There is a famous quote: “If you take one day off writing, your muse will take off the next three.”

In other words, it will take you three days (after skipping writing) for you to get back into the flow of your writing project. Even taking one full day off will cost you in focus.

De-Railed Once Again

Because of some unexpected events in January (including a contracted nonfiction project that was taking hours and hours more research than I had figured on), I laid aside my novel about mid-way. After five weeks, I was at a place to pick it up again. But I couldn’t get moving.

So I did what I am always telling other writers to do. I found an online challenge that lasted a week. (Beth Barany ran the challenge through a special Facebook page. For my challenge, I chose “writing 500 words per day” for a week on my novel.) I got behind early in the week, and on Friday had to write 2,000 words to meet the challenge for the week, but I did it, and I got unstuck. I’ve been able to write 30-60 minutes every day since–and I plan to keep it up.

The other thing I did was buy an ebook (free on a daily free ebook notice I signed up for) and read Master Your Time in 10 Minutes a Day by Michal Stawicki. I had also let go of several smaller projects in January that I wanted to restart (reading, studying) that had overwhelmed me. But by using his “10 minutes a day” approach, I got back into all five projects again. I set my timer, worked hard on each thing for ten minutes, then moved on to the next thing. I learned (again!) how much I could get done in ten minutes. More importantly, though, I got unstuck and moving again.

Time of Re-Entry

I don’t know why this is, but when you finally get back to writing, you can expect some uncomfortable, not-fun writing days, producing stuff that stinks. Several writers I’ve read lately say that if you’ve been away from your writing for a week or more, you can expect about ten days of writing that is no more fun than getting teeth pulled when you start again.

When I say “away from your writing,” that’s what I mean too. Sometimes–and I am sooo guilty of this–we fool ourselves that we’re writing when we’re:

• Reading a writing magazine or blog
• Marketing a story (looking for publishers and agents)
• Blogging
• Journaling
• Answering email to writers, editors and family members
• Speaking at writer’s conferences
• Going to book signings or book store readings
• Posting to Facebook or Twitter

That’s not the kind of writing I mean. Those are writing-related tasks, and writers today have more and more of them, it seems. They have to be done. But they don’t take the place of writing.

In the Flow

To stay in the groove, so to speak, you don’t have to write for hours and hours every day (although hours are lovely and the more, the better.) I have found that if I work on my novel for even twenty minutes a day, I can avoid that horrible getting started angst the next day. And I don’t have to waste time trying to remember where I was, what the characters were feeling, what the plot problem was, or that new insight I realized about the theme. Our brains seem to be able to hold onto those things for about 24 hours.

As Heather Sellers said in Page by Page, “I try to avoid missing days. The not-writing days aren’t worth it! It’s too hard to get back into it. This is why athletes cross-train off season. This is why people who are successful with weight management stay below a certain weight. It just isn’t worth it. Getting back into shape is just too hard. It is easier to keep doing it, tiny little writing periods, day after day. Without missing a day.”

Too Late?

What if you’ve already missed a few days, or weeks, or months of writing? Then start again. But you can also take this to the bank: your writing will stink, you will hate it or question your story or your talent or your motives, you will feel self-indulgent, and writing for twenty minutes will feel like hours. But this really uncomfortable period is usually necessary. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that–if you stick it out for about ten days straight–it will pass. The muse will return, the writing will be fun again, you’ll realize how much you missed it, you’ll love your writing rituals and routine, and you’ll wake up eager to write as you did in the past.

Once you regain that wonderful writing state, do everything you can to maintain it. If you know you have a super busy day tomorrow, set your alarm twenty minutes earlier and write before the day takes over. It doesn’t take much writing to stay in the flow–not nearly as much as it takes later if the writing stalls.

Write daily, if at all possible. As the note stuck to my computer says, “You don’t need more time…you just need to decide.”

Did you know that, contrary to popular belief, workaholics (and the sub-group writer-holics) don’t work all the time?

In fact the term can describe “any person who is driven to do too much, whether that person works sixty hours a week or runs around like a chicken with its head cut off…Some work addicts appear motionless, but their minds are racing.” (Diane Fassel in Working Ourselves to Death.)

Three Faces of a Writerholic

While my goal and life-long desire as a writer has been to be consistent with my writing output, it is seldom that way. Sometimes I work long hours with a huge output (like writing 50,000 words last November for NaNoWriMo), sometimes it’s in spurts, and sometimes approaching deadlines make me freeze (afraid that I can’t do what I promised in the contract.)

I knew my writing output was sporadic, but I thought each style was a problem by itself. I am beginning to see that they’re all just different faces of perfectionism.

Obsessive Writers

This writer works long hours, taking on project after project. She feels compelled to do what she needs to do to keep going. I used to blame it on the financial needs of raising children alone–and that certainly contributed to the pressure–but after the need passed, the behavior remained. According to Joan Webb, “it is a matter of identity for her. If she stopped to rest, it would prove she is inferior, lazy or both–and that would be unthinkable.” Yup, this was me for many years.

Binge Writers

This writer works in spurts, but with great intensity and energy and focus. These intense bursts of work are sometimes (for the writer-holic) ways to avoid dealing with other issues (children’s problems, marital woes, a looming health concern). “Work, projects, tasks and accomplishments become the medication of choice so that she doesn’t have to feel her emotions, deal with her disappointments or ask deep questions,” says Webb. I’m guilty of this one too–not as much as in the past, but it’s definitely a factor sometimes.

Anorexic Writers

Deadlines can often turn me into this type of writer. The perfectionist in me isn’t satisfied with writing “sh****” rough drafts, as Anne Lamott calls them in Bird by Bird. After having had 42 books published, you’d think this would no longer be an issue! But it is.

Webb contends that the work anorexic is “afraid she’ll do it wrong, so she procrastinates, and the resulting guilt immobilizes her.”

What Type Are You?

Do you identify with any of the above descriptions of workaholic and perfectionistic writers? (If so, these tendencies probably show up in how you  approach other things in your life, like your fitness efforts and your relationships.)

Do leave a comment and share your own experiences in this area.

Writers are good at pulling up weeds, but they sometimes forget to keep going and plant flowers in the dirt. After you pull weeds, don’t forget to plant flowers.

Many writers in December and January talked about their goals for the new year. Many are working hard to break habits that keep them from their writing dreams. It’s why you pull weeds–they can choke out your flowers. Bad habits can choke your writing dreams.

Here are a few weeds that writers should pull:

• mindless Internet surfing
• writer’s block
• procrastination
• saying yes when you should say no

But is that all you need to do? NO.

Don’t Forget to Plant

I have a neighbor who keeps weeds pulled and has a lovely, clean, raked, raised bed of black dirt. Any time a weed appears, it’s yanked up.  The dirt even gets fertilized. Lots of preparation is done. Unfortunately, there never comes a time when flowers are planted.

Writers do the same thing. They pull weeds. (e.g. conquer writer’s block, set up a writing schedule) Then they fertilize. One such writer, who dreams of becoming a novelist, writes every day. She journals first thing in the morning, and the words flow as she processes her day and makes plans. She posts faithfully on her blog two or three times per week, writing several thousand words each week. She belongs to an accountability group and checks in faithfully.

She blogs about writing issues while dreaming of selling that first novel, or novel series, to a traditional publisher. She has overcome her writer’s issues (“pulled the weeds”) and puts in daily writing time, telling herself that it’s just a matter of time. Week after week, and month after month, she writes, dreaming of that day in the future when she’ll have her first novel published. But it never happens.

And at this rate, it never will. Why?

Because she isn’t planting any flowers. She’ll never have anything but a lovely looking plot of black dirt.

How Writers Plant Flowers

If you dream of publishing a novel, then you have to do correct planting. Your seeds and seedlings might include:

• studying characterization and dialogue
• writing descriptive passages
• practicing figures of speech
• taking an online class on plotting
• studying market guides

Those seeds planted and watered will one day produce a crop.

It All Works Together

Yes, you have to get rid of bad writing habits (“pull weeds”), and you need to establish a routine and accountability (“fertilize”). But if you don’t study your craft and write fiction (“plant flowers”), you won’t realize your dream of publishing a novel.

Don’t stop part-way into the process and fool yourself that you’re doing the necessary work. If you have a decent plot of dirt ready, then move on. Plant those flowers!