As I write this, I am sitting in my car in a parking lot, waiting for my library branch to open. (And no, that isn’t my library. I wish!)

Why am I not sitting in my cozy home office, complete with all the joys of a writer’s surroundings?

Because I have several rapidly approaching deadlines, and I am slightly-to-terribly behind on each of them.

And why is that? Distractions.

Follow the Bouncing Ball

My attention lately has been ricocheting all over the place.

Even though I don’t have Internet on my phone and we haven’t had regular TV for years, distractions at home abound.

At any given time lately, when I should have been working, I could be found eating, reading a fun mystery, watching a movie mystery, poring over a book about traveling England, talking to a friend, surfing the Internet, or a combination of the above. (Eating goes with almost everything.)

Mental Distractions

As much as those external distractions pull at me, I have a bigger problem lately. No one would know it to look at me because it’s all internal.

We all have periods where life hands us things we’d really love to avoid altogether. They can be worries about our kids or parents. It can be unwelcome news about a health issue. The hurt feelings can be from real or imagined betrayal by a friend or loved one.

Because we writers are such thinkers by trade, we tend to ruminate about such things more than is helpful. (I sometimes think I would make a good bovine since they chew their cud three times as it passes from stomach to stomach to stomach.) I can chew on things about that long!

Hours of thinking, praying and planning can (for me, anyway) sink into self-pity, depression and obsessive thinking.

What happens to the writing time when I’m in this state? It goes out the window.

Stop That Habit!

I realized the other day when talking to a friend that I was letting this mental state become such a bad habit that I was falling behind on my deadlines.

I wasn’t over-due–yet. But if something didn’t change, I soon would be.

[Brief note: sometimes the interruptions outside the home are very distracting too! A police car just chased a red sports car through this parking lot and out the other side. But…I digress.]

When we’re talking about boundaries, sometimes the most important ones–and the most helpful ones–are the ones we set on ourselves.

The Great Fixers of the World

I’m a “take action” kind of person, so the things I obsess about are beyond my control. (If I could control them, I would have done it already.) I don’t lack courage to confront, but once I’ve done all I can about a situation, I have difficulty giving it over to God and truly letting it go.

However, much of that, I realized, is simply a bad mental habit. I don’t have a brain disease, and I’m not “addicted” to wrong thinking.

But I have fallen into some bad habits in that regard, and trying harder wasn’t working. It required some drastic action.

That action consists of treating my writing like a 9-to-5 job for the next few weeks until I get caught up and meet those deadlines. (The only exception will be my babysitting days.)

Practical Changes

Because my laptop comes with its own distractions, I brought my mini word processor Neo2 with me to the library. It does nothing but word processing, and it is guaranteed to run at least a YEAR on three AA batteries. A blog reader who raved about her Neo2 got me to investigate it.

For only $119 a few months ago, I bought freedom from writing distractions. It has a huge font, which I love, and is easy to read indoors and outdoors. The main thing for my boundaries, though, is that I can’t do a darned thing on it but write.

A change of location to jump-start my new writing schedule was also critical. I needed to get away from the temptations at home until I got a grip on those deadlines.

I will work primarily at the library. It’s quiet during the school day. The mall basement has a food court that is also deserted during the day, and so far my car is working this morning. (I wouldn’t like to sit in the car and type all day though. I need a table for my notes.)

Mental Re-Focus Time

One other thing I am doing, courtesy of a writing coach’s tip, is helping me refocus when my mind starts to drift to obsessive junk. She suggested that I free write for ten minutes, mentally getting myself back on track, then smoothly transition right back into the work at hand.

It’s a simple technique, but it really helps to “re-dump” the worry, remind myself that I’ve done all I can, and then get back to work.

I plan to treat this like a regular job until I get caught up. I will take two fifteen-minute breaks today, plus half an hour back in the car to eat my healthy packed lunch. The rest of the time I’ll be writing. I’ll add a note below at the end of the day and report in!

Take Action Now!

If you are truly stuck and unable to write in your current physical or mental state, don’t give up. Explore alternatives. If you’re drastically stuck–like I’ve been lately–then take drastic measures to get back on track.

No one will do it for you. No one cares about your writing dreams as much as you do. Be determined to do whatever it takes to get back into the flow of your writing!

[UPDATE at the end of the day: I wrote six hours at the library! I am shocked at how easy it was. I was alone in the study room for a bit, then two students joined me. Other than having to blot out one young man’s constant sniffling, it was good. I wrote more than 4,000 new words, plus this 900-word blog post! I am thrilled! I didn’t take breaks, other than to stretch, so I took a full hour for lunch at a nearby park. It was lovely–just me and my mystery!]

Writers want and need healthy boundaries.

We won’t ever have perfect boundaries, but we can have healthy boundaries.

There are basically four kinds of boundaries:

1. healthy boundaries
2. damaged boundaries
3. collapsed boundaries
4. walled boundaries

Let’s compare these kinds of boundaries to a room in your house.

What Kind Are You?

Healthy boundaries would be like living in a room with intact walls. It also has a solid door, but the doorknob is only on the inside. That means you can pick and choose who gets to come into your room, and who must stay outside. Healthy boundaries help you keep out toxic people, emotions, thoughts and beliefs. Why does that matter to you as a writer? Because healthy boundaries mean that you can set goals and keep out those things that would stop you from achieving those goals.

Damaged boundaries would be like living in that same room with intact walls and a solid door. However, the doorknob is now on the outside. Others have the ability to control what goes in and out of your personal room. They are free to hand you their emotions to fix, their problems to solve, their opinions to rule your life. Because they are free to come and go as they please, they always have the ability to throw you off course. You are forever adjusting to someone else’s plans, trying to be flexible, and writing at odd times because it’s the only time you are left alone.

Collapsed boundaries mean, of course, that you have no protection at all. The walls have crumbled, and the doors are broken down. Raiding parties come and go at all hours of the day and night. Collapsed boundaries are marked by excesses. You are overwhelmed by the emotional load, the physical work, and the mental aggravation dumped on you. You may be enduring abuse of various kinds, and eventually may turn to an addiction to help you cope. These are the famous writer stories you hear where they die young from drugs and alcohol or walk into the sea and drown.

Walled boundaries would be like a room with thick walls, but there are no windows and no doors. Because of past scarring, you suspect everyone and fear everyone. You become emotionally unavailable so no one can hurt you again. This eventually results in lonely isolation and a disconnection from your feelings. For the writer, this numbness can be devastating. When you lose connection with yourself and others, you will find it impossible to truly connect with readers either.

Most Writers Are a Mixture

Sometimes it is hard to assess the damage because we can be a mix. We have four kinds of boundaries, remember. It’s unlikely that you will have the same degree of damage in each boundary area.

You might have very healthy physical boundaries, adamant about your daily exercise, eating right, and using ergonomic office furniture when you write.

However, your mental boundaries might be damaged. From incidents growing up, your self-confidence has endured some denting. You believe what you’ve been told—that you’re not smart enough or creative enough. As a result, rejection from editors or negative critiques from a writing partner can set you back for a week.

Your emotional boundaries might have collapsed. You are worried sick about a grown child or a senile parent, taking on their pain to an excessive degree. You have too much worry and concern over too many things you have no control over. Writing goals go out the window because your time and emotional stability are up for grabs.

Your spiritual boundaries might be walls. You know what you believe, and you won’t listen to anyone with a different idea, even people who could help. Past scars cause this, but it can make you afraid to reach out and be vulnerable or ask for help. You struggle along with your writing problems alone.

There is Hope!

The subject of these posts and my upcoming e-book “Boundaries for Writers” is dear to my heart. I have come from a place of collapsed boundaries all around to healthy (or nearly healthy) boundaries. It has taken work, as any kind of recovery does, but it is rewarding work in the end.

I know that these blog posts can only show the tip of the iceberg. My e-book will have checklists to help you identify boundary damage in each of the four areas. Until you assess the damage accurately, you won’t know how to move on to the next step of repairing and rebuilding the boundaries.

Stay tuned! And if you missed the early boundaries posts, here they are:

• Why Writers Need Boundaries
• 4 Essential Types of Personal Boundaries

Is carving out time to write a perpetual problem for you?

If so, there’s a good chance that it has something to do with the boundary busters in your life.

Writers tend to be more sensitive creative types. That makes it possible for us to write from the heart, to create characters that readers care about, and write with impact.

This creative sensitivity comes with a down side. Because we are sensitive, caring people, we often say “yes” when we should say “no.” We draw a line in the sand, but say nothing when people step right over it.

Four Types of Boundaries

In Why Writers Need Boundaries I pointed out that in order to write—and just to be healthy individuals—we need both inner and outer boundaries. We need physical boundaries (outer). We also need three kinds of inner boundaries: mental, emotional, and spiritual.

Why? Because if you want to write, all these areas need protecting.

Don’t get me wrong. The whole world isn’t out to get you or rob you of all your writing time. You won’t need to become a cactus or porcupine, so prickly that others give you a wide berth.

With many people, you can relax your boundaries until you’re barely aware of them. Safe people can come and go in your life, and you happily give them access to your thoughts and emotions and living space.

However, for many reasons (both conscious and unconscious), certain people are unsafe. Such people threaten your equilibrium. They steal your time, your space, your peace of mind, your emotional stability, and your joyful spirit. They are thieves. They need to be kept outside the walls of the city.

Boundary Types Defined

(1) Physical boundaries are the easiest to see and define. They are property lines: my office, my desk, my locked car, my computer with password protection, money in my bank account, and my body. We draw physical boundaries around our writing space and writing time like someone putting a white picket fence around her cottage. It marks the difference between what is yours, and what is mine.

All those physical boundaries are easy to see because they’re external. Internal boundaries are invisible though. They are harder to define, but just as important. And if you don’t rebuild crumbled internal boundaries, it won’t matter to your writing career how rigid your physical boundaries are.

(2) Mental boundaries have to do with our thoughts. For writers, intact mental boundaries are critical. It’s what enables us to think our own thoughts and form our own opinions. It’s what gives us the capacity to create, to pull words out of thin air. These boundaries also enable us to reject thoughts and opinions being forced on us that are contrary to our belief system.

When you are talking to another person with intact mental boundaries, you can share opinions back and forth and have great discussions. No one feels forced to agree with the other person. No one is told their ideas are silly or stupid. However, there are forceful people who aren’t content to simply share ideas, or have a meeting of the minds. Instead, they (overtly or covertly) demand that you agree with them. They don’t even like it if you “agree to disagree.”

(3) Emotional boundaries allow us to have our own feelings. Healthy emotional boundaries serve two very good purposes. They keep us from imposing our emotions on other people, dumping endlessly on anyone who will listen to us (and then regretting it later). Emotional boundaries help us handle our feelings in appropriate ways.

Emotional boundaries also keep us from taking on the emotions of others who are spewing their emotional garbage. And for writers trying to carve out writing time, emotional boundaries are what protect us from being manipulated by others through guilt and shame and fear. They help us not take on responsibility for someone else’s emotions. It does no good to lock your writing door for two hours if you’re psychologically shattered from absorbing someone else’s emotional junk.

You have a right to your feelings, and you get to decide if they are appropriate or not. No one else gets to decide that for you. Each person is responsible for handling his/her own feelings. Emotional boundaries help prevent us from taking on issues that belong to someone else to solve.

(4) Spiritual boundaries define our beliefs about God and our place in the scheme of life. When our spiritual boundaries are damaged, we unconsciously compete with God for power or (with the best of intentions) try to play God in the lives of others.

Spiritual boundaries allow us to define our own relationship with God, even when others try to impose their beliefs on us. Others may try to tell you what to do with your gift of words. With healthy spiritual boundaries, you are free to define and explore your calling, your gifts and your talents. Someone else doesn’t get to define that for you.

What’s a Healthy Boundary?

If the four types of boundaries are new to you, you may wonder just how to recognize them in your life—and how to know if your boundaries need repair.

That will be the subject of the next blog post: identifying unhealthy boundary issues. Some of us just need minor repairs in the walls. Others of us have healthy boundaries in two areas, but the other two have collapsed. Some of us didn’t even know we were allowed to have boundaries.

Next time we’ll explore how to identify healthy and unhealthy boundaries for writers. Do you already have an inkling about the type(s) of boundaries you need to work on? Please leave a comment!