August 4, 2010

[Because this is a crazy week for me--gone a LOT--I am going to repeat a post from over two years ago. It definitely still applies!]

As I packed my bag to head to my critique group today, I gave thanks again for the wonderful group I joined a few months ago. I’ve been part of groups before, but this one surpasses them all for hard work, weekly dedication and just plain being nice!

Alas, that was not always the case. We writers need to nurture our creative sparks, rather than snuff them out. This requires appropriate self-care: solitude, healthful eating and sleeping habits, and a mentally stimulating environment. Is that enough? No.

Self-Doubts
Early in my career (like 30 years ago), I had all those things. I was very disciplined, ate right, walked daily, studied hard, and took time to dream my ideas into stories and books that sold. Yet my self-doubts grew along with my list of credits, my enthusiasm eventually waned, and I feared my success had been a fluke.

I was puzzled. Although I worked very hard, I was also careful to avoid burnout. I took time to relax with my friends. But, as it turned out, that appeared to be part of the problem.

Friendly Fire
The Bible says there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. Today I’m blessed with many such treasures, but in the beginning I noticed many of my friends said things to me like: “Come on, you’re only writing. You can do that anytime”; “My nephew fell asleep in the middle of your new book”; “That book will never sell with that ugly painting on the cover”; “Jane’s advance was three times what you got”; and “How long does it take to crank out a kiddie’s book anyway?”

With friends like these, who needs enemies?

Safety and Security
Creativity grows and flourishes when we have a sense of safety and self-acceptance. The writer in you, like a small child, is happiest when feeling a sense of security, and this requires safe companions. “Toxic playmates can capsize our artist’s growth,” says Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way.

Every writer needs friends, but it’s the quality, not the quantity, that counts when it comes to your emotional health. Our choice of friends is critical. We have enough of a challenge when plagued by our own fears of failure or inadequacy without having to deal with someone else’s.

Reasons Friends Turn Toxic
Jealousy makes some people toxic. These friends usually want to write too, but aren’t presently working. If you’re producing pages of a novel or interviewing experts for your magazine article, it’s harder for them to collect sympathy for being the victims of some mysterious writer’s block. Undermining your self-confidence is easier than completing their own work. Confront the issue kindly and ask for their support instead. If their put-downs don’t stop, consider ending the pseudo-friendships.

Sabotage from non-artist friends has more to do with your lack of availability. These friends may not understand your need to set aside time to work. Sometimes this becomes an unconscious test of your friendship. Will you stop work and be with them? (You wouldn’t expect your teacher friend to leave her classroom for two hours to go to a movie with you. That’s her work. Well, writing is your work, and every bit as valid.) So what do you do when your best friend shows up halfway through your writing time to go antiquing? Be gentle, be firm, but hang tough.

Plug the Drain!
Be aware also that some friends are so emotionally draining that being with them extinguishes your creativity. A hyperactive, life-of-the-party friend can leave you too wound up to work. Or your friend with serious problems may dump on you until you absorb all her negative feelings. If these draining friendships are valuable enough to you to keep, then choose your contact times carefully.

For example, during my rough draft stages where creativity must be high, I reduce time spent with such friends. I also learned to use my answering machine to screen the repeated ninety-minute, heart-rending calls that derailed my whole writing day. I returned these calls after my writing was done. I’m afraid that sounds pretty cold-hearted, but it was the only way I could get my writing done.

Next time I’ll talk about traits of a true writer friend–the kind every writer needs and deserves. What traits in a writer friend do YOU desire?

6 Comments »

1. 

   I know that this blog entry is a little over two years old but it describes my writing life to some degree. Non-artists really don’t understand that writing is a job and that there are peak times for creativity. They may not mean to be that way, but it’s pretty difficult to get them to understand. It’s one of the biggest writing and painting obstacles that I’ve had to face.

   Comment by Joslyn Carter — April 12, 2010 @ 5:30 pm

2. 

   Joslyn, what you said is so true–it’s difficult to get them to understand if they’re not a creative type. And it’s hard to go ahead and set a boundary, knowing we’re going to be misunderstood! But it often needs to be done anyway, or our peak writing times go right out the window!

   Comment by Kristi Holl — August 4, 2010 @ 6:57 am

3. 

   Boundaries are important to set in ANY job – I learned this the hard way. We need to learn to say NO. “No, I can’t, because I am too busy.” “No, I can’t, because this time is earmarked already.” Etc.

   It’s also perfectly acceptable, to a point, to let calls and emails go unanswered until a certain point in the day. I know this is not easy to do, what with BBMs and other tech which makes us tied to everyone 24/7, but if it is understood that calls and messages without an urgent need to reply to, only get replied to at a certain time, people will be cognizant of that.

   And if they aren’t, they’re not friends!

   Comment by Yvette — August 4, 2010 @ 8:07 pm

4. 

   Yvette, you are so right–and I needed to hear this myself today. You would think this would get easier over the years, but it hasn’t. Just when you get it all sorted out, things change and needs change, and you start over! We need to practice saying NO until it doesn’t induce so much guilt!

   Comment by Kristi Holl — August 4, 2010 @ 9:19 pm

5. 

   Great article! Thanks for this article; it is so informative. Keep up the good work. More power and God bless:)

   Comment by Bernardita — August 4, 2010 @ 11:26 pm

6. 

   Thanks, Bernardita! I appreciate the kind words.

   Comment by Kristi Holl — August 5, 2010 @ 1:20 pm

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