Uncategorized

Resting and Reflecting Before Re-Aligning

Published on by Kristi Holl

Since I last posted regularly, I’ve written three books (two adult mysteries and one juvenile nonfiction book), traveled, and been sick. The holidays blurred by, to be honest, because one of the book deadlines was December 20th. Two days ago I finished the second adult mystery.

One good thing about being sick is all the time you’re forced to be still: in waiting rooms, in recovery at home, in the night. Quiet time. Thinking time. Evaluating time.

HIATUS

What should happen when you take a hiatus from your regular life? [Hiatus = time off.] Among other things, I disappeared from my blog, newsletter and social media. I dropped out of several things at church for a while, and–this was the hardest–had to say ‘no’ a lot to my girls regarding babysitting my grandchildren.

An article, sustainable trauma recovery: taking a hiatus boosts MOTIVATION, by Robyn Mourning explains a healing process well. Her three-point recovery plan included rest, reflection, and getting re-aligned. A hiatus can be months away from your normal routine, or a week off, a weekend, half a day, or an hour long.

How should you spend your hiatus, if you want to feel the full benefits?

REST

Rest: take a breather, relax, stretch, just be.

At first, this was all I could do. I sat…on the couch, in bed with a book, in the backyard swing, down the trail by the pond. I wasn’t even thinking much. Not reading either. Catatonic mostly. Sometimes I walked rather zombie-like, appalled at how winded I was just walking! (I won a 5K race in my age group two years ago.) The walking and stretching helped get rid of the headaches and backaches from sitting too long. Being in nature is also very healing for me.

REFLECT

Reflect: become aware of your progress, what you’ve done so far, notice any big or small shifts that are providing hope and fostering resiliency.

I knew I was making progress when I wanted to read again and could focus and stay awake to read. I had a stack of fiction books (over 20) and nonfiction books (25) that had piled up this past year, unread. I also began to reflect on how I had managed to get myself into such a situation so that I didn’t repeat it.

Most of the problem was that I had scheduled myself with no margin at all last year. If NOTHING extra had come up, there wouldn’t have been a problem. But lots of extra things did occur, and being sick so often wasn’t on my calendar either. It was one of those “life happens when you’ve made other plans” kind of years. No one’s fault. My planning wasn’t wrong, but it had been unwise in the extreme not to build in any margin.

RE-ALIGN

Re-align: get re-aligned (or strengthen your alignment) with your unique purpose, your values, your goals.

Upon resting and reflecting, I realized there were a few important things I had let go of when things got so busy. One was proper exercise and sleep. One was time with friends. Another included a couple family members I lost touch with. So it was then time to re-align. I used a couple of tools for this.

One tool was the book Living Forward by Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy, which is new. It came with many, many free online resources, including an excellent test which shows what parts of your life are working well–and which parts you’re drifting in, just trying to keep your head above water without being sucked down by the undertow. It pinpointed two more places I’d let slide without realizing it. Doing the Life Plan has helped me get my values re-aligned with how I spend my time.

The other book that is helping me get re-aligned is When the Body Says NO: Exploring the Stress-Disease Connection by Gabor Mate, M.D. It has been eye-opening, not at all what I expected. I’m still learning from this one.

REST. REFLECT. RE-ALIGN. You’ll be glad you did. 

Just Keep Showing Up

Published on by Kristi Holl

This quote is from one of my favorite authors, Henry Cloud, co-author of the Boundaries books.

The last few months have been challenging, and I’m behind where I wanted to be on a deadline. So this quote is appropriate today.

I won’t obsess about the deadline. I will show up at my desk early every day to plant, water, weed, and nurture this plot.

Fruit will grow!

 

The Power of Intermittent Recovery

Published on by Kristi Holl

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

From the book The Power of Full Engagement:

To be an effective energy manager, you need to spend nearly all of your time fully engaged in the high positive energy quadrant or recovering your energy by spending time doing things in the low positive energy quadrant.

Definition of Terms

The low positive energy quadrant consists of doing activities that leave you relaxed, mellow, peaceful, tranquil and serene. For me, that means reading a good book or watching a good movie or spending time with certain people with whom I’m on the same sympathetic wavelength.

For you, such positive-energy producing activities may include fishing, golf, sitting in your porch swing, listening to music, going for a bike ride or stroll, or any number of things. The important point is this: unless you spend sufficient short periods throughout your day in intermittent recovery, you’ll burn out and experience a host of other unpleasant symptoms.

Is It Really That Important?

Yes, if you spend all day writing furiously on your novel, zipping along in your high energy positive quadrant, you’ll produce an amazing amount of work. That day, anyway. Maybe even two days in a row, but that will be it.

By relentlessly spending mental energy without recovery, you’ll be tired, anxious, irritable—and self-doubt will inevitably set in. In a tired state, our stories stink, our ideas sound hackneyed, and our prose deadly dull. At that point, we end up taking off more time from the writing than we would have if we’d made ourselves take those intermittent breaks throughout the writing day. (Trust me on this. I speak from experience.)

The Pay-Off

What’s the result of taking those short “low positive energy” recovery breaks? You’ll come back to your work more energized, less ache-y in the neck and back, and more emotionally upbeat.

The emotional component is just as important as your physical energy level! Defusing the bombs of self-doubt and anxiety will help your writing as much as feeling re-energized. And in the end, you’ll write more, not less, by taking the short breaks throughout the day. This is one of my 2016 goals.

Now I think I’ll try it myself and step outside into the lovely Texas sunshine.

Striving for Contentment

Published on by Kristi Holl

Would you call yourself a contented writer? Are you happy with your current situation and writing progress?

Or are you a dissatisfied writer, striving to better yourself and always pushing hard toward your goals? It’s something we are faced with all the time, but especially at goal-setting time.

Embrace Opposite Traits

To be honest, if you want to enjoy the writing life–if you want to enjoy the process, and not just the final product–you’ll have to find a way to embrace both contentment and the urge to grow and  improve. Why? Because BOTH traits are important to your well-being as a writer and directly influence your career.

At Peace with Writing

First, you need to be grateful for what you’ve learned as a writer. If you’re a student, or you’ve been writing on your own for several months or years, take a look at your earliest stories and articles. You’ll groan, or maybe grin, at what you considered great writing back then. You’ll see how much you’ve learned about the craft of writing as well as the business of publishing. You can be grateful that your skills aren’t what they used to be!

Giving yourself credit for how far you’ve come is important in keeping your spirits up. We melancholy writers are too quick to get down on ourselves, our abilities, our ideas, and our publishing record. This critical mind of ours (so very valuable during the editing phase) can also be our greatest enemy if we don’t “think about what we’re thinking about.”

It’s probably true that you aren’t where you want to be as a writer (I’m not either!), but be thankful that you’re not back at the very beginning. Take note of your progress with writing skills, marketing skills, how deeply you read, your new blog, and how your lessons are improving. This is being content as a writer. “Whatever is true, whatever is right, whatever is excellent or praiseworthy, think on these things.” (Philippians 4:8) It will allow you to enjoy the writing process.

[Caution: don’t confuse being content with being complacent.  A complacent attitude says, “I’ve arrived. You can’t teach me anything. I’ve been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I can coast from now on.”  A complacent writer stops reading and studying and working at his craft the minute he emails his final lesson or makes his first big sale. Complacency keeps you stuck in one spot–and eventually you start sliding backwards.]

Striving to Grow

At the opposite end of the spectrum is the desire to mature in your writing, and the inner gumption to press forward and make it happen. It’s enjoying your progress while at the same time moving forward to learn even more.

It’s being consistent in your learning curve. (By consistency, I mean devoting a certain amount of time almost daily to your writing growth. Maybe it’s thirty minutes of reading writers’ blogs or writing magazines. Maybe it’s studying a good writing craft book or taking an online class or webinar.)

Juggling Act

Like so many things in life, you have to find the balance here. You want to have enough “drive” to make steady progress in your career–but not end up “driven.” Trust me on this–“driven” is no fun. It comes with ulcers and headaches. On the other hand, you want to enjoy your writing life, and that means learning to be content in whatever stage you’re in. BUT you don’t want to be so content that you become complacent.

It sounds confusing, but it’s not really. Being happy with your writing while striving to learn and write better is akin to being in the zone for me. Slipping out of that zone, on either side, brings doubts and pressure. Pay attention to how you feel about your writing. Make course corrections, if necessary, to remain a happy writer.

Self-Care for Writers Series

Published on by Kristi Holl

If your year has included sickness and/or a lot of deadlines, and you’re dragging yourself into the New Year, I want to point you to a series on self-care for writers.

I am making self-care my “push goal” for 2016. (Michael Hyatt calls a push goal the one goal that, if you met it, would greatly impact all your other goals.) Recovered health will impact my new year more than anything else at this point.

Here is the series. As Cec Murphy says, it’s for writers who only write an hour or who write full-time. Enjoy! Take better care of yourself!

  • Self-Care for Writers Part 1
  • Self-Care Part 2
  • Self-Care Part 3
  • Self-Care Part 4
  • Self-Care Part 5
  • Self-Care Part 6
  • Self-Care Part 7
  • Self-Care Part 8 
  • Self-Care Part 9
  • Parts 10 and 11 are to come yet!

Creative Composting for Writers

Published on by Kristi Holl

When I started writing, I lived on an Iowa farm, in a county known nationwide as the “black dirt capital of the world.” Record crops were grown there, in the most nutrient-dense soil in the country.

Then I moved to Texas twelve years ago. I tried for years to grow something–anything–in my front yard. I watered faithfully, but after a few weeks, the bushes curled up and died, the flowers shriveled, and the firm succulents went squishy.

What passes for “dirt” here is a bit of leached-out clay embedded with rocks and gravel. There is almost no top soil at all, and certainly none of it is black. Not even brown. Just sort of dingy gray. One weekend, I asked the advice of the older man across the street, a retired wheat farmer from Nebraska whose vegetable gardens were green and lush.

“Compost your yard,” he said. “Pile up all kinds of vegetable peelings and leaves and grass clippings, let it get warm and decompose, then use the rich formula to give your plants something to grow on.”

Something to Grow On

When he said that, I realized he was talking about more than my dried-up yard, although he didn’t know it…  I was twenty-seven years old when I took a writing course for children. At that time, I’d stored up twenty-seven years of experiences, plus twenty-seven years’ worth of books read and absorbed. I also had three small children, so ideas were unfolding before my very eyes on a daily basis. I had more ideas than I had time to write down, much less develop.

Fast forward thirty-three years to arid Texas. I’ve had nearly 50 books published, plus scores of articles and some short stories. Even so, sometimes my inner reservoir of ideas feels a lot like my gray hard rocky soil out front. Some days I feel like I’m about as successful growing stories as I am at growing flowers.

We all get there, if we write long enough. For me, it means that my writing life needs composting.

Artist Dates

One of the things Julia Cameron advises in The Artist’s Way is to take a weekly “artist date.” It’s for feeding your mind with images and experiences you need as a writer. Weekly nurturing experiences restock the pond that perhaps you’ve fished from for years. An over-fished pond leaves us with diminished resources. Our work dries up. The pond needs to be restocked. You do that with artist dates.

“An artist date is a block of time, perhaps two hours weekly, especially set aside and committed to nurturing your creative consciousness, your inner artist. In its most primary form, the artist date is an excursion, a play date that you pre-plan and defend against all interlopers.”

You go alone–no spouses, friends, children, or grandchildren.

Cameron suggests things like a visit to a great junk store, a solo trip to the beach, an old movie seen alone, a visit to an aquarium or art gallery. A long walk, sitting to watching a sunrise or sunset, going bowling, a free concert in the park: all such experiences qualify.

Crop Analysis

Are you expecting a bumper crop of writing to come from soil that was depleted some time ago? Is the fruit of your writing labor smaller than it used to be? It could be that it’s time to do some composting.

What are some of your favorite ways to feed and nurture your creative side? What do you do to fit creative composting into your writing life?

Unlocking Your Potential

Published on by Kristi Holl

Winston Churchill once said, “Continuous effort–not strength or intelligence–is the key to unlocking our potential.” I believe he’s right. Over the years, the writers I’ve seen succeed were the ones who refused to give up.

I’ve been surprised sometimes too. Some of my most brilliant writing students gave up after a rejection or two and never were published. But I have books on my shelf from medium-talented students who refused to give up on their dreams–books published by large New York publishers.

Plugging Away

I’ve been remembering that principle this month during NaNoWriMo when I was either sick or gone or interrupted. Many days, I felt weak and the novel sounded silly and self-serving, but I kept plugging away. Last week I was about 8,000 words behind. Today I am slightly less behind–but only by doggedly plugging away.

Samuel Johnson said, “Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.”

In a like vein, Helen Keller (below–one of the most determined people you’ll ever read about) said, “We can do anything we want to as long as we stick to it long enough.”

That’s good news to me! Is it to you?

(continued below)

It’s Your Choice

We may not be the most talented writers. We may not be the most clever or well read. We may not have an MFA in writing or be able to afford expensive writing conferences. BUT we can each choose to persevere, to stick to it till we finish.

Know where you want to go, and map out a clear strategy on how you plan to get there. There are many ways to study and grow, ranging from free online courses and books to expensive MFA programs at prestigious colleges. But in either case, the only person with an advantage is the one who refuses to quit.

Is that YOU?

Jane Austen and Me

Published on by Kristi Holl

I’ve been thinking about Jane Austen a lot since visiting her home in Chawton, England, in September.

Another time and another place, but some lessons to learn that apply to me as a writer today.

Kinship of Writers

Jane’s home in Chawton was where she revised Sense & Sensibility and Pride & Prejudice for publication. Here she also wrote Emma, Persuasion, Mansfield Park and part of another novel before becoming ill. After visiting Jane’s house in Chawton, I felt a kinship with her. She lived in the kind of home I would have loved (see below): several hundred years old, two stories, cozy fireplaces in every room, big flower and vegetable gardens, set on a cobblestone street lined with tiny shops and thatched-roof cottages.

Her writing desk (above) was tiny. I was struck by the contrast between her small desk, just big enough for her paper and ink well, and my two desks back home covered with computers, printers, books, notebooks, and assorted junk. Jane had no shelves of how-to writing books, no writing room of her own, no Internet or cell phone.

Routines

She wrote in the mornings, after breakfast, before helping her mother and sister with household tasks or visiting or entertaining numerous nieces and nephews. She put her writing first in her day, before it got taken over by friends or family or other obligations. There was a lesson for me!

She also wrote about what she knew and experienced–and what interested her–despite pressure from her publisher to write what would make more money. They wanted gothic and historical romances, not her “simple little stories” about her everyday village life and how several families affected each other. (Remember: although her books are historical to her present-day fans, she was writing contemporary fiction.) Her heroes and heroines who learned about their character flaws and overcame them–like Darcy’s pride and Lizzie’s tendency toward hasty judgments–were considered too tame for the reading public.

Write Your Passion

I loved reading Jane’s responses to the publisher’s pressure. Her replies (there were photocopies of her letters) basically said that she could only write what they wanted if she were literally starving, and even though historical romances might be more popular or profitable than her “domestic stories of country villages…I would hang myself before I could finish the first chapter…No, I must keep to my own style and go on in my own way, though I may never succeed again.” Wouldn’t that same publisher be astounded today to see the thousands of fans who still flock to the Jane Austen walking tours in Bath, the Jane Austen Centre, and her home in Chawton, who buy her books and watch movies made of them? Isn’t there a lesson for all writers here?

Perhaps this is what Jane was thinking when she wrote (in Mansfield Park):

“We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.”

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?