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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!

How to Fix A Writer's Fragmented Life

Published on by Kristi Holl

I always blog on Tuesdays. Except yesterday.

My grandkids had been here for a couple of days of hiking, water fights, reading and laughing. I had planned to blog last night, but I had a meeting at my house to plan and clean for. BUT the air conditioning went out (a big deal in summertime Texas), and several elderly committee members would have fainted in my oven of a living room. In the midst of rescheduling the meeting, a storm blew in, and I shut down all the computers…so no blog yesterday.

A very fragmented day.

This morning when I got up early to blog, I saw the article below in my Inbox. I laughed aloud. It’s on trying to write with fragmented lives, written by Randy Ingermanson. If you don’t get his newsletter, you should. Contact info is at the end of this wonderful article (reprinted with permission.) Enjoy!

“Organization: Your Fragmented Life” by Randy Ingermanson

So your life is fragmented beyond belief, right?

  • You need to research foods they ate in the 1880s in France for your novel.
  • And the repair guy is coming at 10 AM to fix the busted washing machine.
  • And you have a blog that needs feeding.
  • There’s a storm coming and it might be time to clear the gunk out of the rain gutters before they overflow.
  • Did you remember to sign up for that writing conference that’s going to have that agent you’ve been mooning over?
  • The cat is way overdue to be spayed and she’s acting much too friendly with your teddy bear.
  • You haven’t Facebooked in ages and you’re not sure it matters anymore because you hate it anyway.
  • Your boss wants that report on his desk tomorrow.
  • You’re supposed to be writing your novel.

All of the above, and more, is on your plate for today.

Most of these tasks have been festering on your plate for days or weeks already. You hate your plate. You want all those tasks to just go away. They’re all important. Quick — which do you do first?

Does any of this sound remotely familiar?

Good, you’re human. If your life isn’t fragmented, you might be a robot. Or God. Or deceased.

So how do you deal with it all?

I can’t tell you how you SHOULD deal with it all. But I can tell you how I deal with it. If it sounds like it might work for you, then try it.

There are really three basic steps here:

  1. Keep lists for the main Big Chunks of your life. All tasks go on a list for one of your Big Chunks, or else they go on the Miscellaneous list.
  2. Every day, pick a few of the Big Chunk lists to work on. Assign a priority for each list for the day. Set a fixed amount of time that you’re going to work exclusively on each list, when you’ll be totally focused on that list.
  3. When it’s time to work on a given list, work on that for the assigned amount of time and then stop. Ignore all interruptions if you possibly can.

Does this work? Yes, it works for me. It might work for you too. Let’s see how it plays out in real life:

Today, I have a boatload of things to get done. A lot more than I could possibly do in one day. All of them are important.

They fall into four Big Chunks, and for today, I put them in this order:

  1. My novel. I’m proofing it for publication. Yay!
  2. My business. I’ve got a ton of small tasks and one big task.
  3. This e-zine. I’ve got three articles to write in the next few days, plus editing.
  4. A giveaway campaign on Goodreads that I just started, and which I need to check up on.

Each of these Big Chunks has a bunch of tasks that all need to get done. So on each list, I’ve got the tasks in the rough order I want to do them.

This morning when I looked at my lists, it was pretty overwhelming. That’s normal. I can’t remember when my lists didn’t look overwhelming. Yours look overwhelming too. That doesn’t mean we need to be overwhelmed.

What we need is focus.

When I started work this morning, I assigned myself 90 minutes to work on the novel, 60 minutes to work on my business, 90 minutes to work on this e-zine, and 60 minutes to deal with the Goodreads campaign.

That works out to 5 hours total, which in my experience is a good day’s work, because there is also email to be answered, small breaks to be taken, water to be drunk, exercise to be had, cats to be coddled, and crises to be managed.

The little things never go away, but you manage them by wedging them into the cracks between the Big Chunks in your day.

The point is that 5 hours of my day is scheduled for the Big Chunks in my life.

I began with Big Chunk #1 — working on my novel. I had only 90 minutes assigned to it, which meant there was no time to mess around. I dived right in and got cranking. 90 minutes goes fast.

When my 90 minutes were up, I was on a roll and didn’t want to stop. So I kept on going until I reached 160 minutes. That was cheating, but my novel was my top priority for the day, so I wanted to run with it. I’m happy to cheat on behalf of the high priority things in my life.

I felt pretty good when I finished, so I took a break and did some e-mail. Not all of it, but enough to knock down the in-box a bit. That burned 15 minutes.

Then I moved into Big Chunk #2, my business work. There is an infinite amount of work on that plate, but I had budgeted only 60 minutes for the day. Which meant there was no time to mess around. I took the most important task, which really NEEDS to be done today, and started work.

There were some interruptions. Urgent phone calls from my boss which I really can’t ignore. That happens. But I was pretty focused anyway, because I really wanted to get this one task done. It took two full hours. I had only one hour budgeted, but when you’re halfway through, you really don’t want to stop. So I got it finished.

Fact is, there are a dozen other important tasks I need to do for my business. I did only one. But I finished it. I could whine about the other eleven left undone, or I could be happy about the one that I did. I’ll take the one. Some days, I don’t get even one done. That’s just reality.

I’m right now working on Big Chunk #3, this e-zine. I have 90 minutes budgeted for this, AND I have a crisis to deal with from my boss which I have set aside to ferment for a bit.

My theory on crises is you either kill them right away or let them take their turn with all the other crises in the world. This one is going to take its turn. I just don’t think I can solve it today, so why should I let it interfere with the Big Chunks in my life? No reason to do that. Not going to.

I have three articles for my e-zine I’d love to write today. Not going to happen in the 90 minutes I have budgeted. I’ll be doing very well to get this one done in that amount of time.

But in fact, the first draft is almost done. I’m pretty focused right now. I’ve given myself permission to be focused for this 90 minute block.

After the 90 minutes are up, I’ll need to go check the mail. And deal with the e-mail that’s reproducing in my in-box. And pay obeisance to the cat, who has not been fed in two whole hours. And think about my boss-induced crisis.

I don’t know if I’ll get to the Goodreads task list today. It would be wonderful if I do, but the fact is that it was #4 on my list of Big Chunks.

On different days, I choose different Big Chunks. My life has several Big Chunks. Probably six or seven of them. On any given day, I can generally get something significant done on three or possibly four of them.

That’s my life.

I bet yours is similar.

I bet yours is totally out of control.

Just like mine.

You will never get your life under control, if by “control” you mean that all your lists are finished.

Not going to happen until you die. Because things keeping adding themselves to your lists. Crises happen. Cats select you to be their humble servant. Yikes, my friend is Skyping me right now. I’ll allow myself a couple of quick responses to be polite. Got to stay focused on what I’m doing.

Every day you can budget time on the Big Chunks of your life. 60 minutes for this. 90 minutes for that. If you get some actual work done, one or more tasks crossed off the list, on each of three Big Chunks every day, well that’s progress.

Yes, we all want to get it all done.

No, none of us are ever going to do it.

Sure, your life is fragmented beyond all belief. But you can defrag it a bit, right now, today, tomorrow, and forever. By budgeting time for the Big Chunks.

Which Big Chunk is most important for today? (On a good day, your most important Big Chunk might be your novel, but it probably won’t be every day.)

How much time can you realistically spend on each of your Big Chunks? (Remember that the little pieces of life are going to intrude, so the time you spend on your Big Chunks is not going to be 100% of your day.)

Now go work on the first Big Chunk for the time allotted. Ignore all interruptions if you possibly can, until the time is up. Then deal with the interruptions, the crises, the incidental e-mail for a few minutes.

Then on to the next Big Chunk, and the next.

For me, three Big Chunks is a good day, and four is spectacular.

Divide and conquer. It worked for Julius Caesar. It can work for you.

One Big Chunk at a time

****This article is reprinted by permission of the author.

Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, “the Snowflake Guy,” publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with more than 32,000 readers. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit http://www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.

Download your free Special Report on Tiger Marketing and get a free 5-Day Course by e-mail in How To Publish a Novel.

 

 

The Scheduling Habit

Published on by Kristi Holl

Getting into the writing habit is difficult, especially in the early years of writing. We aren’t making much money at it, so it’s hard to justify taking the time.

Our lives are full to overflowing already, so where can we possibly fit in some writing? How can we form a consistent writing habit when our schedules change from day to day, depending on our obligations?

School is out now, for one thing, which affects you parents and us grandparents who babysit. Schedules that worked during the school year will have to be adjusted. And summers often bring events like vacations, out-of-town visitors, swimming lessons, and Bible school.

Every minute is spoken for! (Or…is it?)

Going on a Time Hunt

Believe it or not, you have more time to write than you think. Keep a time log, tracking how you spend your time for a few days or a week. If you do, you’ll spot “down” time that you use for other things which could be snagged for your writing.

It might be ten minutes while you wait for a ball game to start, or half an hour waiting in the car during swim lessons, or fifteen minutes while you stand at the stove and stir. It might be an hour while kids watch a DVD or play in the backyard.

You may not have more than fifteen minutes at a time to yourself, but those bits can add up during the day–if your mind-set is to take advantage of those writing bits of time.

Redirect Your Time

When my kids were very young, I desperately wanted to write. I realized that instead of catching up on laundry and chores during their afternoon naps, I could write. Instead of making beds and doing dishes during the morning half hour of “Mr. Rogers,” I could write. Instead of thumbing through ragged magazines for twenty minutes every Friday afternoon while my daughter got her allergy shots, I could write.

Bed making and dishes and laundry could be done while little ones milled around and talked to me. I chose to write instead when they didn’t need me. That “nap-Mr. Rogers-allergy shot” schedule became my writing routine until my youngest went to kindergarten. By that time, Atheneum had published my first five middle grade novels.

Hidden Time for Scheduling

“But I really don’t have any free time!” you might truly think. I challenge you to study your schedule very closely. Everyone has pockets of “down” time during the day.

It may vary from day to day, but usually it is consistent weekly. For example, you may sit in the pick-up line at your daughter’s elementary school every afternoon for fifteen minutes. Instead of listening to the radio, write.

You might free up some time by doubling up on your mindless activities. Most of us multi-tasked before the word became popular, but if you’re not, try it. While supper is cooking, don’t watch the news; pay those bills or wrap those birthday gifts, and free up a half hour in the evening to write.

If you want to write YA novels, listen to those young adult books on tape while you walk your dog. You’ll be doing your “market research” for an hour, freeing up an hour later to write.

Get It in Writing

Write down whatever pockets of time that you discover can be used for your writing. Even if it’s only fifteen-minute chunks, note them. You can write an amazing amount in ten or fifteen minutes at a time–and it adds up.

You may find these chunks in the “between times.” You might have a bit of time between when the kids get on the school bus and you have to leave for work. Or between your day job and supper, you may have half an hour that you wait on a child at ball practice. (I wrote a lot sitting in bleachers waiting for children at practice.)

Write all these pockets of time down on a weekly schedule and write it on your daily calendar. Make it a habit. Perhaps on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, you write half an hour before work, plus daily you write fifteen minutes before cooking supper, and Saturday morning you write an hour while the kids watch cartoons. That’s four hours of writing in a week, just in the free bits and pieces. Since many of us started writing while caring for small children and/or holding down a day job, this kind of weekly schedule may be the best you can do for a while.

And that’s fine!

Time-Honored Tradition

The highest percentage of today’s famous, best-selling authors admit that their writing schedules were exactly like this in the early years. But they had that “burning desire to write.” And that desire is what motivates us to find those pockets of time, give them to our writing, schedule it daily, and follow through.

You can find time to write, whether it’s early morning, during your noon hour, late at night, during commutes, or in catch-as-catch-can bits throughout the day. You must integrate writing into your existing routine for it to work.

Schedules make writing a habit, which in turn makes it a permanent part of your lifestyle. Can you think of even ONE bit of unused time during your day that you could spend writing? Please do share your ideas!

Strong Writers Do This

Published on by Kristi Holl

During the past year I’ve done more novel critiques than usual. Some have been so-so, some were very good, and a few have already sold. What was the difference between the “very good” and the “sold” manuscripts? In my opinion, it was the overall strength of the novels.

Often the “very good” book manuscript was strong except for just one area. Maybe there was no felt emotional connection with the main character, or all the dialogue voices sounded like the author’s voice. Perhaps the one weak area was lack of suspense despite beautiful prose, or poorly researched historical facts, or terrible mechanics.

The strong writers had taken time to strengthen even their weaker areas.

Oops!

Often when I mentioned the trouble I saw, the writer emailed me back and said, “I knew that was a problem. I guess I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.” It’s better to listen to your gut feeling and assume if you know there’s a problem, others will see it too.

“Hoping an editor won’t notice” isn’t a solid marketing plan. Even if they had the time (which they don’t), editors aren’t in the business of fixing the story for you or teaching you how to write. They never have been. That’s up to you—but what can you do?

Back to School

“Unless you’re working with an expert instructor, you need to be designing your own writing improvement program,” says James Scott Bell in The Art of War for Writers. “Work out a systematic plan to overcome your weak areas by setting up self-study programs.”

We all hope our novel’s strengths will over-ride the weaknesses, but you want your novel to be healthy overall, not just mostly healthy with one or two weak areas. If your physique were great except for flabby underarms, you would target that flapping fat with exercises and a program designed specifically for upper arms. In the same way, if your novel is weak in one or two areas, you need a specific exercise program to strengthen that area.

For example, if your problem is dialogue that all sounds like the same flat voice, you might need a self-study program called “Creating Distinctive Voices.” Your study question might be: How can I create distinctive voices for each character, so distinctive that I can tell who’s speaking without any identification?

A Plan to Grow Strong

Here’s one plan, and you can adapt it for any area you want to improve:

  1. Make a list of novels where you remember the characters coming through in their dialogue as distinctive. (accent, regional speech, slang, choppy vs. languid speech, hip vs. old-fashioned, formal vs. grammatically incorrect, straightforward vs. flowery speech, etc.)
  2. Choose several of these novels and re-read them specifically for the dialogue. Keep your study question in mind as you read. Underline passages that do the job and then write a few scenes where you try to accomplish the same thing through dialogue. Don’t copy their words, but try to copy the technique used.
  3. Buy some books on the particular writing problem you have and study them. There are good writing books available on every area of craft you can imagine. You don’t have to re-invent the wheel, nor do you have to submit stories that are weak in one or two areas.

In today’s economy, your stories need to be the cream that rises to the top. Ensuring that your novel is strong in every area is one way to do that.

What ways have YOU found effective in making your writing stronger? Leave a comment!

A Walking Idea Factory

Published on by Kristi Holl

Lately I feel about as creative as a cement block.

Most of us know, however, that we can’t wait to feel creative before we write.

Where’s My Muse?

Writers who wait for inspiration before they decide to write are generally known as hobbyists. Working writers—those actively writing and growing in their craft—must write whether the muse is “in” or not.

“Which means, essentially,” says author of The Art of War for Writers, James Scott Bell, “you have to become a walking idea factory.”

And he really does mean walking. He said he gets a lot of his ideas for his current work-in-progress when walking. Ho-hum, I thought at first. Other writers have said the same thing. However, Bell puts a fun twist to his idea.

Dragging My Heels

I love to walk—but I have usually balked at this kind of “work while you walk” advice. After working at my desk, I want a break. And mulling over my novel while taking a walk doesn’t do a darned thing to refresh me. My brain is too tired. When I walk, I want to listen to a book on tape, something Jane Austen-y that I know will feed my soul. Thinking about my own novel just feels like more work to me.

But…that’s not what Bell recommends! His “walk while you work” is different, fun, and effortless.

In his The Art of War for Writers, he says that after a writing session, “I try to take an hour walk every day and listen to an audio book.” Inevitably his muse or imagination (what he calls “the boys in the basement”) sends up ideas for his work-in-progress while he’s listening to his audio book for relaxation. When that happens, he stops, makes a note in the pocket notebook he carries, then goes back to his audio book and walks some more. He calls this his system for “being creative without thinking about it. That way you can be ‘working’ on your idea even when you’re not working on it.”

Working While Walking?

For several days I tried Bell’s system and was really surprised. I honestly hadn’t expected it to work—but it did! While walking and listening to Pride and Prejudice on my MP3 player, my brain released a good number of ideas—things that I could later develop (a secondary character’s flaw, a plot twist that would also show the book’s theme, a better setting for the climax scene). I have to admit that I was very surprised how well this worked.

If you want to try it, here are Bell’s steps for becoming a walking idea factory.

  1. Focus fully on your book or story idea during your writing time.
  2. Talk a walk and relax, get your mind off your story, then capture the ideas that pop up during your walk.
  3. Back home, immediately put your recorded bits in a computer file. Expand on them, brainstorm the ideas, follow rabbit trails. Do that with each idea that popped up on your walk.
  4. Let the ideas cool for a day and then come back to them for assessment.
  5. Decide which ideas to keep and use in your current work. Set the others aside for another project.

Bell says if you get used to thinking this way, your creativity will explode. We could all use that.

Have you ever tried this? Or a similar strategy? If so, please comment!

 

 

Warning: Do You Know Where You Are?

Published on by Kristi Holl

lostWhen trying to get from where we are as writers to where we’d like to be, we will need to follow a path to that publishing destination.

As mentioned a few weeks ago, I’ve been re-reading Andy Stanley’s The Principle of the Path which states that it’s direction–not intention–that determines our destination.

We are travelers, and we look for maps to guide us. We read books and articles on how to get started, get published, and market ourselves.

This guidance becomes our road map, our GPS system for success. Despite hundreds of maps (i.e. books of advice), few writers are as successfully published as they’d like to be.

What’s The Problem?

Is it because we can’t read a map? Usually not. Is it because we don’t really know where we want to end up? Usually not. Then what’s missing?

The starting point.

No matter what type of map you use (Google map, MapQuest, GPS or the old-fashioned paper kind), you first have to know where you are right now. Knowing your destination won’t help one iota if you don’t know your present location.

And why don’t we writers know where we are at this moment? Are we lost? Not really. More like deluded. We deceive ourselves about our true locations at the present time. (I do it too. We all do it.) And that’s one big reason why our “maps” don’t work and don’t get us to our destinations.

Wearing Blinders

Not long ago, I asked a teacher-writer about this. (He’s taught writing at the university level for twenty years.) His classes focus on both writing and publishing your writing. He said one of the biggest problems he ran into was that his students who hoped to publish had no grasp of their current skill level. Most of them believed they were better writers than they were.

They’d been told all through high school that their writing was fabulous, but now they were competing with the cream of the cream in college. They did surface revisions, unwilling to start over or dig deeper. They were used to posting to their blogs (instant gratification in publishing.) After only one rejection by a print publisher, they often hurried to self-publish instead. Many of them felt ready for Carnegie Hall, but they’d only mastered Chopsticks.

Delusions

Whatever their reasons–whatever our reasons–many writers do not have a clear grasp of where they are right now. They see the golden crowns of success in the future: bestseller lists, big royalty checks, crowded book signings. They’re studying several maps: MFA programs, online programs, quitting their day jobs to write for a year.

But they’re deceiving themselves about their starting point.

  • Some of us need basic courses in grammar and punctuation more than an MFA program.
  • Some of us need to keep our day jobs while writing furiously every lunch hour and all day Saturday for a year.
  • Some of us need to study other successful writers’ published books more than we need to meet an agent at the next expensive writer’s conference.
  • Some of us need to lose 50 pounds and deal with our back problems so we can sit for longer periods of time at a keyboard.

If you want to reach your writing dreams, you do need to know your hoped-for destination. If you don’t want to waste years and years re-inventing the wheel, you’ll need to find out how other writers were successful and check out their “maps.”

But if you don’t know your starting point–if you’re not willing to be very honest with yourself about where you are today–those maps and goals won’t do you any good.

Where Am I Today?

So take some time this weekend and, with pen and paper, ask yourself the tough questions.

  • Where are you in the skill areas you need?
  • Where are you an expert, but where are you still a beginner?
  • What parts of the writing life stymie you?
  • How much time per day/week do you really have–or can you carve out–for a writing life?
  • How’s your health, your stamina?

Answers to these questions–honest answers instead of “I wish” answers–are what will be valuable to you. It will be your true starting point. Knowing this will help you choose a map that will actually take you from where you are and point you to your destination: your writing dreams.

Ya Gotta Have Heart

Published on by Kristi Holl

heartWhile taking a writing break today, I re-read a short chapter in James Scott Bell’s writing book called The Art of War for Writers. It was about writing with heart, with passion, with purpose.

I don’t know about you, but I find it really difficult to write something that my heart just isn’t in. It feels flat, and when my critique partner gets hold of it, she says things like, “It’s really smooth, but I don’t feel any emotional connection to your main character.” She can’t connect with her heart. Ouch.

The Heart of the Matter

So how do you get this heart on the page? Bell has an intriguing formula for it. He says,

“Heart = passion + purpose.

Passion means heat. Strength of feeling.

Purpose means you know what you want the reader to feel when she gets to the end of your story.

Heart means directing passion so it serves your desired purpose.”

All Styles Need Heart

All writing styles can have heart. Light humorous styles. Darker serious styles. Breezy styles. It’s not about your style. I recently re-read two fantastic adult novels that both had tremendous heart. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was lighter, often humorous, reading. The Help (a first novel, by the way) was in a more serious vein, but the passion and purpose in both novels had me turning pages as fast as I could.

So how do you put “heart” into your writing? It isn’t just about passionate feeling. We’ve all read stories with tons of passion, but it meandered all over the place and then just stopped. No purpose. And we’ve all read books–or at least started them–where the purpose was bold as a billboard. But without passionate feeling, it wasn’t engaging.

Simple Exercise

Bell suggested a simple three-part exercise for discovering the heart for your next novel.

  1. Make a list of things you feel very strongly about.
  2. List your favorite books and movies, describing how each one made you feel at the end.
  3. Choose one item from each list and brainstorm on how you might combine them in a story.

I haven’t tried this exercise yet, but I’m going to. With my current novel, I know the purpose. But somewhere along the way of several revisions, I lost touch with the passion part.

I think I’ll take my main character for a long walk and get reacquainted with her–and see if I can’t get that passion back. It will be good for the book–and I’ll enjoy the writing a lot more!

How do YOU find the “heart” of your own stories? Leave a comment!

Boundaries and Energy Management

Published on by Kristi Holl

If you don’t manage your energy, it won’t matter how well you manage your time.

That point was brought home to me again this weekend when I was re-reading a great book called The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz..

Most of us realize that we have to balance our energy expenditures with energy renewal. But did you realize you must manage your energy input/outgo in all four areas of your life?

Not “One Recovery Fits All”

We’ve been talking lately about boundaries, and how you are a four-part person who needs boundaries in these areas: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Hopefully, between the blog posts and the e-book Boundaries for Writers, you are in the process of rebuilding protection around each of these areas.

You’ll need those boundaries in order to manage the ebb and flow of your energy in these four (very individual) quadrants.

You expend energy from each quadrant. And you need specific recovery of energy in each of the four quadrants.

Spend It…Recover It

Most of us know that after we work hard, we need to spend time in recovery. For a long time, I wondered why my various recovery systems really didn’t work. Maybe your system sounds like mine:

  • I edit a book on the computer for three hours, then when my neck and back are aching, I take a break and read a “fun” novel for fifteen minutes.
  • I spend hours with a very needy friend going through a crisis, then when I get home I eat a candy bar.
  • I work on figuring income taxes all morning, then take a break and pull weeds in the garden.

Nothing wrong with any of that really. Who can argue with fun reading, a candy bar on occasion, or pulling weeds?

It’s just that there is a mis-match. One kind of energy went out, but a different kind came back in.

Wrong Kind of Break

According to the authors of The Power of Full Engagement, we all expend energy in all four quadrants every day. The problem comes when, over time, we no longer replenish in all four quadrants.

For the examples above, I…

  • I was expending both mental energy (editing) and physical energy (hence the aching neck and back.) I only replenished my mind with some fun reading, but continuing to sit actually aggravated my neck and back further. I also needed some recovery that included physical exercise in the area of flexibility.
  • I spent myself emotionally with my friend, but I tried to replenish the emotional quadrant with food (physical). Because sugar gives a quick (but temporary) “high,” we mistake that for emotional recovery. It’s not.
  • I worked on income taxes (definite mental strain), and my recovery was physical only (pulling weeds.)

None of my breaks were ultimately very helpful because none of my breaks actually replenished the kind of energy I had expended.

Take a Break!

While “take a break!” is excellent advice, it needs to be the right kind of break for it to be ultimately helpful or renewing. It doesn’t work to try to recover physical energy by taking a mental break, or recover mental energy by nurturing my emotions. If my spirit is sagging, it needs its own kind of recovery as well.

To maximize how we use all four kinds of energy, we have to actually USE it too! Do you know how your energy capacity diminishes?

  • With overuse
  • With underuse

Yup! Overuse your body, and your energy diminishes. But if you underuse it—let it grow weak in stamina and strength—your energy also diminishes. Overuse your mental abilities without adequate recovery, and your strength diminishes. But if you underuse your mind—don’t require it to stretch and grow—your mental strength also diminishes. The same holds true for your emotional and spiritual quadrants.

Overstepping Energy Boundaries

“We hold ourselves accountable for the ways that we manage our time, and for that matter our money,” say the authors of The Power of Full Engagement. “We must learn to hold ourselves at least equally accountable for how we manage our energy physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.”

I am fascinated by this way of managing energy. Now that I have my Boundaries for Writers in place, I’m ready to make sure that as much energy is coming back inside those boundary walls as is going outside!

Where do you suspect that you have energy drains that aren’t being refilled?

Boundaries for Writers E-book Available

Published on by Kristi Holl

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you have identified some boundary issues in your life after reading the past five posts (links below), I’d like to encourage you to go further in my 70-page Boundaries for Writers e-book.

The blog series could only touch lightly on a few of the topics listed in the e-book. You can read more about it here and order a copy through my website.

If the subject of boundaries is new to you, start here with the blog series:

If you recognize yourself in these articles–or you recognize a few boundary busters in your life–consider buying my $7 e-book, Boundaries for Writers. Below is a 12-chapter Table of Contents.

 Table of Contents

 Chapter One “Why Writers Need Boundaries: Guarding Your Writer’s Heart” … 3

Chapter Two “Four Essential Types of Personal Boundaries” …8

Chapter Three “How Healthy Are Your Boundaries? A Quiz” … 12

Chapter Four “Rebuilding Boundaries” …21

Chapter Five “Setting Boundaries on Rejection and Other Business Matters” … 29

Chapter Six “A Special Kind of Boundary: Time” … 35

Chapter Seven “People Pleasers and Boundary Busters: A Marriage Made in Heaven”…42

Chapter Eight “Pleasures to Lift the Spirits: Boundaries for Self-Care” … 46

Chapter Nine “Boundaries with Friends and Family” … 51

Chapter Ten “Living with Severe Boundary Busters” … 58

Chapter Eleven “Are Boundaries Scriptural?” … 65

Chapter Twelve “Resources” … 69

 

Degrees of Boundary Busters

Published on by Kristi Holl

Are all boundary invaders created equal?

Absolutely not!

We’ve been talking a lot this month about healthy boundaries, unhealthy boundaries, and boundary recovery. Why is there a need for recovery? Because at some point–or several points–your boundaries were invaded.

Degrees of Boundary Invaders

To be honest, the major boundary busters–often dubbed “abusers”–are the easiest to spot (especially in someone else’s life.)

Harder to detect are those “minor” boundary invaders who look quite normal. Hardest to detect of all are the abusers who masquerade as the “good guys” and “great gals” of this world, but who are wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Different Invaders, Different Solutions

Depending on the type of boundary buster(s) in your life, you will need different solutions. While the basic anatomy of a boundary is the same for each type, the actual line you must draw (and consequences you enforce) will vary considerably.

Types of boundary busters will go from one end of the spectrum to the other. On the “easy” end, you have people who infringe on your time or mental space without intending to and without realizing they do it. With this type of person, a simple boundary works. You might only need to say, “When I am at my writing desk–even if I’m staring out the window thinking–please don’t ask me questions or talk to me unless there is a real emergency. When my train of thought gets interrupted, I have to start over, or I lose it altogether. I’m not trying to be rude–I just need to think without interruption when I’m writing.”

This type of invader doesn’t take offense and is glad to oblige you. They didn’t intend to disrupt your writing. They are what is known as “boundary lovers.”

Assume the best in the beginning. Assume when you set a boundary that you are dealing with a boundary lover who isn’t being invasive on purpose. Give them the benefit of the doubt.

Trust me. You will know very soon by their reaction if you have a boundary lover there–or not.

The “Other” Kinds

The world would be a much easier place if everyone you encountered–both at home and in public–were boundary lovers.

They’re not.

There are a number of degrees of boundary busters. Some will dislike your boundaries and be angry about them. Others will try to make you change your mind–or else. Some will decide to make you pay if you enforce boundaries. Some will try to make you pay BIG TIME if you try to reclaim your own thoughts, feelings, time, personal decisions, and calling.

Disgruntled people who don’t like your boundaries may pout, whine, yell, or stomp around, depending on their (emotional) age. If you’re quietly persistent in enforcing your boundaries, most of them adjust to the new normal.

Boundary haters who are used to having a very high degree of control over you will exhibit all kinds of nasty behavior. So will those whose emotional security is based on having all your attention. (These people can look like arrogant bullies or soft-spoken people who cry easily.)

Here are some things I have seen either personally or dealt with in student situations.

  • A woman who had saved money for her first writing conference had it stolen by her spouse so she couldn’t go. [I loved her response though. She promptly applied for a scholarship, won it, and went.]
  • One student years ago (who was writing songs and a picture book, which he only worked on three times a week) had his wife threaten to gain weight if he didn’t give up the writing and spend that time with her. He kept writing, and she gained fifty pounds, informing him of every ten-pound gain.
  • One woman decided to write for an hour after her children went to school, putting off her daily visit next door to her elderly father for just an hour. He gave her the “after all I’ve done for you” speech and then threatened to cut her out of his will. She persisted in writing first, and to my knowledge, he never followed through.
  • One friend was dropped by another friend when she asked to change the time of their garage sale/coffee get-togethers so she could write. The friend wouldn’t change at all and found someone else to hang out with, cutting the writer out of her life.

Thankfully these are extreme situations, but they happen.

You’re Not Alone

Some writers and writers-to-be are in close relationships with emotional blackmailers, passive-aggressive people, narcissists, and verbal abusers. They are difficult–but not impossible–to set and enforce boundaries with. I say that because I’ve done it.

I cover these issues in my chapter on severe boundary busters in my upcoming “Boundaries for Writers” e-book. I’m glad there are many additional books on these specific types of boundary invaders, and I include them in the “Resources” chapter.

Don’t let this post scare you. Let it encourage you instead, in case you suspect you have one or more people in your life who may react badly to a boundary. Most of us have at least one within the family, in our extended family, or within our friendships.

Do you think you might have one in your life? If so, leave a comment! [You don’t need to reveal specifics.]