family

Writing During the Teen Years

Published on by Kristi Holl

Keeping with our Mother’s Day theme of combining writing with raising children (Hats Off to Mom Writers, Combine Babies and Bylines, Combining Writing and School-Age Kids), let’s talk about writing during the teen years–and the skills it will entail.

The main challenge at this time is keeping (and constantly regaining) your sanity! Even normally active teens can leave a parent hyper, worried, deaf, and frustrated: not a state conducive to your best writing. Teens in ongoing trouble can just about finish you off. I discovered Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way during a few years of having one teen in a serious situation. I think that book was instrumental in saving my career.

Surviving and Thriving with Teens

Over the years, I discovered some helpful tips for writing with teens in the house…

*Use ear plugs and white noise machines.  Find soft foam ear plugs, like miniature marshmallows. Ear plugs block out stereos, giggling girls, phones ringing, and TV. You can buy white noise machines in the baby departments of most stores.

*Adjust your schedule–because the kids won’t/can’t adjust theirs. On weekends I waited up to ensure each child got home safely from part-time jobs and dates. I used to doze by the TV and then was too tired to write in the morning, which I resented. So, despite the difficulty making the switch, I started writing from ten to midnight on weekends. Then I would sleep late the next morning without guilt.

*Teenagers’ roughest times (drugs/drinking, pregnancies, school problems) can come close to derailing an author’s ability to write creatively. These problems last for months–or years–and can be a source of major writer’s block. If this is your situation, throughout the day try some free-flowing ten-minute writing exercises to unblock, writing about whatever you’re feeling. Just keep writing–anything. Keep the words flowing during these high-stress times so your ability to write is intact when the crisis finally passes.

Some of those ten-minute segments may later provide you with story/article ideas for teens or parents. Perhaps, with teens underfoot, you’ll write a nonfiction book for parents like my favorite self-help title: Get Out of My Life But First Could You Drive Me and Cheryl to the Mall? Is there any doubt that this author merged raising kids with his writing?

Combining Writing and School-Age Kids

Published on by Kristi Holl

Yesterday we talked about how to Combine Babies and Bylines. There are challenges galore when writing with newborns and babies in the house. At that stage, we usually daydream of that magical day when the kids will be in school and we’ll have all those uninterrupted hours to write.

Yes, it is easier to write when kids are older, but not necessarily easy. You still need ways to be there for your family while making time for quality writing.

One place I found a ton of helpful advice when I was starting out was the book above: How to be a Successful Housewife/Writer. It always helps to learn from someone who practices what they preach.

Wearing So Many Hats

Life is hectic at this time, with chauffeuring kids to baseball and ballet. You may also work full- or part-time. More demands are made on your evenings and weekends. At this stage, the key is to be flexible and disciplined.

*Write wherever/whenever you can. I finished an entire novel by writing in the orthodontist’s waiting room, bleachers during basketball practice, and the doctor’s office while my daughter got her weekly allergy shots.

*If you work outside the home, write on the bus if you commute. Use a voice activated tape recorder if you have to drive. Write during your lunch hour. One time I worked as a receptionist in a dental office to make ends meet. I took my laptop to work with me and wrote during my lunch hour–and got a surprising amount written. And there’s always pen and paper.

*Go to the library to write some evenings or weekends. Grab a few hours of peace and quiet there. (I still do that–to make myself stay off email and work!) If you can concentrate in a book store or coffee shop, take your writing there for a couple hours.

*If your days are free while your kids are in school, limit TV, Internet surfing, volunteering, and lunches out. You must CHOOSE writing and choose it first whenever possible, before other activities. When helping at your kids’ schools, volunteer for ONE activity at the beginning of the school year (e.g. help with the Christmas party) instead of becoming room mother or some job that takes many hours per month. (Remember: more than one school-age child multiplies the requests for volunteering.)

*When working at home, use an answering machine and voice mail. Kids learn to remember their own homework and lunches if you’re no longer available to run forgotten items to school.

Turn Experiences into Manuscripts

Much of my early publishing success came directly from parenting school-age kids. I wrote articles like “Telephone Safety” for Jack & Jill. I also wrote novels like The Haunting of Cabin 13 (children’s choice award winner) after camping with my school-age kids in Backbone State Park in Iowa.

Parenting school-age children doesn’t have to mean choosing between your family and your writing. Try combining them instead. This age group provides you with rich material. Make flexibility your watch word, and you’ll be able to juggle both.

My children helped me be a better writer–and writing daily helped me be a better (happier) mom!

Combine Babies and Bylines

Published on by Kristi Holl

 

I started writing when I had an infant, a two-year-old, and a preschooler. I wrote throughout their school years, their teen years, their college/adult years, and now full circle when I am babysitting grandkids.

The (survival) skills you need to both write and parent change with each stage of your children’s lives. (Sometimes your biggest need is time or energy. Other times your biggest need is keeping your sanity!)

So between now and Mother’s Day, I want to blog about practical ways to combine writing and parenting throughout these stages. Just as beneficial, I hope I can show you some ways that your kids can be your best source of material. (Let’s start at the very beginning…)

Writing with Infants & Small Children

When raising babies and small children, FINDING TIME to write is the toughest ask. Try these ideas:

*Jot down story and article ideas when you’re forced to sit– waiting rooms, nursing the baby, etc.

*Prewrite.  Think through your plot lines, article openings, and titles while doing non-think activities like cooking supper and vacuuming. You don’t have time to waste at the keyboard. You may only have ten minutes.

*Outline. When you sit down to write, you’ll know exactly where you are; you won’t waste time getting started.

*Keep writing supplies organized, in one spot, out of little ones’ reach. (For years I wrote in a small closet painted orange with a door on it for this reason.)

*Hire a sitter or barter with a friend to trade babysitting. I never did this, but I know others have. Use these uninterrupted blocks of time for serious writing. Save those other miscellaneous writing chores for those tiny segments of free time.

Turn Childhood Experiences into Writing

One such experience of mine with small children became an article for Farm Woman (later called Country Woman) entitled “Treasure This Day,” which was reprinted in Catholic Digest. It was a simple article about the joys and frustrations of gardening with a baby, a toddler and preschooler in tow.

Another book, For Every Joy That Passes, has a mother in it who runs a daycare in her home; many of my baby and toddler experiences went in there.

My published stories, articles and books based almost directly on my kids would take pages to list. Just be aware that your children–especially when you write for the juvenile market–are one of your best research sources.

(If you have a tip for busy moms of very young children, do share it below or on Facebook. Don’t assume that it’s too simple, or everyone already does it.)

Key #2: Think Like a Writer

Published on by Kristi Holl

We’ve talked about the benefits of writing in flow, in that relaxed timeless state, and we’ve talked about the first key to developing this skill: have a reason to write.

Today let’s look at Key #2: thinking like a writer. These keys are based on Susan Perry’s Writing in Flow.

CHANGE MY THINKING?

We all think like writers already, or we wouldn’t be writing, correct? True enough, but in this series we’re concentrating on developing the ability to write in flow. Do writers who frequently write deeply and easily think differently?

Yes, it appears that they do. They have a certain set of attitudes, based on hundreds of Perry’s interviews. If we study these attitudes and beliefs and incorporate them into our own thinking, we should also be able to write in flow, be more productive, and enjoy the writing more.

WRITER ATTITUDES

This doesn’t mean you need a new personality. Quite the contrary. Be who you are, Perry says. “When you work with what comes naturally to you rather than struggling against it—whether it’s your preference for an uncluttered work space or your tendency to do the opposite when those little voices in your head suggest that you ought to be answering those letters rather than writing a poem—you can apply your energy to what matters most to you.”

Another attitude, especially with writers in the early years, has to do with spending free time pursuing writing. They may be “troubled by the niggling feeling that taking too much time for their writing is slightly selfish because it’s like stealing time from their family,” Perry says. “If you identify with that second attitude, naturally you might find it more difficult to let go and focus fully when you do sit down to write.”

This attitude is easy to overcome after you are published and making money at your writing. Before that, I found that I got over the guilt when I took my writing time from my own free time activities—my sleep, TV, time with my friends. I gave up my own “extras” instead of taking it from the family, and then I didn’t feel guilty. It’s very hard to relax and write “in flow” when you’re feeling guilty!

RISK TAKING

Relaxing into flow—that essential letting go—can feel risky to certain personality types like mine. I don’t like risks, and I spend too much time probably trying to avoid risks. I would love it if I could make all my loved ones stop taking risks too! However, being afraid to take risks in your writing can stifle you as a writer.

“Taking risks, of whatever kind, can be especially challenging to those who can’t bear to give up control,” Perry says. “You can learn to open yourself to the unexpected, which is such a rich source of creative insight, by giving up control in small ways.” Remember, we’re talking about taking risks in your writing. You can certainly still control all the things in your environment that help you get into the flow state: clean desk, soft music, set daily routines, writing in certain locations, whatever you need.

For many writers, taking risks with your writing—in subject matter, in tone—can be scary. What will XXX think? (XXX = your editor, your mother, your spouse, the critics…) If you are focused on the fear of taking risks and what others will think, you can’t relax enough to enter the flow state.

One day I realized that in order to avoid that feeling, I only had to promise myself never to show the story to anyone if I didn’t want to. It never had to see the light of day, never had to offend anyone or hurt someone’s feelings. That decision helped me to write freely. And when I’d get to a place in the story that set off internal alarm bells (“You can’t say that!”), I said to myself (out loud), “No one ever needs to see this. I can say what I want. I can always change it later if I want to.” Writing this way, there is no risk involved whatsoever—and you can’t fail.

BE FULLY ABSORBED

Being fully absorbed in your work is very close to working in flow. And it’s a decision you can choose to make more often. Being fully absorbed means you “are deeply immersed in some activity as to be impervious to distractions…As a personality trait, absorption reflects the degree of your tendency to become deeply engaged in movies, nature, past events, fantasy or anything else.”

This type of person will have an easier time entering the flow state, which requires an ability to become deeply engaged and weed out distractions. A fully absorbed person can watch a good movie or read a good book and forget (temporarily) about negative distractions like his hunger, his headache, and her fight with her spouse—or lovely distractions like the phone, a beautiful day outside, or the cake in the kitchen.

BECOME CONFIDENT

You don’t start out writing with confidence or the ability to bounce back from rejection. You will need to find ways to master your fears, find confidence in your own writing voice, plus deal with isolation and self-doubt. All writers have to do this. I wrote many years with no confidence whatsoever. It can be done, but it’s rather torturous. I wasn’t writing in the enjoyable, timeless flow we’re talking about.

If you want help in this area, I highly recommend Cecil Murphey’s book called Unleash the Writer Within: the Essential Writers’ Companion. Rather than working to overcome your weaknesses, the author shows you how to make friends with them and turn them into strengths. He deals with helping you find your real voice, like yourself, deal with the inner critic in an usual way, shatter writer’s block, and more. And he does all this in such a kind, straightforward and transparent way. Cec Murphey has millions of books in print and speaks from experience.

LONG-TERM PREPARATION FOR WRITING

If you have several attitudes mentioned above that need adjusting, you can’t just sit down and decide to think like a writer right now, so you can slip into flow. It takes time, depending on your mental attitudes at this time.

Developing the above attitudes will help you tolerate anxiety, be more open to new experiences, and learn to trust the writer you already are. If you feel like you need help in this area of “writerly attitudes that benefit you,” Unleash the Writer Within is my suggestion for you. I wish I’d had this book thirty years ago.

I’ve given you a lot to think about this week on the subject of writing in flow. Next week we’ll begin with Key #3: Loosen Up!

 

Writing on the Road

Published on by Kristi Holl

If you can’t be flexible, don’t be a writer.

Deadlines. Emergency phone calls. And you’re on the road again!

Sometimes there is just no choice. Family needs you. Deadlines won’t budge. So you do what you have to do. It may not be ideal, but writing in the car can be do-able.

Writing in a Car

Life just happens, and you have to adjust. You CAN write on the road if you’re really determined.

Did I like working on a laptop in the front seat of a compact car? No. I don’t like typing with my elbows close to my waist or trying to find angles where the sun won’t glint off the screen. Happily, we were driving in the dark a good bit of the time, so the sun wasn’t a huge problem. Did I like writing with the radio blaring? No–I like total quiet to write.

Despite the less-than-ideal writing conditions, I was able to write a whole chapter on the way there and half a chapter on the way home. That was about 4,200 new words of a rough draft. If I hadn’t written, what would I have done otherwise? Daydreamed. Napped. Stared out the window. Read more–although I still managed to read a lot.

Keep the Pump Primed

Besides getting the words down, the writing done in the car will be very helpful to me later today. When I sit down to write, I won’t have to go back and see what I wrote three days ago and try to remember the emotions of that scene or where I was headed with it. It’s still fresh in my mind from writing in the car last night. I can pick up where I left off with little trouble. (By the way, I readily admit that writing with no small children in the car is MUCH easier! When my children were little and I didn’t own a laptop, my writing in the car was done with pencil and notebook, using a flashlight after dark. Where there’s a will, there’s a way!)

All our best laid plans for setting up a writing schedule can go out the window in a moment. We don’t live on islands, but instead in families that require our flexibility. So learn to build that flexibility into your writing life.

By all means, have a set schedule and a favorite place that is most conducive for your writing. But learn to go with the flow too–and fit the writing in whenever and wherever you can. Later, you’ll be glad you did!

The Writer's Holiday Household

Published on by Kristi Holl

Because so many of us on the Holiday Writing Challenge are dealing with juggling our writing and multiple holiday events and jobs and families, I decided to run an older article today on “Household Have-To’s.” I think during the holidays it is especially appropriate.

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Families: what would we do without them? Writers want to keep up with their homes and families, yet also write, but there just doesn’t seem to be enough time. Maintaining our homes (even if we have no Martha Stewart aspirations) and keeping our families fed and clothed can consume so much time that the would-be writer finally throws up her hands and shelves her writing dreams for “later,” when there will be more time.

“Later” won’t come. Sad, but definitely true. There is only now, and without making some household changes, there won’t ever be time to write. As seasons come and go, your chores and responsibilities will change, but the time to write won’t magically materialize. You have to make it appear.

Planned Procrastination

Like many new writers, I didn’t think I could sit down at the keyboard unless the dishes and laundry were done, the carpet vacuumed, and the children happily entertained with Play-Doh. I had tried writing before polishing off these household chores, but the anxiety and guilt got the better of me. And, of course, since I felt guilty, I must be doing something wrong. Right? So I returned to my “work now, play later” philosophy, washing dishes during my prime creative time and writing late in the day when I had no energy left. Not until years later, when I realized writing was also work, did a paradigm shift occur. Then I finally put household chores in their place.

Elaine Fantle Shimberg, author of Write Where You Live, says, “If you can put household chores in their proper place–something that must be done eventually–you can make and stick to a writing schedule that works for you. Do what needs to be done as it needs to be done, then do it as efficiently and effectively as it needs to be done and nothing more.” (Unless your mother’s coming to visit.) She called it “planned procrastination.”

Does It Have To Be Done?

How do you decide what has to be done and what doesn’t? It’s a personal decision, but look critically at how you spend your time. Are you working around the house doing things no one ever notices (rearranging the photos, painting daisies on all your flower pots, alphabetizing books by author?) Then stop it. In most families, spouses and children notice when there’s no food to eat, no clean clothes to wear, and you’re out of shampoo. Pretty much everything else is optional.

So decide what is critical to you, then stop doing everything else. Personally, I need the house picked up before I can work, but dishes in the sink can wait. You may be the opposite. Experiment. Try leaving certain jobs undone while you write–or undone altogether–and see what really bothers you and what doesn’t. Perhaps you were raised to mop the kitchen floor every Saturday, so you’ve done it for years. You may discover once a month suits you fine, with mini wipe-ups between times. Remember the purpose of the experiment: time saved is time you can spend writing. 

Organize!

If you organize your household have-to’s, you’ll find more time to write. Do you run errands several times per week and wander around stores trying to remember what you need? Then combine your trips into one morning, make lists before you leave home, map out an efficient route, and easily save yourself several hours per week. If you have a choice, run those errands in off-peak times. Save at least an hour each week by not visiting banks, Laundromats, pharmacies, post offices and grocery stores in the evenings, on weekends, or just before closing time.

Consider boxing up or throwing away all your clutter gathering dust. Clear off desks, kitchen counter tops, bathroom counters and cabinets, coffee tables, and dressers. Cleared surfaces are faster to dust and make you feel in control of your home. File or trash the clipped recipes, old medicines, and past issues of anything. Put away appliances you rarely use, like the bread maker, juicer, blender, and toaster oven. Make space to work. Then appropriate that saved time to write.

Supper Time!

Food shopping, preparation and cleanup are NOT one of the household have-to’s you’ll be allowed to skip. So streamline and enlist help. Put a grocery list on the refrigerator and insist that everyone add his requests to the list in writing. (No more of this “Hey, Mom! We’re out of…”) If it’s not on the list, you don’t buy it. Train family members to add items to the list when they use the last of it. As soon as your kids have drivers’ licenses, make grocery shopping (with the list) one of their chores. (It pays off! My oldest daughter met her future husband this way. He was her carryout boy for a year before he actually carried her off.)

Streamline your cooking too. If your children are too small to help, then fix double or triple portions when you cook, and freeze a meal or two. Why spend two one-hour periods cooking two meals of meatballs, when you can cook that amount in one hour, freeze a meal, and use that saved hour for writing? If your children are ten or older, they can take turns cooking and cleaning up afterwards. My children, from ten on, were assigned one night per week to cook and do dishes. (That way the sloppy cooks had to clean up their own messes afterwards.) There are great kids’ cookbooks, and my children enjoyed trying new things. If they wanted to cook something special, they added those items to the grocery list.

We All Live Here

Anyone who lives under your roof should be helping with chores. Even the youngest child can pick up toys. Elementary children can make and change their beds, take out garbage, do dishes, vacuum, and fold laundry. Older children and teens can grocery shop, scoop snow, wash cars, and mow the lawn as well. Rotate the chores as much as possible. No one enjoys cleaning bathrooms, so make everyone take a turn. “Many hands make light work,” my grandma always said. And she was right.

After you decide which chores really need doing, schedule those tasks according to your inner clock. Don’t waste your most alert hours sweeping floors and washing dishes. If you’re mentally sharp in the mornings, write first. If you’re brain dead upon awakening, clean toilets then–and write late at night when your muse comes out of hiding. I have found, after writing a couple hours, that washing dishes or sorting laundry makes a good break–and is unfun enough to prod me back quickly to the keyboard!

You own your house. Don’t let it–and its tasks–own you. Take a hard look at your current household have-to’s, and see where you can cut or streamline. Make the changes. Then spend that “found” time writing instead.

Journal Through the Summer (Part 2)

Published on by Kristi Holl

(First read Journal Through the Summer–Part 1) Journaling has many purposes and uses–and here are some more!

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Journaling Dreams

Journal through your summer by exploring your dreams and daydreams. Give yourself free rein to imagine the kind of life you’d love to live. No restrictions. Journal about where you’d like to live, things you’d like to experience, new foods you’d like to eat, different hobbies you’d like to try. Let your mind wander off onto all sorts of delightful tangents, then capture those daydreams in a journal.

You’ll begin to notice common threads. Perhaps you’ll discover all your daydreams cen­ter around creating more simplicity in your life. Perhaps they express a need for more adven­ture. Perhaps they’ll uncover a buried dream or goal from long ago. Slow down, and take the time to get to know yourself again.

Journaling Creativity

Use a summer journal to explore more facets of your creativity. Perhaps you’ve written and published numerous nonfiction pieces. In your journal, experiment with poetry. Draw a pic­ture. Write an essay or a fairy tale. Create some song lyrics. Write a fantasy story if you’ve always written modern-day thrillers. You may be surprised to uncover hidden talents in areas you never explored before.

Use a summer journal to take snapshots. In addition to using a camera, use your jour­nal. After you snap a picture of Grandma reading to your son, write a journal entry describ­ing the scene. Be liberal with sensory descriptions, and use all your senses. Describe the lilt in Grandma’s voice, the tattered childhood book, the creaking of the rocking chair, your son’s terrycloth sleeper, how he curls into her bent arm. Capture memories with the sensations of the moment. I intend to keep a journal when my daughter’s new baby arrives in a few weeks. I’ll take a million pictures, but I also want a written account of those first days and weeks of the baby’s life. It will contain treasured memories to enjoy myself and share with others.

Switch Gears

If this summer’s crowded calendar has you throwing up your hands and walking away from your computer for a season, take heart. Your writing isn’t over for the summer. Instead, switch gears. Buy a notebook and pen, and this year journal your way through your summer.

Has this summer journaling idea given YOU any ideas of how you can use your summer “chaos” to further your writing?

Journal Through the Summer

Published on by Kristi Holl

I’ve received a lot of email from writers and blog readers about the difficulties of writing during the summer. Kids and grandkids are home from school, vacations are taken, company arrives. Is there a way to keep writing, despite all this?

Yes. You can journal through the summer.

I wrote this article (first part below, second part on Tuesday) for my book, Writer’s First Aid.  It’s from the section called “Work Habits That Work for You.” Hope you find it helpful!

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For a variety of reasons, writers often have difficulty writing during the summer. Your children may be out of school and underfoot, or you may have a house full of company. You may have trips and vacations planned. Warm weather may entice you onto the beach or golf course. Whatever the cause, you’re thrown out of your writing routine. Sometimes you stop writing altogether and lose your momentum. One solution? Journal through your summer.

Journaling is a hobby with many advantages. It’s inexpensive. A cheap spiral notebook will work just fine. Your journal is always available, and all you need in the way of equip­ment is a pen. Journaling can be done at any time of day, in any type of weather, for as long (or short) a time as you desire.

Are We Having Fun Yet?

Journaling is meant to be fun. Don’t put expectations on yourself during journaling time. Forget about your performance, and don’t critique yourself. Relax. Let go. Writers need a place to write where “enjoyment” is the only requirement. Ask yourself frequently, “Am I having fun?” If not, loosen up. Write from your gut. Be totally honest. If you can relax and have fun, you’ll eventually discover the natural writing “voice” within you. You won’t have to try. Your unique voice will simply flow out onto the page.

Journal the Joys

Journaling during the summer has many advantages. If you’re traveling, it can provide written snapshots of the people you see, the places you go, and the things you do. (Back home, these descriptions easily translate into nonfiction ideas or into characters, settings, and plots for your stories.) If a special event is scheduled–a wedding or the birth of a grandchild–journaling is ideal for capturing those special, once-in-a-lifetime feelings. If you’re surrounded by active children, journaling provides a practical and convenient way to capture creative ideas on the run, since a useful journal entry need take no more than 10-15 minutes.

Journal the Blues

Journaling can also be beneficial in helping you work through unpleasant feelings that sum­mertime sometimes produces. Perhaps your cross to bear is your in-laws’ yearly two-week visit. Journal beforehand, journal during the visit, and journal afterwards.

Before they arrive, write about your feelings of dread. Remember (on paper) the past visits. Describe how you hope this visit will go, then brainstorm ideas that can make that dream a reality. During their visit (perhaps late at night) journal your frustrations, failures–and successes! Use the journal for a dumping ground of negative feelings. (Be sure to hide the notebook!) After they return home, a journal can be used to process the visit. How did it go? What did you learn? What would you do differently next time? Was there improvement? (Later, these notes could become a how-to article on structuring a successful in-law visit.)

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The second part will be on Tuesday. Feel free to add your own ideas for journaling in the summer in the comments!

Writing Through Interruptions

Published on by Kristi Holl

In my book Writer’s First Aid, I talk a lot about dealing with interruptions and distractions because 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.

Calming the Writer's Soul

Published on by Kristi Holl

I sat down to write four times this morning, but my mind simply wouldn’t stop jumping the tracks.

One second I’d be thinking, “This backstory paragraph slows down the opening and should be moved.” The next minute, with a catch in my throat, I was thinking about Laurie again.

Get a Grip!

My daughter is on her fourth deployment (Afghanistan this time). Being her fourth tour, you’d think I’d have a better system for mind control, but not today, for some reason.

I pray a lot, email her, try to write, and it lasts for just a few minutes. So, like all writers who can’t focus, I check email. I love Thomas Kinkade paintings, and someone had emailed me the above picture. I just sat and stared at it for a moment, feeling the peace steal over me.

Peace Like a River

While I don’t often have time to steal away and sit by a stream–something always so calming–I plan to “sit” by my Thomas Kinkade stream several times today. I made it the photo on my desktop, so all I have to do is minimize what I’m working on, and there it is!

Without leaving my computer, I can walk along that little footpath, sit on a rock by the stream, and watch the water flow by. What a great use of technology and our imaginations. When my worries have floated away, I can go back to work.

Writing is a mental activity, so emotional issues interrupt that activity. During stressful times, find things that work to calm you…and then pick up your pen again. [NOTE: if you have a simple idea like this one that works for you, please share it!]