Too Much Housework = Too Little Writing

Published on by Kristi Holl Category: Uncategorized

Summer is upon us, so it’s time to remind the mom/writers out there about something.

I recently re-read parts of an old favorite If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland (originally published in 1938). Reading some of her comments, you’d think she was writing in the 21st Century.

Chapter Ten has a lengthy title: “Why Women Who Do Too Much Housework Should Neglect It for Their Writing.” The chapter is about doing too much (unnecessary stuff) for others and neglecting your writing.

The More Things Change…

While most of us today have enough modern conveniences that housework isn’t the time-consuming drudge it used to be, we’re trying to juggle home, day jobs, carpooling, throwing kids’ birthday parties, running the school’s bake sale, and a thousand other things. Those “lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer” only seems to intensify the madness. Some things are truly important to your child’s and family’s welfare, but much of it isn’t.

Let me quote Brenda Ueland and see if you agree:

“They [wives/mothers] are always doing secondary and menial things (that do not require all their gifts and ability) for others and never anything for themselves. Society and husbands praise them for it (when they get too miserable or have nervous breakdowns) though always a little perplexedly and half-heartedly and just to be consoling. The poor wives are reminded that that is just why women are so splendid–because they are so unselfish and self-sacrificing and that is the wonderful thing about them! But inwardly women know that something is wrong.” 

That Was Then! Or Was It?

You might say, “But that was 1938!” Yes, but judging from the letters I get from mom/writers, things haven’t changed all that much. We break our necks trying to keep up with whatever “expert” says a good wife or good mother does. We still “people please” and try to live our roles perfectly–instead of choosing what is the more excellent use of our time and doing that well.

My children (and now my grandchildren) have always come before my writing in importance. But in order to find time to write, I had to stop making my own pickles (like good farm wives did back then), running every children’s program at church, sewing costumes for plays, making applesauce out of the bushel of half-rotten apples given to me, painting my kitchen ceiling that was stained, and a host of other things.

I wanted to write! Something had to give.

What About You?

Today I believe the pressures are much higher. Thanks to social media, young parents are expected to have their children in several social groups starting before preschool, have big birthday parties for the kids, and be at everyone’s beck and call. 

Could this be why you don’t have time to write? Does your family knowingly (or unknowingly) put pressure on you to give up all of your activities in favor of theirs? Or is the person putting pressure on you to be everything for everybody…you? It’s worth thinking about before the summer gets away from you.

Motivate Yourself Overnight!

Published on by Kristi Holl Category: motivation, Uncategorized

Getting Into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn from Actors by Brandilyn Collins, discusses taking on your characters’ inner lives (their emotions and motivations) in order to write believable story people. If you first get inside them, you become those characters.

What if you could use this technique to become the motivated writer you want to be?

Acting “As If”

Steve Chandler, in 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself, discovered this technique of  “getting into character” was a great way to do just that.

“You’ll gather energy and inspiration by ‘doing the character’ you want to be,” Chandler says. “I took an acting class a few years ago because I thought it would help me with stage fright. But I learned something much more valuable… I found out that I could motivate myself by thinking and acting like a motivated person. With practice, the line between acting and being disappears.”

Mind Over Matter?

I’ve never acted on the stage, but his words rang true. When I first gave talks in schools and speeches at library functions, the only way I got my knees to stop shaking was to tell myself continually that “I’m having fun!” and to demonstrate it with the accompanying smiles and gestures. I was petrified and nauseated for nearly two years, but one day–in the middle of a speech–I realized that I actually was having fun! I was stunned.

Just suppose that you could harness this technique and use it to change your own character.

Take Your Pick

What kind of writer do you want to “become”?

  • An organized one? A dedicated one? A motivated one? A super successful bestselling one?
  • Okay, so how would you act?
  • How would you think?
  • What kinds of things would you say to yourself?
  • How would you spend your time?
  • How would you handle negative feedback from editors?
  • Add to these inner changes the proper voice, walk, posture, and facial expressions.

I challenge you (and myself) to act like the writer we want to become. Recovery circles use this when helping people change, dropping destructive behaviors in favor of new healthy ones. “Act as if” and “Fake it till you make it” are commonly heard bits of advice.

As a Man Thinketh in His Heart…

I will never act on the stage, nor need to get into character for opening night. But often, when facing that blank computer screen, I guarantee you that I have “off-stage” fright.

Maybe I’ll begin right now getting into my “confident writer” persona. As Chandler says, “With practice, the line between acting and being disappears.” And won’t that be fun when it does!

Writers Running on Adrenaline

Published on by Kristi Holl Category: balance, energy, productivity, self-care, Uncategorized

What fuel are you running on?

Many writers these days are frantically running from place to place, working too many hours, volunteering for too many projects, working nights and weekends hoping for approval.

On top of that, in order to write, they are fueled by sugar, caffeine, cigarettes and adrenaline to keep going.

Long-Term Damage to Career and Health

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 calls or texts our cell phone or shoots us an email.

Adrenaline rushes work in the short term. Used like a drug, it pushes tired bodies to work faster and harder. The end result, though, 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 nearly 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.

  • I used to routinely arrive places out of breath and a little bit late, tearing into meetings or classes after the program had begun. So embarrassing. I would sweat it on the way to the meeting, and backed-up traffic skyrocketed my blood pressure. I hated to waste time, so I hated arriving somewhere early and waiting. The change I made? To avoid the adrenaline rush, I planned to leave early enough to arrive early, but took work or a book along, stayed in the parking lot and worked, then walked in calmly ten minutes before the class started.
  • I knew that the days I DIDN’T run on adrenaline were the days I started with exercise and devotional reading and prayer. And yet, too many times, I’d awake feeling energetic, consider the two hours I’d lose if I stuck to my exercise/devotional regimen, and jump into writing instead. Make hay while the sun shines, right? Mostly, I made headaches and a sore back and neck, lowering my productivity. I decided to make my morning ritual non-negotiable. 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 also set a boundary on working in the evenings. I couldn’t see what difference it would make if, while chatting or watching a good movie with my husband, I also answered some email and updated my websites. Most of it was “no think” activity, so what did it harm? A lot, I discovered. 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 had to convince myself that it wasn’t selfish to slow down and live at a sane pace, to build in a buffer zone or margin around activities so I could make a smooth (not frantic, hurried) 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 changes for you. And frankly, many people in your life who 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 writing 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 of adrenaline 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?

Success Without Self-Promotion?

Published on by Kristi Holl Category: attitudes, marketing, Uncategorized

Not a week goes by that I don’t get an email asking this question: “I don’t have enough time and energy to do the self-promotion and platform building that is required now. It drains my creativity, sometimes stifling the muse altogether. Is there a way out of this?”

Some authors and business leaders are now saying “yes.”

[FYI: If you disagree with this article, at the end I have listed tools to use to promote your book and build your platform.]

What Really Sells Your Book?

I recently read a thought-provoking article called Success Without Self-Promotion: The Rise of the Invisibles by David Zweig. Below are a few quotes from his article. I don’t necessarily agree with it all, but if you’re a writer who cringes at self-promotion, it’s worth thinking about. Consider these quotes:

You’ve probably been told that to get ahead in business, you need to “raise your profile” or “build a platform.” We live in the era of the “branded self,” with marketing gurus telling you that to excel, you have to manage your persona, the appearance of your work, and your online profile, making these tasks more important than the work itself.

If you’re at all like the Invisibles, you might feel that living in a culture upholding these values is like being on a horrific carnival ride spinning wildly, where every passenger is blaring his or her own air horn…I’m here to tell you something the marketing folks don’t want you to hear: it’s okay to step off the wheel.

and

We do care about our work, but we also feel compelled to spend an inordinate amount of time and energy on shaping the perception of our work to others. It’s not that outward appearances have no bearing on one’s advancement, but it’s far lower than the prevailing business culture would lead you to believe.

We’re All Different

For those of you who don’t mind marketing, or are extroverts, or time isn’t a problem, here are those links:

 

Shorter Focus = Successful Writing

Published on by Kristi Holl Category: focus, strategy, Uncategorized, writing challenges

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–marathon writers–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!

Writing Through Interruptions

Published on by Kristi Holl Category: attitudes, family, interruptions, Uncategorized, writing challenges

I began writing when I had a newborn (ten days old), a todder (two) and a preschooler. If I couldn’t write through interruptions, I couldn’t write at all most days.

People protest all the time that they can’t write with continual interruptions, and I never had much of a response beyond “just do it!” I knew it was possible if they’d really try it. Then recently I heard about someone who’d led a workshop dealing with this very thing–and she taught the participants a valuable lesson.

Start! Stop! Start Again!

The speaker was ostensibly talking about “carving out time to write.” She suddenly stopped and said, “You may choose to write on your current project or a new one, but decide on something, even if it is just an account of your day. Pick up your pencil and paper and write when I say go.”

She timed the group of writers for three minutes and said, “Put your pencils down” and continued her talk for several minutes. She then repeated the interruption and her instructions. They wrote for three more minutes. The speaker interrupted her talk four different times during the hour and had them write.

At the end of her workshop the participants compared notes. They had all written at least one page, many had more, despite being interrupted four times in only twelve minutes of actual writing! Each time they’d been able go back and pick up a thought and continue. The speaker ended with, “You can revise bad writing, but you cannot revise a blank page. Give yourself permission to write junk, then fix it.”

Change Your Mind

I know this sounds awfully simple, but I encourage you to change your mind about being able to write despite interruptions. So few of us live on a deserted island. Most writers–probably 90% or more–have to deal with distractions and interruptions.

If you need to prove to yourself that you can get back to your writing after an interruption, try that workshop experiment. Either try it alone or with your writing group. See what happens.

It just may turn out that you’ve been believing a lie all this time. Writing may not be as enjoyable when you’re interrupted, but it can be done.

Forget About Age

Published on by Kristi Holl Category: attitudes, Uncategorized, writing anxiety, writing life

“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?”  –Satchel Paige

Two writers in the past month mentioned that they were probably too old to start writing. One had waited till her last child had graduated. Another had waited until he retired.

I’d like to debunk that “I’m too old” myth. It’s never too late to get started! It’s always a good time to tackle a new dream.

Jessica Tandy won the Academy Award for Best Actress at age eighty. James Michener didn’t write his first novel until age forty-two, then produced a gazillion bestsellers before he died at age ninety. There’s a woman in my neighborhood who can out-run me, and she’s at least seventy-five now. Youth isn’t everything–not in physical endeavors, nor mental ones.

Experience Rules!

Become comfortable with your current age, even if it’s not what you wish it were. You have tremendous writing potential because you’ve lived long enough to have learned a lot. You have life experience!

For example, years ago I had an elderly student (70’s) who wrote beautiful historical fiction lifted straight out of her childhood–a la Laura Ingalls Wilder. She loved doing it! She didn’t have to do any research, yet her descriptions were superb and rich with detail because she drew on her personal experiences.

Time’s a Wastin’

If writing and publishing are aspirations for you–but you’ve come to it later in life than others–please don’t let that stop you. If you come to the end of your life, will you be disappointed that you didn’t try? I think you will.

You have the same qualities that drive younger writers: creativity,  perseverance, and a passion to succeed. You may not have as much energy, but you probably have a much larger pool of ideas and experiences to draw from. Don’t be afraid to start something new at any stage of life. Chances are good that, if you apply yourself like any other writer, it’s not too late to succeed.

Writing During Summer Travels

Published on by Kristi Holl Category: family, travel, Uncategorized, writing challenges, writing life

Summer is just around the corner. And for many writers, that means traveling to see family and taking vacations while trying to meet deadlines.

Consistent writing may be a necessity during the summer. Can writing and traveling co-exist? Yes, quite happily, but only if you think and plan ahead.

Paved with Good Intentions

We may have the best intentions of writing on trips, but usually we return home with little or nothing accomplished. Since most writers don’t have the luxury of paid vacations—and deadlines approach regardless of summer holiday travel—we need practical ways to squeeze in writing while we journey to see family and friends. It can be done, and without offending anyone or missing out on the festivities. If you plan to hit the road or airways this summer, give these ideas a try.

First, you have to find the time to write. When you first peruse your travel schedule, you may feel convinced that there simply won’t be any time available for your writing. You may have activities planned (or planned for you) that don’t seem to show any gaps of free time. If so, look again.

What about when you check into your motel? Avoid turning on the TV for “company” or to check the local news and weather. Instead, unpack your writing supplies, clean the fly­ers and TV program listings off the desk, and set up an instant office. If you’re staying at someone’s house, make up your mind to write while others watch TV or snooze after a big family dinner.

You can easily find time to write on planes. Just skip watching the movie, ignore the head phones, and leave the in-flight magazines unread. Instead, write longhand or on a laptop on your drop-down table. You can also find time to write on buses and in taxis during long shuttle trips to and from airports. Time spent waiting in airports provides other opportunities to work, whether “people-watching” and jotting notes for your character files or writing longhand while perched on your pile of luggage.

Second, you need places to write. Workplaces for the traveling writer are even easier to find. Depending on the location of your trip, you may find yourself writing on a bench in the mall or at a backyard picnic table at a relative’s home. If your group is staying in a motel, you can write at a table by the pool or sneak down to the lobby and find a comfortable chair behind a potted plant for half an hour. You can write in public libraries. While others in your party shop at the mall, you can write in bookstores that provide chairs and tables. If you’ve planned a day at the beach, try writing while you tan instead of reading or listening to music.

Other places to write on the road include diners, lunch counters, delis, and coffee shops. And don’t forget your bed! Pile up pillows behind your back and grab your notebook or laptop. You can write first thing in the morning if you’re a guest in someone’s home—just let them think you’re sleeping late. Or write in bed before you go to sleep. At first it might not seem like much, but a half hour or full hour of writing can produce more work than we think.

Writing When Traveling: Think Ahead

If your holiday schedule will include traveling, yet you need or want to keep writing while on the road, do some pre-planning before leaving home. Adjust your mind-set ahead of time as well.

Be alert to unexpected changes in your travel plans and grab some impromptu writing sessions. Keep your writing tools handy in order to take advantage of these opportunities to write during your day. Be deter­mined to write in whatever chunks of time you find. If you want to travel, but you also need to work, this is one way to have your cake and eat it too!

Writing after Major Losses

Published on by Kristi Holl Category: encouragement, healing, Uncategorized, writing challenges, writing life

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 my eleven 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 a 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 the 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.

Writing Through Relationship Struggles

Published on by Kristi Holl Category: family, Uncategorized, writing challenges, writing life

Do these scenarios sound at all familiar? (They all happened to writers I know.)

  • You’re writing your first picture book, but your husband is jealous of your time at the typewriter and won’t speak to you at supper. (I know this sounds childish, but it happens fairly often.)
  • Or your wife reads your book and asks you what makes you think you’re a writer. (These struggles are not gender-specific.)
  • Or you’re struggling to write, but your recent marital separation has left you too depressed and exhausted to concentrate.
  • Or your wife gained fifty pounds to protest how much time you spend writing. (Yes, this actually happened to a writer friend.)

How to Keep Writing

Many talented writers lose confidence and lay aside their writing dreams because of marital problems. THIS ISN’T NECESSARY. However, it does require you to fall back and regroup when you have an unsupportive spouse, whether this person is just mildly irritated with you or has filed for divorce.

*First, develop faith in yourself. Rather than looking for outside support, look inside. The decision to write is made–and carried out–alone. Then write daily, even if just a journal entry. Nothing–no matter how long you write or how much you are published–builds faith faster that you’re a real writer than the physical act of writing every day.

*Create an outside support system. For me, this starts with God and prayer. Also join or form a writers’ group that can offer you encouragement. Attend writers’ conferences to hear inspirational speakers. Clip or photocopy encouraging articles from The Writer and Writer’s Digest to re-read when needed. I have a six-inch thick file of such articles.

*Change your writing time. When I worked at the dental office during my separation, I wrote for an hour before work and during my lunch hour, a totally different writing schedule for me, but the break in routine was effective.

*Change your surroundings. Our surroundings hold memories. And when they’re bad memories, they stifle our creativity. So change your place of writing. Work in the library or another room in the house.

*Just write. Writing won’t necessarily banish depression, but depression doesn’t have to banish the writing either. Don’t wait until you feel happy to write.  Just keep writing. Don’t edit at this point–nothing sounds good when you’re depressed. Write instead. Journal. Write out your prayers if praying is difficult at this time. (A helpful resource is Writing for Emotional Balance: A Guided Journal to Help You Manage Overwhelming Emotions by Beth Jacobs.)

Relationship struggles happen to most people eventually. It doesn’t have to mean the end of your writing. Take specific steps to keep putting one writing foot in front of the other. You want to have a career left when the dust settles–and you can.