March 5, 2010

“Writing is not everything,” says Lisa Shearin in the April, 2010 Writer Magazine. “And if you want longevity in this business, play isn’t just important–it’s critical. We get so intensely focused on having achieved the dream and working so hard to keep the dream going, that we’re blind to the signs that if we keep going down that road at a fast pace, that dream could quickly turn into a nightmare.”

Recipe for Burnout

I was very glad to read her opinion piece–and I wish that message was published more often. I wish someone had said it to me years ago. Having a healthy drive is good, but letting yourself be driven–by others or your own inner critic–will eventually ruin the joy you originally brought to your writing.

“Dreams are meant to be savored and enjoyed,” Shearin says. “You do have to work hard, but sometimes, the work can wait.”

Too Late

Great advice, but what if you’re already burned out? What if–from overwork, juggling too many jobs and family members, a major loss, or chronic illness–your ideas have dried up? I’ve been there twice in my writing life, and it was a scary place to be.

Peggy Simson Curry spoke about this in a Writer Magazine archive article first published in 1967. She detailed the process she followed to “slowly work [her] way back to writing” and discover what had killed her creative urge in the first place.

Face the Fear

I think most writers would agree with Peggy that fear is at the basis of being unable to write–fear that a writer can’t write anything worth publishing. Burned out writers constantly think of writing something that will sell.

“This insidious thinking,” Curry says, “persuades the writer to question every story idea that comes to him. He no longer becomes excited with glimpses of theme, characters, setting, threads of lot. He can only ask desperately, ‘But who will want it?’”

Healing Choices

Among other suggestions, this writer said it was very important to deliberately get outside, away from the writing, and just enjoy the world around you. In other words, play.

Coming out of burnout can be done, but it often takes methodical, small daily disciplines to do it. For me, digging in the flower gardens and stitching small quilted wall hangings finally unclogged my creativity. Things that help will be different for each writer.

Have you ever felt burned out with your writing? If so, what helped you to come out of it and write again? If you have a minute, please share an idea with other readers.

February 10, 2010

According to the National Science Foundation, the average person has about 12,000 thoughts per day, or 4.4 million thoughts per year.

I wager that writers are well above the average because we read more and writing causes us to think more than the average.

Who’s In Charge?

I had known for a long time that our thoughts affect our emotions, and that toxic “stinking thinking” could derail our writing dreams and health faster than almost anything. You are the only one who can decide whether to reject or accept a thought, which thoughts to dwell on, and which thoughts will become actions.

But sometimes–a lot of the time–I felt powerless to actually do anything about it on a consistent basis. Sometimes I simply felt unfocused and overwhelmed.

Need a Brain Detox?

I’ve been reading a “scientific brain studies” book for non-science types like me called Who Switched Off My Brain? by Dr. Caroline Leaf Ph.D. which has fascinated me. With scientific studies to back it up, it shows that thoughts are measurable and actually occupy mental “real estate.” Thoughts are active; they grow and change, influencing every decision we make and physical reaction we have.

“Every time you have a thought, it is actively changing your brain and your body–for better or for worse.” The author talks about the “Dirty Dozen”–which can be as harmful as poison in our minds and our bodies.

Killing Our Creativity

Among this dozen deadly areas of toxic thinking are toxic emotions, toxic words, toxic seriousness, toxic health, and toxic schedules.

If you want to delve into the 350+ scientific references and pages of end notes in the back of the book, you can look up the studies. But basically it targets the twelve toxic areas of our lives that produce 80% of the physical, emotional and mental health issues today. And trust me. Those issues have a great deal to do with you achieving your goals and dreams.

There Is Hope!

According to Dr. Leaf, scientists no longer believe that the brain is hardwired from birth with a fixed destiny to wear out with age, a fate predetermined by our genes. Instead there is scientific proof now for what the Bible has always taught: you can renew your minds and heal. Your brain really can change!

Old brain patterns can be altered, and new patterns can be implemented. In the coming days, I’ll share some more about the author’s ”Brain Sweep” five-step strategy for detoxing your thoughts associated with the “dirty dozen.”

But right now I’m going to read about the symptoms of a toxic schedule. I have a suspicion…

December 23, 2009

When you get up on the wrong side of the bed, are you deep in a blue  funk before you realize what’s happened? Don’t you wish you could catch yourself at the top of that downward slide–and reverse it?

Help is Here!

I read a terrific blog post that gives you the tools to do exactly that. The article gives specific steps for thwarting that “negativity spiral” and it’s written by Carol Grannick, a writer and licensed clinical social worker in private practice. She works with writers and non-writers who want to create and maintain more resilient, meaningful lives.

The article itself is good, but get a cup of coffee or tea and settle back. In order to get the full impact of the article, you’ll want to follow the five or six embedded links to related articles. (I was surprised to find the last link actually came back to my own blog.)

Thing About What You’re Thinking About!

Noticing and stopping this spiral is going to be one of my New Year’s Resolutions. Catching ourselves at the top of the negativity spiral should certainly be easier than digging ourselves out of pit we’ve fallen into.

I believe this is one of those places where an ounce of prevention truly IS worth a pound of cure!

July 27, 2009

If someone graded you on self-care or self-nurturing, how would you do? Most of us–especially women–would flunk the evaluation. And if you’re also a writer, that can spell trouble.

What’s Your Excuse?

As women, we’re taught to meet everyone else’s needs before we nurture ourselves. And we do so, mostly without complaint, until we drop of exhaustion or illness. We de-value self-nurturing and self-care, putting it at the end of our lengthy list of Things To Do.

Back in 1992, during a particularly harrowing year, I bought a book that I recently re-read. I was delighted to see it has been reissued. The Woman’s Comfort Book: A Self-Nurturing Guide for Restoring Balance in Your Life by Jennifer Louden is chock full of some of the most fun and practical and specific ways you can incorporate self-nurturing activities into your life. The book was written after a year of trauma that left the author unable to write or relax.

As she put it, “I needed to trust what my inner voice was telling me, which was to slow down, take some time to care for me. But I felt too guilty about not being ambitious to heed my intuition. And so a dangerous prison formed: I couldn’t take time to care for myself because I felt I should keep working, but I couldn’t write because I wasn’t nurturing myself. What a mess!”

What’s Your Problem?

One of the best features of the book is a big chart that lists nearly eighty ailments you might have, then the corresponding short chapters that might help that problem. For example, if you feel “deprived,” she suggests the activities in the chapters entitled “Checking Your Basic Needs,” “Comfort Journal,” “A Self-Care Schedule,” “A Day Off,” “Heal Your Habitat,” and several others. If your problem is feeling joyless, you might try the chapters on “Your Nurturing Voice,” “Reading as a Child,” “Seasonal Comforts” or “Animal Antidotes.”

Her ideas are budget-minded (the only kind that work for me), and they are things you can do in your own home. For example, one chapter is on creating a personal sanctuary for yourself. I intend to use a few of her suggestions to rearrange a corner of my office, “walling off” a section with my freestanding bookshelves, moving a small rocker to that corner, adding some plants, a large framed poster of the English countryside, and a small rug to distinguish my sanctuary.

Courage, Fortitude, Boldness

The author claims that it “takes courage to make nurturing yourself a priority. It takes fortitude to meet your own needs. It takes boldness to listen to and trust your intuition.” If it’s been years since you allowed yourself to make self-care a priority, I think her statement is true. I know it was in my own case.

Ms. Louden also asserts that “deserving time to care for yourself is not something you earn…Taking care of yourself is not a reward for getting ten thousand things done today.”

Don’t Wait–Act Now!

There’s no need to wait until you’re burned out with a severe writer’s block to take care of yourself. A little daily self-nurturing goes a long way toward avoiding such conditions. And if you need someone to give you permission to do so, consider it done! I am ordering you to take good care of yourself!

Don’t know where to start? Then I really urge you to get a copy of Ms. Louden’s book and sample some of her fifty chapters of ideas. I know you’ll find something you’ll love!

May 29, 2009

There’s more to dealing with procrastination than snarling at yourself to “just do it!” I know because I’ve been snarling that line at myself for ten days. Today I feel like snarling at everybody else too! I’m caught in the procrastination trap and trying to get out.

I read something helpful about it last night. Did you know procrastination is a cycle with predictable stages? It isn’t just one feeling with one cause. That’s the bad news. I think the good news is that you can interrupt that cycle. The “how-to” depends on what part of the cycle you’re in.

Stages of Procrastination

The vicious cycle of putting things off goes like this:

• starts with feeling overwhelmed
• pressure mounts
• we fear failing at whatever we’re putting off
• we buckle down and try harder
• we work longer hours
• we feel resentful
• we get tired and lose motivation
• and then we procrastinate

Wow! I always thought the “buckle down and try harder and work longer hours” part was good! It’s how I’ve survived all these years. I certainly never considered it part of a procrastination habit or cycle.

But the cycle rings true for me–and is really giving me something to think about. “The cycle starts with the pressure of being overwhelmed and ends with an attempt to escape through procrastination,” says Neil Fiore, Ph.D. in The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Porcrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play. “As long as you’re caught in the cycle, there is no escape.”

Warning Signs of Procrastination

“But I don’t procrastinate,” you may say. Maybe. Maybe not. As I read through the list of thirty-five symptoms in the book, I realized with great shock that I responded yes to about three-fourths of the questions! (It was a shock because for thirty years, people have told me what a hard worker I was, how organized I was, etc.) But I had not considered these behaviors as symptoms of procrastination.

Things like…

• Do you keep an impossibly long “to do” list?
• Do you talk to yourself in “shoulds”?
• Are you often late arriving at meetings and dinners?
• Do you have difficulty knowing what you really WANT for yourself, but are clear about what you SHOULD want?
• Do you find that you’re never satisfied with what you accomplish?
• Do you feel deprived–always working or feeling guilty about not working?
• Do you demand perfection even on low-priority work?
• Do you feel ineffective in controlling your life?

In my book Writer’s First Aid, I maintained that you can’t find a solution to a writing problem until you’ve correctly identified the problem, and then the root cause. If someone had told me that I was a procrastinator, I would have laughed until recently. But I have to admit that the questions hit home, and I definitely recognize that cycle of feelings! Could it be that the burn-out I’ve felt this year comes from a life lived in the procrastination cycle?

I’ll be exploring the ideas for correcting this habit in coming weeks. The idea of not living in that cycle of pressure puts a little spring in my step today!

May 20, 2009

How many voices try to tell you what to write, when to write, and how to write? What voices do you listen to?

This morning I was reading a section of stories called “Obedient to One Voice” in the book Behind the Stories by Diane Eble. One author (Patricia Sprinkle) talked about her dream to write mystery fiction, but that for six years she wrote anything but fiction. She took any assignment that offered to help pay the bills. “And it was a struggle in every way, including financially. But then when I started writing fiction, things began to work out. Again and again, when I choose to do what I truly believe I need to be doing instead of listening to what all the voices around me are saying, God is incredibly faithful in confirming that this is what I need to be doing.”

Various Voices

Sometimes we lose sight of the joy in our work–we can even experience a dreadful writer’s block–if we listen to the wrong voices. It’s true that we can all learn from others, and we need to be able to take constructive criticism. BUT the voice deciding the course of your career, your subject matter, and how you present it should be your voice.

Sometimes we allow voices of parents and other family members to dictate what we should write or judge whether our stories are “good enough.” Extremely few relatives are qualified to judge your writing. Parents may be trying to live their dreams through you; siblings may be jealous. Whether you’re fifteen or fifty, you may still be allowing family members to make your writing choices for you.

Sometimes we allow suggestions from our critique group to change our manuscripts, even when their ideas don’t ring true at all for us. Or we knuckle under to the more experienced (or outspoken) writer in the group, writing humor (because he loves humor) and giving up our historical mystery idea (because historical anything is too hard to sell.) It can be difficult to go against the group opinion, but think carefully before you toss your idea overboard.

Sometimes, like Jane Austen, we’re told by publishers and editors (in magazines, at conferences) that certain themes are popular now and make the most money. Our desires (our themes and subject matter) now sound old-fashioned or boring. Will we scrap our passion for science-fiction set in Italy to write gothic romance in the moors then? Not if you want to enjoy your writing.

Is there a voice you can trust? Yes, I believe there is. Go back to when the writing bug first bit you. What did you like to write? What subjects intrigued you? What was your writing process like? How did you like to write–barefoot in pajamas, longhand in bed, on a laptop at the library? If you were following your inner voice, you probably experienced a level of excitement about your writing that stands out in your memory.

The Voice of Your Choice

“If you find yourself blocked and uncertain as to what to do, could it be that the voices of other people are drowning out the voice of the Lord?” Patricia asks. “Is God asking you to take  a step of faith in a direction others may not understand? The choice is yours. There’s a safety on one side but on the other, freedom and joy beckon.”

May 6, 2009

We don’t like to talk about quitting or giving up on our dreams. But let’s be honest. Will every wannabe writer eventually land big contracts,  snag a well-known NY agent, and be sent on ten-city book tours? No.

Maybe your dreams are more modest, but you’ve worked at breaking into publishing for years. Should you continue the struggle? For how long? How do you know when to quit?

Asking the Wrong Question

I came across an excellent discussion from a blog post that is several years old, but the advice is timeless. Called “When to Quit,” it’s a lengthy article by Scott Young on this subject. I hope you’ll read it to the end.

One factor the article said to consider was how you feel on a day-to-day basis as you pursue your dream. How is the process affecting your life, your character, your growth? “So if you are pursuing your dream and you don’t think you are going to make it, the question of whether or not to quit doesn’t depend on your chance of success. The real question is whether pursuing this dream is causing you to grow. Does this path fill you with passion and enthusiasm? Do you feel alive?”

You may not agree with all his views, but I guarantee that the article will make you think–even if you have no intention of quitting. It might lead you to make a course correction however. And it will make you evaluate why you’re pursuing your particular dream–and that’s always a good thing!

April 10, 2009

The guy who goes to bat the most runs the most risks–and receives the most bumps and bruises. The player who gives it his all receives more scrapes sliding into home than the guy seated safely on the bench. But this player also scores the most runs. The wounds are simply part of being successful.

During the 1988 Jamboree encampment of 32,000 Boy Scouts, one troop (38 Scouts) led the entire Jamboree in cuts treated at the medical tent. The huge number of nicks from busy knives sounded negative until someone toured the camp and saw the unique artistic walking sticks each boy in that troop had made. They led the entire encampment in other kinds of woodcarving, too.

Wounds simply mean that you’re in the game. It’s true for Boy Scouts and ball players–and it’s true for writers as well.

What Wounds?

I know an excellent writer who has revised a book for years–but won’t submit it, even though everyone who has read it feels the book is ready. What benefit does she get from sitting on the bench? She never has to face rejection. She never has to hear an editor say, “This is good–but it needs work.” She never has to read a bad review of her book, or do any speaking engagements to promote her work, or learn how to put together a website. She’ll end the game with no scrapes, bumps or bruises.

She will also never feel the exhilaration of holding her published book in her hands. She won’t get letters from children who tell her how much her book means to them and has helped them. She won’t get a starred review or win an award or do a book signing. She won’t move on and write a second (and third and fourth) book.

If you want to be a writer, you have to get into the game and risk a few wounds. Figure out ways to bandage them and recover from them, but don’t be afraid of getting them. They’re simply a sign that you’re a writer. Wear them proudly!

April 8, 2009

When my kids were toddlers and in grade school, I was wired shut for eleven weeks after two jaw surgeries. I’d had some health problems over the years, but being wired shut topped them all. I couldn’t talk to my four small children or even call a friend.

I was dying to talk, but couldn’t. So I hurried to my computer where my characters “talked” onscreen. Dialogue flew back and forth, and (rather surprisingly) this mental conversation went a long ways toward satisfying me. It took me two months to write Danger at Hanging Rock, turning this post-surgical problem into salable writing.

A Real Pain

Writing about pain and writing through pain is possible. Not FUN, but possible. Health problems crop up routinely. They range from short-term problems (like your son’s broken leg), to things needing constant close attention (like diabetes or arthritis). The most serious problems (like terminal illness or a death in the family) affect us all, sooner or later.

However, instead of quitting, we can also transform these experiences into publishable writing, whether it’s a simple case of the flu or a stay in the hospital. It’s tempting with short-term health problems to abandon our writing “until things settle down.” If at all possible, don’t do that.

Instead, stand back, rethink, and keep going. For example, I finished a mystery called Cast a Single Shadow during my daughter’s hospital stay. I couldn’t sleep, so I borrowed a nurse’s clipboard and wrote while the rest of the hospital slept.

Chronic Pain: Another Story

I’ve had TMJ, facial nerve damage from several surgeries, and arthritis in my jaw joints for 30 years. I’ve also had five neck surgeries to deal with a chronic pain condition. The two main challenges for writers and artists with chronic pain are (1) finding the energy to write, and (2) fighting depression.

Writing, as you know, demands a high level of energy, and people fighting chronic pain may use 30-50% of their daily energy just fighting their pain. If chronic pain threatens to stop you from writing, try these things:

*Accept pain as a fact in your life.  Don’t compare your life with anyone else’s or brood about “how life should be.”  It won’t help. Books like Judy Gann’s excellent title The God of all Comfort: devotions of hope for those who chronically suffer will help and encourage you. You’ll realize that many others deal with chronic pain–and overcome  it. You can too.

*Fight the depression.  If possible, try writing about the positive aspects of your situation. (”Life’s Simple Pleasures” was an article written by a migraine sufferer about learning to appreciate what most people take for granted, like a night’s sleep, a picnic with the family, or planting tulips.) Any type of writing you enjoy is helpful in fighting depression because it tends to distract you from your pain (like when you forget your headache during an exciting movie).

*Find the energy. Create mini-goals (for example, writing just fifteen minutes at a time). Divide each writing task into thin, achievable slices. Assure yourself that you only have to complete one mini-goal or slice, then stop if you need to. Pace your activities, even on the days you feel better than usual. Pushing yourself only increases chronic pain.

Terminal Illness

Terminal illness and a death in the family tax your creativity the most. The shock, numbness, and months of extended grief can derail even the most  dedicated writers. However, even in these cases, certain strategies can keep you going.

Why would you even want to keep writing during such a stressful time? The point of it is so that you still have a career when the weeks or months have passed. You don’t have to start over at Square One. Yes, you take the necessary time to grieve or deal with things. However, if you put your writing “on hold” until things are “back to normal,” you may find it too difficult to get started again.

Keeping that in mind, some tips during a really rough patch might include:

*Journal your feelings.  Journal in hospitals, waiting rooms, and cafeterias. Your deepest heart-felt thoughts will provide excellent material for later. They may become fillers, daily devotions or even greeting card verses for people in similar circumstances.

*Encourage and coax, but don’t push yourself to write. Burnout occurs when the demands we put on ourselves outweigh our energy supply. Some days you just won’t be able to put pen to paper.

*Again, write about your experiences.  It can be the best healer of all. To deal with the pain after my dad died twenty-five years ago, I wrote The Rose Beyond the Wall, a middle-grade novel about a grandmother with terminal cancer.  It was a book written from the heart. Despite its subject, it’s a hopeful book for children, and it sold well in hardcover and paperback. Think about doing the same thing with your experiences.

Remember that “this too shall pass,” and when it does, you’ll be in a position to share with others what you’ve learned. That’s a writer’s satisfaction that money can’t buy.

April 3, 2009

After I’d been publishing for a number of years, I had an eight-year period where major personal and professional losses piled on each other. During this time, I had four surgeries in thirteen months and took on extra work to pay medical bills. Our teenage adopted child was having severe emotional problems, I went through a divorce, moved twice, remarried, and survived a blended family’s three custody battles. Then came the corporate publishing take-over when all my books went out of print.

Block or Burn-Out?

At that point, I could no longer write; no “Ten Tips for Overcoming Writer’s Block” would help me. The common advice was of no use:  “Just retype the last page of your previous day’s work and you’ll be off and running.” There wasn’t any previous day’s work … or previous month’s either.

I had symptoms of “writer’s burn-out”: by-products of prolonged stress. It can be treated. Each symptom stifles a writer’s creativity in a specific way and needs a specific remedy.

Symptoms

FIRST, my buried feelings refused to come to the surface. I felt like robot trying to write. My heroine’s impassioned speeches were stilted and wooden. Plots I hatched were so worn they were threadbare. This was because during a crisis we get rigid control over our feelings. We have to in order to deal with things. Over many months, feelings “under control” become “frozen feelings.” This numbing out spells disaster for writers because we rely on emotions to bring characters and conflict to life.

A SECOND symptom concerns your self-image. During stress, self-esteem takes a plunge. To write best, we need to feel good about ourselves. Long-term crises (divorce, child in trouble, job loss) deal heavy blows to even a healthy self-esteem. It leads to increased fears of criticism. How does that affect you as a writer? Even in the best of times, negative reviews and rejected manuscripts are tough to handle. When emotional resources are shot, normal parts of a writer’s life become impossible hurdles, and we become fearful of trying any new project.

THIRD, after prolonged stress, we often are no longer able to unwind. To create, we need a relaxed, “loosened” state of mind. During long-term stress, because of the extraordinary need for tight control of our feelings and behavior, we become rigid and lose our ability to relax that control when the need passes. Always having “everything tightly under control” leaves a writer too rigid to produce a decent rough draft.

Solutions

There are some antidotes to thaw your frozen feelings and restore your confidence. They’re simple-but effective.

FIRST, tackle your “frozen feelings.” Pay attention to yourself, learn again to identify emotions. You’ve probably been so centered on others for months that you lose touch with how you actually feel. Get re-acquainted with yourself. A simple journal of daily events and the feelings aroused can be very helpful. Sample journal entries:  “When John criticized me at lunch I was so furious that my hands shook” or “That meeting with the attorney left me feeling anxious, as if I’d somehow lost his approval.” Identify and record those feelings. Try writing out your prayers and tell God how you feel too.

SECOND, work on your self-esteem. Lost self-confidence is sometimes tied to isolation that sets in during periods of long-term stress. We don’t feel up to seeing people. It’s easy to retreat within our own four walls; writers don’t even have to leave house to go to work. We tend to get locked into our homes during high-stress periods. Your office begins to resemble a prison. Even in public, we isolate ourselves from others by “putting on a happy face.” To rebuild self-confidence, break your self-imposed isolation. Walk to the park, putter around a museum, take an adult ed class, go to the movies with a friend, and talk to a counselor.  Get out.

THIRD, give yourself permission to relax. Let go of those around you. After living with out-of-control situations, giving up control can seem terrifying. However, giving up the rigid control will probably be necessary if you’re to be a productive writer again. Our best work-our most creative-comes from us when we’re in those relaxed states of mind.

All Healed Now?

Suppose you’ve come this far. You’re now in touch with your feelings, you’ve come out of isolation, and you’re letting other people live their lives while you get on with yours.

Does the writing now flow automatically? Unfortunately, no.

The final task is to coax your creativity out of hiding. It’s not really gone-just merely in hibernation. Often it’s just a matter of changing course, being creative in another area of your life for a time. So try another creative outlet. Each person’s choice will be different. For me, flower gardening and quilting did the trick. Just start small (not some big formal garden or king-sized quilt for a wedding.) You need a no-pressure project.

I planted two tiny plots of petunias and impatiens. I stitched individual quilt squares for wall hangings and table coverings. These were small projects that I worked on for ten or fifteen minutes at a time. Slowly, over time, as I stitched and hoed and prayed, my mind’s rusty gears started to turn. It wasn’t long before my quilting and gardening time produced more story ideas than flowers or wall decorations, and my burn-out was a thing of the past.

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