2009

Do you ever find yourself saying things like:

“I just can’t keep this up.”

“If I have to keep this schedule one more year, it will kill me.”

“I feel like I’m treading water and going under.”

I heard these comments recently from writers and students, and it made me want to ask each one: Are you living a sustainable life?

A Crazy Pace

Too many of us are living crazy busy lifes. We have no margins anywhere anymore. There are no gaps between the end of one activity and the beginning of another one. When your activities overlap with no “down time” in between, your stress goes up and your creativity goes  down.

And when you try to cram one more thing–writing–into an already crazy busy life, it rarely works.  Writing requires at least a decent amount of relaxed, quiet thinking time. Maybe you combine that with a walk (or walking while pushing a stroller), but you need some.

Build In Some Margins

Are YOU living a sustainable life? Or, if you continue at your current pace, will it eventually ruin your health? Without making changes, you may never be able to fit in the writing time you dream of.

If your current life isn’t sustainable, take out some activities–then build in some margins of down time. I encourage you this weekend to give your schedule some serious thought. Actually, I may do that myself!

September 16, 2009

I read a very surprising study recently on the differences between marathon runners who finished the race and those who didn’t. All the runners were equally fit and trained and healthy.

So what was the deciding factor in whether they were hardy enough to finish the 26-mile run?

It depended on where they placed their focus.

And it wasn’t at all where I expected!

Letting Go of the Goal

The runners who finished the race all said, in one way or another, that they had to stop focusing on the finish line and focus on the process instead. Rather than telling themselves, “I can’t run ten more miles to the finish line!” they focused on what they could do. They told themselves, “I can take the next step. If I have to slow down and shuffle, I can still take the next step.”

One reason they stopped focusing on the finish line was because it seemed overwhelming, too difficult. But a second reason they stopped focusing on the finish fascinated me: they actually lost speed. Whether they were ahead of the pack or behind everyone, focusing on the finish line made them slow down.

Parallels with Writing

You often see writing a novel compared to running a marathon. It does have many similarities: training, planning, learning specific skills, endurance, perseverance, and daily plodding! So I suspect that where you focus if you want to finish also applies to writers.

I know for a fact that when I focus on the finish line-the day I can say the book is done-that it feels overwhelming. All the work that needs to be done to get there just looks too difficult. And that feeling of being overwhelmed may be what causes us to slow down and procrastinate even starting the daily “workout.”

The Solution?

I expect that the writer’s solution to this is much like the marathon runner’s answer. We need to focus on what I can do right now. Something small that corresponds to the runner’s “next step.” Small steps don’t look overwhelming. They look simple and do-able, if you’ve made them small enough. And we don’t have to be speed demons either. Like the marathon runner, we can “slow down and shuffle,” if we have to.

They say hardiness consists of three personality characteristics: commitment, control, and challenge. Writers with hardiness outlast other writers. They commit themselves to what they are doing, they believe they can control themselves and their small part in the publishing process, and they believe challenges are a normal part of the process.

Become a Marathon Finisher!

Are you a “hardy” writer? You may not think so because you’ve seen many of your writing goals go by the wayside. But maybe-just maybe-you have all the hardiness you need to be successful. Perhaps you’ve been focusing on the goal too much instead of just taking that next small (slow) step.

If so, learn and apply this easy mental trick of successful marathon runners!

September 14, 2009

I recently read that the trajectory of the successful Apollo moon rocket was “off course” 90 percent of its flight-yet it still reached the moon!

How did that happen?

1. Scientists acknowledged the deviations from the expected path.

2. They repeatedly made the necessary course corrections.

3. They achieved an adequate (though not perfect) trajectory to the moon.

Scientists made a major breakthrough in space exploration by sticking to the mission in spite of numerous setbacks.

How’s Your Trajectory?

What does the moon mission have to do with writing? Well, I was looking at my yearly goals over the weekend, and like the Apollo mission, my trajectory is off course-and has been most of the year. Earlier I made enough course corrections to help, but over the summer my trajectory got way off! In the past, my strategy for reaching goals has been to first make them, then get waaaay behind or detoured, then either (1) give up on the goal, or (2) make drastic course corrections to force myself back in line.

The drastic course corrections usually happened when I had a deadline with a publisher. For example, the original goal of “hitting the moon” might have been to write five pages per day for four months. Not hard. However, after procrastinating for two months, I would panic, course correct my goals, and commit to writing ten pages per day to meet the deadline. That writing schedule worked until Day Four when an interruption kept me from the keyboard.

What’s the Answer?

Now, right there, an Apollo scientist would have refigured the goal, spreading out that minor missed day of writing over the coming weeks. But I tended instead to let one day of failure slip into two or three. Denial is a great place to live-as long as you can stay there! But eventually panic sets in, and you are forced because of the deadline to refigure your trajectory. By now, though, you have to write 15-20 pages per day. Every day. No days off.

Panic and adrenaline can manage it, to the detriment of your health and the quality of your writing. How much better off I would be if I followed the successful Apollo mission method instead.

Keeping Track

Here is where the idea of a spreadsheet would be a benefit. The very day you fall behind your goal, you could refigure your daily word counts. One day’s lost writing, spread out over the coming weeks, would barely be noticed. Regaining your trajectory (your deadline) would take very little extra daily effort. And if, every single time you got off course, you refigured and kept moving, you’d also hit your target.

We need to learn to be resilient. Every time we have a setback, we need to recalculate. A setback requiring a course correction might come in the form of being sick yourself, having a child needing extra help, unexpected company arriving, you name it! Life is full of things that cause setbacks for writers. Any number of things can get you off your trajectory.

We may not be flying to the moon, but we can learn a lot from this successful Apollo mission that was off course most of its flight. We need to pay attention to our goals and our progress, be aware when we’re off course, and make those corrections quickly. This skill is a part of the successful–and sane–writer’s life.

September 11, 2009

Nothing comes from nothing. If you’re having trouble with creative OUTput, it could well be because you have little creative INput. I know–because that’s my problem this month. I’ve been trying to fish from an empty pond. I’ve been trying to draw a drink of cool water from an empty well.

It’s Friday afternoon–after a long and very full work week with little sleep–and the creative juices just aren’t flowing. (Why are all the metaphors for creativity liquid?)

Refresh Your Soul

“How do you enhance the creative power in your life?” asks Thomas KinKade in Lightposts for Living. “The starting point for all creative acts, in other words, is to live life and pay attention!” Get outdoors, study the birds and flowers and insects and rain up close. Go to museums and art galleries. Thumb through photos.

Katherine Paterson, award-winning children’s author, went so far as to say she didn’t even believe in writer’s block. She said that the thing that freezes a writer’s soul and leaves her staring in panic at a blank computer screen is writer’s starvation. If you need more creative “juice,” fill your mind and heart with sights, sounds, ideas, images, and experiences.

Make It a Creative Weekend

You can’t be creative when you’re all dried up. Even nature knows this to be true. After a two-year Texas drought, and temperatures this summer over 100 more often than not, we’ve had rain the last five days in a row. Sometimes even downpours! And this morning I saw three neighbors out examining their lawns, grinning at the green shoots coming up already in the brown, dead-looking front yards.

It gives me hope! I’m heading out for some refreshment of my own this weekend–for my writing soul. I hope you do too.

September 9, 2009

“Blogs are like a box of chocolates…” Isn’t that how the saying goes? I love opening a new box of candy–the picking and choosing, the sampling, the enjoyment!

Well, in today’s blog, I’m offering you a box of chocolates from various blogs I read. Here are some of the best I’ve read lately. Pick and choose. See what looks good to you. Enjoy!

Take Your Pick

You’ll want to give yourself a whole weekend for this particular blog entry. It will take that long to check out the 100 Essential Tips and Tools for Writers of the Future. It covers marketing, creativity, niche writing, finding paying work, and much more.

How can you think outside the box and create a novel that is unusual and meaningful? In this hurry-hurry world, what can we do to unleash our hidden creativity? Author Gail Gaymer Martin gives you ten great ideas here.

When you land an agent, here’s how NOT to make your agent worry. Read Agent Wendy Lawton (Books and Such Literary Agency) on this subject.

If you’re hoping to write full-time, you need to do career planning. Here’s a realistic step-by-step guide from top literary agent, Chip MacGregor.

Time to Sample

Open your box of chocolates, settle back in  a comfy chair, and enjoy this sampling of some fine articles!

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