setbacks

Getting Unstuck after 2020

Published on by Kristi Holl

After losing two family members in the pandemic, I had a month-long severe reaction this spring to my second Covid shot. When I resurfaced, feeling practically comatose, I was behind on one Christmas mystery book deadline and a novel (set in 1850s England.) None of my decades-old “get started” techniques worked, which induced a near panic.

But one day I heard a podcast. (Details are included at the end.) Did you know that we have 60,000-70,000 thoughts per day? Roughly 95% of the thoughts are repetitive and unconscious. Only 5% of our daily thoughts are conscious and new. The negative ones, both conscious and unconscious, keep us stuck.

“Be transformed by the renewal of your mind,” the Bible urges. To do that, we need to first notice the conscious negative thoughts that keep us stuck. (Mine included “I’m too old for this.” “There’s not enough time.” “I’m too tired to even start.”) Then you grab a pencil and paper and ask yourself the following questions.

Unstuck with Five Magical Questions

  1. If I feel overloaded, what would it take for this task to be easy? What would have to change for this situation to be simplified? I asked this when I felt overwhelmed, whether I needed to outline my cozy mystery or put away Christmas decorations. Sometimes the answer was to cut the goal into tiny pieces to make it easy. Or I deleted the task, or delegated it, or postponed it because it wasn’t critical. Sometimes I  rearranged my schedule to eliminate overload. (I felt every bit as overloaded as this sheep!)
  2. What is an improvement I’m willing to make? The smaller, the better, if you want to get moving quickly. Maybe I can’t write for an hour, but I’m willing to write ten minutes. I can’t walk three miles today, but I’m willing to walk around the block. I don’t want to stick to my diet today, but I’m willing to cut this candy bar in half. Small steps lead to larger ones.
  3. What perspective would I need in order to feel different? I use this question when I want to change my fearful, doubtful, or pessimistic mood. My change in perspective often includes a particular Bible verse that speaks to my need. Then I can look at my situation from a better point of view instead of my own limited one.
  4. In this particular situation, where do I need to be a little more patient, and where do I need to push a little harder? I ask the question, sit quietly, and listen. You’ll know if you need to rest more and be patient with healing, or if you actually are loafing and need to push yourself a bit.
  5. What is the difference between a true solution and a distraction? When I’m tired or discouraged, what actually renews my energy, a nap or a pint of ice cream? When I’m behind on a deadline and fighting panic, is watching a British movie a solution, or is it a distraction? The real self-care task isn’t always the most appealing choice. But it will be a true solution.

Questions for Every Season of Your Life

These powerful questions turned out to be so helpful that I taped the list in several places: beside my computer, in my daily planner, and in my prayer journal. They help me every day—not just in my writing, but in my food choices, exercise, home care, and when my grandkids are here.

Questions are a great way to use the 5% of our thoughts we have control over! Bring God into the process. Then the answers you receive will fit your personality, goals, and season in life.

More Help to Get Unstuck

(Taken in part from “Ten Questions that Change Everything” by Primal Potential podcaster, Elizabeth Benton; my post was first published on the National ACFW blog.)

From Panic to Focus: Save Your Writing Project

Published on by Kristi Holl

In the fall of 2019 I spent several weeks researching a mystery series set in a small village in the North Yorkshire Dales. The locals who own the shops depend on tourist trade from daily bus tours and mountain bike groups.  In early 2020 villagers sent out a plea for the tourists to please stay home during the coronavirus scare. Students and parents (now working and learning from home) were coming to the villages in droves on their unexpected “vacations.”

They posed a threat to two distinct groups: the high number of older at-risk people living in the villages—and the sheep.

At-Risk Sheep?

Yes, but it has nothing to do with the virus. It’s lambing time in the Yorkshire Dales. Hiking groups climb up through the pastures. Bikers race down the trails on the other side of the stone fences marking the fields. Their dogs, often loose, bark at the sheep. The sheep startle easily, then panic and run. With pregnant ewes, the mere running can make them abort their lambs.

We writers can also react to fearful circumstances with panic. There are good reasons the Bible compares us to sheep needing a shepherd. We don’t lose lambs if we panic, but before our writing dreams come to fruition, we can lose the work we are carrying that God gave us to do.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Being terribly unsettled by COVID-19 is totally normal. Our families, regardless of age or situation, have faced huge changes these past weeks. As time passes, and people we know come down with the virus, the temptation to panic grows. Panic allowed to settle in (fed by constant exposure to the media) can derail our writing schedules for months.

Panic is nothing new for followers of God. Imagine the Israelites as they faced the Red Sea before them and the chariots pursuing from behind. The people cried out in terror at what was about to overtake them. And what was Moses’ response to them? “‘Don’t be afraid. Stand firm and watch God do his work of salvation for you today. . . God will fight the battle for you. And you? You keep your mouths shut!’” (Exodus 14:13-14 MSG)

In other words, when faced with impending doom and disaster, you should:

  • Fear not,
  • stand firm,
  • watch God work,
  • and stop spreading panic with your words.

Still great advice today.

Human Sheep at Risk Today

Most people in the world feel a similar panic at the virus situation. Specifically, for writers, book deadlines are right in front of us, but the coronavirus bears down from behind like those Egyptian chariots. How can we possibly write? Moses’ words are as applicable to us as they were to the panicked Israelites.

Remember that the Lord is still our Good Shepherd. We are still His sheep. We hear His voice. He knows us. We can still follow Him. We are trying to birth our stories during this time, but if we panic instead of trusting God, we are likely to abort the work He has given us to do.

Stay close to the shepherd. Do your part to keep yourself and others safe. Encourage one another instead of using your words to spread panic. Be calm and peaceful, and ready to account to non-believers for the hope that is within you. (1 Peter 3:15) Then, even in these times, you will be able to give “birth” to your writing projects.

We’re All in This Together

My mystery writer friend runs daily in the Yorkshire Dales, and she took this photo on the top of the fells. There were few tourists hiking or biking, and she was encouraged by the cooperation with the villagers.

Even the sheep practiced social distancing!

[First published on the ACFW American Christian Fiction Writers blog.]

Follow-up trips to the UK have been cancelled (twice), but God willing, I will return there near the end of September.

Successes and Setbacks

Published on by Kristi Holl

“The only copy of your manuscript is stolen from your car. Articles and stories come back with unfailing rejection…Finances grow ever more perilous. This is, with variations, the script for the first ten or fifteen years of many successful writers’ careers. But they hung on.”

This quote comes from one of my favorite book of meditations for writers called Walking on Alligators. It talks about the nearly universal experience of published writers: their successes are interspersed with fairly regular setbacks.

Have you accepted that truth yet?

Re-framing Failure

Even though the overall pattern of your writing experiences will probably be upward (assuming you don’t quit), it will be full of ups and downs. Ups will include sales and good reviews and awards. The downs–those drops on the chart–include rejections and delays and canceled contracts.

The setbacks are NOT failures or reasons to quit–unless you allow them to be. They’re both places of learning and places of rest. They are simply steps on the way to the top. More importantly, they can have a positive effect.

Upside of Down Times

Compare it to climbing a mountain. It’s usually an up-and-down experience as you work your way to the top. There are periods where you climb upward steadily. Sometimes you also go down–lose a bit of altitude–before starting the next steep climb. Are the downhill stretches failures? No. Setbacks? Not really, although it can feel like that.

Downhill spots have their bright side though. For example, when I “fail” to sell something, it forces me to slow down and ask some questions. And more than one time, the failure to sell a series idea gave me an initial disappointment (lasting about five minutes) followed by a rush of relief that I didn’t have to force my exhausted body into another grueling writing stint just yet. The setbacks can be restful, if we let them be. They can allow you to recoup some energy.

The periods in our writing life that seem “down” can also be times to rethink and regroup. Maybe we need a course correction. Perhaps that rejection is trying to point us in a new direction in our writing. Or that negative review might be telling us that our real love (and talent) is in writing poetry, not baby board books.

But It’s Worse Than That!

What about when the negatives are too frequent? As Harriet Beecher Stowe once said: “When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you until it seems that you cannot hold on for a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” Judging from personal experience, I have to agree with her.

Have you ever seen a negative happening (bad critique, rejection, few people coming to your workshop, etc.) be transformed into something positive? No need to give specific names or publications, but can you share an unwanted writing experience that turned out, in some way, to be a good thing?