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!

November 4, 2009

This month, because of NaNoWriMo, my blog posts may be shorter, but I hope just as thought-provoking for you, the writer. Today I want to share something with you that I read about dreams.

“Only dreams give birth to change,” the meditation said. “Gradually, as you become curator of your own contentment, you will learn to embrace the gentle yearnings of your heart.”

Guardian of Writing Dreams

What longings about your writing life do you have tucked away somewhere? I think we all have them. Some get tucked away until that fictional future of “when I have more time.” Others are hidden because we don’t believe that we have the skill or ability to produce the kind of writing we hold dear.

“There are years that ask questions,” said Zora Neale Hurston, “and years that answer.” Right now, with the publishing industry depressed and asking its own questions about survival, your writing dream may be on hold. [A couple of mine are too.] But this too shall pass.

Sowing Until You Reap

Don’t stop dreaming. Continue to sow the seeds of your dreams. Water them daily. Be the curator of your writing contentment. Your dreams need guarding and protecting, and you’re the only one who can do that.

Take a moment today and write down your most private writing aspirations. Name two things you can do to protect those dreams. Today, do at least one of them!

July 17, 2009

“By perseverance the snail reached the ark.”

              (Charles Spurgeon)

This is a tough time to begin a writing career. It’s a tough time to continue writing! I haven’t heard any really good publishing news from my writer friends for a long time. I sense discouragement. I even heard one long-time writer say he was going to give up if he didn’t sell another book soon.

How Do I Keep On Keeping On?

“You will never get where you want to be in life without being willing to sacrifice and push through the obstacles and adversities that stand in your way,” says Joyce Meyer in her new book, Never Give Up!: Relentless Determination to Overcome Life’s Challenges. “Your obstacle may be an attitude, a set of circumstances, a relationship, an issue from your past, a thought or mind-set, a feeling, or a bad habit.”

What obstacle is standing in your way to getting published during this difficult time? Lack of training so you can bring your writing up another level? You have choices ranging from expensive MFA programs to free online writing courses and e-books. Are you impatient, expecting fast results in an instant gratification society? You may have to find ways to work on patience–and write while you’re waiting. Or is the obstacle pushing against you fear of failure, writer’s block, or some other writer malady that keeps you from producing? You have to find ways to push back–and keep pushing!

Telling It Straight

There isn’t an easy way to have the writing life of your dreams. It takes hard work. No matter how enjoyable it is, it’s also hard. And until you take consistent action steps–make real lifestyle changes–nothing much will change for you. Your writing dream will remain just that: a dream.

“Do you want to be in the same situation this time next year?” Joyce asks. “Or do you want something different? If you want to have something different, then you’ll have to pay the price on this end to have what you want on that end. You will have to spend some of this year moving toward your goals for next year.”

And you’ll have to keep pressing on when you can’t see any progress, when you get rejection slips, and when you get no answer back at all. (The “no answer” answer is becoming very common, by the way, in case it’s happening to you too.)

What’s It Gonna Be?

If you love to write–if you’ve dreamed of being a writer–then don’t give up on your dreams. I know it’s a really tough time to be a writer, whether you’re a beginner, a midlist author, or a full-time writer of many years. “You simply have to choose which kind of pain you want–the pain of pressing through or the pain of giving up,” says Joyce. ”I’m convinced there is no worse pain than an unfulfilled, dissatisfied life.”

If you know, in your heart of hearts, that you were meant to be a writer and you want to be a writer, then please don’t give up. The publishing industry has seen hard times before–and probably will again. That’s no reason to quit.

So fall back. Regroup. Plot your course of action to tackle your writing challenges. When the going gets tough, the tough get going…right?

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 22, 2009

My grandson (3 1/2) has always been terrified of thunder. Last week he was with me during a rare downpour. No lightning, just rumbling thunder and a curtain of rain falling from the eaves. We sat on the back porch swing, Caleb with his head tucked under my arm and hands covering both ears.

I kept swinging, enjoying the rain. When there was a rumble, he’d cringe and yell, “Nana, thunder!” After the fourth rumble, I said, “I think that noise was a plane.” (We sometimes have Air Force cargo planes that fly over, sounding very much like thunder to me.) He opened one eye, looked up at the gray sky, and said he couldn’t see any plane. “They fly up in the clouds,” I said.

But Just Suppose…

I won’t bore you with the ninety minutes we sat there, discussing the probability of the noises being planes or thunder. But by lunchtime, he was sitting up on his side of the swing, hands in his lap, and discussing a cargo plane he remembered from an air show. Noise from the sky (either planes or thunder) had continued the entire time. I was amazed that you could teach a three-year-old to re-interpret events and thus regulate his emotions.

If you’re a writer, it’s a skill you’d better learn too.

We all interpret our emotions. As Beth Jacobs says in Writing for Emotional Balance, an emotion is first a physical response, the stimulation of a pathway of nerve cells in the brain. (e.g. a specific pathway has been identified for the feeling of anxiety, which activates certain physical responses) You interpret–you make decisions about–the physical symptoms and the stimulus that caused the anxious reaction.

In Caleb’s case, his fear that the thunder would hurt him was irrational. His was a false fear. (F.E.A.R. often stands for False Evidence Appearing Real.) After suggesting just one other plausible cause for the noise, he was able to calm down and eventually enjoy being outside watching it rain. (Of course, if there had been lightning, we’d have headed inside. I wasn’t asking him to deny reality.)

So many of a writer’s fears are just like my grandson’s terror of thunder. It’s False Evidence Appearing Real. We take “evidence” like a rejection, and we birth a host of fears: I’m afraid I’ll never be published, I’m afraid the economy is too weak for me to succeed, I’m afraid I’m wasting my time writing, I’m afraid I’m too young/old to write. Or we look at our past failures and conclude, I’ll never succeed at writing either. (I remember that one well. I had tried four or five work-at-home endeavors before taking the Institute’s writing course, and I could have let those failures persuade me I’d fail at writing too.)

Re-frame and Move On

Most often, our writing fears have no more substance than my grandson’s deathly fear of thunder. Fear makes a lot of noise, but it’s just noise. When we decide to interpret circumstances a different way–one that is just as plausible–the fear will eventually evaporate.

Got a rejection? It’s just as likely that the reason is the economy, or maybe the magazine already accepted a similar piece. You have a series of failed home businesses in your past? That’s no predictor of future success. It’s much like Edison’s response when someone asked him how it felt to fail to invent the light bulb 1000+ times . He claimed that none of those efforts were failures. He had been successful at finding 1000+ things that didn’t work. He always expected the next try might be the one to succeed. Eventually, it was.

When your negative writing circumstances could be interpreted in a more positive light, do that for yourself. You’ll get rid of irrational fear, you’ll free up your creativity again (which thrives on hope, not pessimism), and you’ll be prepared for a writing career that can last for decades. Re-framing fear is not an optional skill. It’s a must-have for your writing survival.

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!

March 16, 2009

I heard a sermon recently about life being filled with “fillers” and “drainers.” The pastor was talking about people, of course.

Fillers are people who know how to encourage you and build you up. Drainers are in your life because they need encouragement and help; however, they don’t have time for you if you need something in return. (You know the type. They think a “give and take” relationship means, “You give, and I take.”) A rare person is both a filler and a drainer in your life, and you’re blessed if you have a person or two like that in your family or circle of friends.

Writing Relationships

If we narrow the “fillers and drainers” idea down to writers, I think you will find the idea holds true there as well. You will meet filler writers who are great encouragers for you, who help keep your self-esteem intact through the tough times of rejection, writer’s block, poor sales and negative reviews.

And you’ll meet drainer writers, those who nail you in the restroom at the writer’s conference and want you to give a free critique, then introduce them to your agent or editor.

Occasionally you will meet that rare treasure: a writer who is both filler and drainer. When you do, treat this priceless person well, and do all you can to sustain the relationship(s).

A Dream Group

These past eighteen months I have puzzled over why my current critique group works so well when the five or six previous groups I belonged to folded. After I heard that sermon, I knew.

Each person in our group–whether more newly published or an old veteran–is both a filler and a drainer. Each person is an encourager–but also each person is humble enough to ask for help and accept it.

It’s Your Choice

What kind of writer are you? You may not know other writers yet, so you might not be sure. But you’ll eventually meet writers at conferences, retreats, local writer gatherings or book store signings and readings. In the writing relationships you enter, strive to be a filler as well as a drainer.

If you’re unpublished or newly published, you might think you have nothing to offer. Not true! You don’t have to be published to be an encourager, an uplifter, or a good listening ear. Publishing advice isn’t the only thing other writers need. In fact, I would guess (from my experience) that it’s not even near the top of the list. (That’s why my blog is focused on the emotional issues of writing rather than how to plot or build characters or write a winning query.)

After you attend your next writing event (large or small) ask yourself: “Was I filler or a drainer today?” Did you make encouraging comments as well as ask for help? Did you give as well as take? If you can find that kind of balance, you’ll be able to build writing relationships that will last a lifetime.

October 15, 2008

May 2, 2008

(First read “Dealing with Disappointment” Part 1 and Part 2)

Trust Your Calm Inner Response
Settle down, then look inside yourself for your adult response. The little kid in you has had his/her day and internally ranted and raved, but the grown-up in you usually knows the best course of action to take, if you’ll just listen to him or her. The adult response may not be what we want to hear. The child in us wants to respond in retaliation to a perceived hurt or outright attack (on our writing or some other aspect of our life.) Retaliating rarely helps, no matter how much your loyal best friend urges you “not to take that lying down!” If you’ll listen, your calmer inner adult will know—and tell you—how to respond appropriately without starting World War III. Respond to the disappointment in a manner that is also best for the other person. How? Without accusation or causing embarrassment to the other person, and without seeking any kind of revenge. People will disappoint us. Sometimes quite badly. None of us is perfect. The disappointment for you will lift—along with the writing doldrums—if you can follow this advice.

Battlefield of the Mind
Last, don’t focus on the hurt or the person or the disappointment. Literally remove your mind from the subject. Shove it to the back burner for now. Dwelling on the disappointing incident will magnify it, and thus magnify your pain, and thus prolong your writing block or lethargy. If you must think about it—if the situation demands attention—then search for a silver lining. See what the disappointment can teach you, or how you can stretch and grow because of it. But don’t focus on the disappointment itself. Look beyond it. “This too shall pass,” and it will pass faster if you don’t concentrate on it. In the meantime—while you cool down and relax—you can also get a lot of writing done.

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