writing challenges

The Pain of Overload

Published on by Kristi Holl

As I mentioned last time, writers need margin in their lives in order to write. However, margin has disappeared for many people.

Frazzled mothers, office workers, retired grandparents, and other writers struggle to find both time and energy to write. Make no mistake: it is harder today than at any other time in history. It’s not your imagination.

It’s also not hopeless. It comes down to adding margin back into your lifestyle.

Before we talk about how to do that, let’s talk about how the overload happens and what it looks like.

Tipping the Scale

Overload in any area of your life happens slowly. It is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. It is having one more expectation of you at work or home, one more change, making one more commitment, making one more purchase that you must pay for, facing one more decision.

You can comfortably handle many details in your life. But when you exceed that level, it’s called overload.

Reaching My Limits

All people have limits, and overloading your system leads to breakdown. Some overloading is easy to spot. A physical limit can easily be recognized. For example, I know I can’t lift my car, so I never try.

Performance limits can be more difficult to recognize. If my will is strong enough, I will try to do things I can’t do for very long. I might try to work 80 hours per week every week or lift my refrigerator. The overload can result in sickness or stress fractures.

Reaching your emotional and mental limits can be the hardest to spot. Each person is unique. My overload might result in symptoms like migraines and ulcers; your overload might result in a heart attack or road rage.

Has overload always been with us? No.

Multiple Sources

Changes are happening faster and faster, and overload can appear almost overnight. Here are some ways you can become overloaded:

  • Activity overload: We are busy people, we try to do three things at one time, and we are booked up in advance.
  • Change overload: Change used to be slow, and now it comes at warp speed.
  • Choice overload: In 1980 there were 12,000 items in the average supermarket; 10 years ago there were 30,000 items. Now there are many more.
  • Commitment overload: We have trouble saying no. We take on too many responsibilities and too many relationships. We hold down too many jobs, volunteer for too many tasks, and serve on too many committees.
  • Debt overload: Nearly every sector of society is in debt. Most are weighed down by consumer debt.
  • Decision overload: Every year we have more decisions to make and less time to make them. They range from the minor decisions at the grocery store to major decisions about aging parents.
  • Expectation overload: We believe that if we can think it, we can have it. We think we should have no boundaries placed on us.
  • Fatigue overload: We are tired. Our batteries are drained. Most people are even more tired at the end of their vacation than they were at the beginning.
  • Hurry overload: We walk fast, talk fast, eat fast, and feel rushed all the time. Being in a constant hurry is a modern ailment.
  • Information overload: We are buried by information on a daily basis-newspapers, magazines, online blogs and articles, TV and Internet news shows, and books.
  • Media overload: Almost 100% of the American homes now have television, and shows are on 24/7. Images are flashing at us on screen many hours per day.
  • Noise overload: True quiet is extremely rare. Noise pollution is the norm. It interferes with talking, thinking and sleeping.
  • People overload: Each of us is exposed to a greater number of people than ever before. We need people, but not the crowding.
  • Possession overload: We have more things per person than any other nation in history. Closets are full, storage space is used up, and cars can’t fit into garages anymore.
  • Technology overload: It has been estimated that the average person must learn to operate at least 20,000 pieces of equipment.
  • Traffic overload: Road rage is one byproduct of clogged roadways. Rush-hour is not a rush nor does it last an hour anymore.
  • Work overload: Millions of exhausted workers are worn out by schedules demanding more than they can do without breaking down. The earlier predictions of shorter work weeks, long vacations, and higher incomes have backfired. [From Margin by Richard Swenson, M.D.]

Isn’t reading that list simply exhausting? No wonder we feel overloaded. No wonder we have a difficult time writing!

It’s not your imagination! We Americans are overloaded – but we don’t have to stay that way! I hope you will check out Margin–it has many more helpful ideas than I have room for here. It’s a five-star book for a good reason!

Surrendering to the Call

Published on by Kristi Holl

The post below was written almost four years ago, when I was struggling with this question. I was pleased to see that I no longer struggle with it. In fact, after a full surrender, things shifted for me in a wonderful way. Not only do I have as many contracts as I can handle, I’m having a chance to write the kind of books I have always loved to read. What made the difference in four years? Read below, and you’ll see…

Do you believe you are called to write? Or do you suspect you are?

If that’s true, why aren’t you pursuing your calling?

Food for Thought

This weekend I started reading Callings by Gregg Levoy, the author of a very practical book for writers called This Business of Writing. In Callings, he said some thought-provoking things that gave me pause.

I started writing thirty years ago, and until six months ago, there were many reasons why I couldn’t give my all-out devotion to writing: a full-time day job of teaching, raising four children, multiple jobs in the church and community, serious health problems and surgeries, etc. But last fall I retired from teaching, my children are grown, and I can decide how much I babysit grandchildren and how much volunteer work I do. It’s a time I’ve been anticipating for three decades.

So…am I pursuing my writer’s calling with full devotion? I want to. I dream about it. I can almost taste it sometimes. But do I do it? No.

Why?

I’m not sure, but these quotes from Callings are helping me ask the right questions. Maybe these ideas will help you too.

  • “Although we have the choice not to follow  a call, if we do not do so,..we’ll feel alienated from ourselves, listless and frustrated, and fitful with boredom, the common  cold of the soul. Life will feel so penetratingly dull and pointless that we may become angry, and turn the anger inward against ourselves (one definition of depression).”
  • “Generally, people won’t pursue their callings until the fear of doing so is finally exceeded by the pain of not doing so.”
  • “Perhaps the main reason that we ignore calls is that we instinctively know the price they’ll exact.”
  • “All calls lead to some sacrifice because even just one choice closes the door on another, and some calls lead to much sacrifice, which may feel anything but blissful.”
  • “At some level we need to devote everything, our whole selves. A part-time effort, a sorta-kinda commitment, an untested promise, won’t  suffice. You must know that you mean business, that you’re going to jump into it up to your eye sockets and not turn back at the last minute.”

Will the Rubber Meet the Road Now?

I’ve had thirty years of (by necessity) a “part-time effort” and “an untested promise.” Now that I have the time and could choose to do so, will I “jump into it up to [my] eye sockets”?

Is the pain of not doing so finally more than the fear of trying? Yes, I think so.

How about you?

When Deadlines Meet the Holidays

Published on by Kristi Holl

I love having deadlines. I really do. It means money will be coming in for my daily writing, as long as I meet those deadlines. But when overlapping deadlines meet Thanksgiving and Christmas (and all the dinners, shopping, cards and company that go with it), I feel my internal panic button set to go off.

Missing the holiday fun isn’t an option to me. I love the family get-togethers, the grandkids’ Christmas concerts, and the church events. I’ve already streamlined cards and shopping over the years.

Even so, I look at my calendar on the one hand, and how much revision still needs to be done on the other hand–and GULP.

What To Do?

It’s been a few years since I had multiple contracts to juggle, but I’m no stranger to the panic that can hit a writer at ANY time. If this applies to you–or just being able to write at all during the holidays–I’ll direct you to some easy solutions. [Yes, it’s true. When I’m stuck these days, I read my own blog or writing books to help myself “remember” what I already know will work.]

Deadlines, Holidays, Writing and Fun!

Just re-reading my posts defused my inner panic button. I remember! Mini habits…easy starting…daily success… Bring on the holidays!

Voices of Self-Sabotage

Published on by Kristi Holl

[This is a repeat post because I’m out of town. I think the message is one we need to be reminded of.]

You’ve often heard the phrase “you are your own worst enemy.” Does this apply to you when trying to create a writing life you love? It certainly applies to me!

How does this enemy within keep you from moving ahead with your writing dreams? By telling you lies. Some are bold-faced lies. Some are wrapped in soft wool. Some lies ridicule you, while others sound downright comforting. What do all these voices in your head have in common?

They’re instruments of self-sabotage. They convince you to give up.

Who’s Talking Now?

There are many voices inside your head. You must listen and decide who’s doing the talking at any particular moment. Some voices are easy to recognize; some are so subtle you’ll be shocked. First, you have the…

Voice of the Inner Critic

It whispers words like “What makes you think you have anything interesting to say?” “You’re no good.” “That junk will never sell.” “You’re actually going to show that story to somebody?” The Inner Critic beats you down with criticism. Sometimes this voice bears a remarkable similarity to that of your mother, your spouse, or your junior high English teacher.

As Julia Cameron says in The Artist’s Way at Work, creativity requires a sense of inner safety, something like a fortress. “In order to have one, you must disarm the snipers, traitors and enemies that may have infiltrated your psyche.”

I spent years fighting my Inner Critic’s voice with positive affirmations and gritted teeth. “Oh, yes, I can!” was my motto. In time, my Inner Critic was quieted, only speaking out when I got an unexpected rejection or bad review. Yet I still wasn’t creating the writing life I dreamed of. Something was holding me back. It took me a long time to realize I still had voices in my head, because the tone and words had changed.

Do any of the following voices live inside your head and keep you from fully pursuing your writing dreams? Listen and see.

Voice of Responsibility

This voice sounds so adult, so sensible. It tells you to grow up, to get your head out of the clouds and your feet back on the ground. “You’re neglecting your children (or your job),” says this voice. “Look at your messy kitchen (or yard or garage).” “You have no business hiring someone else to mow the lawn so you can write!” “You’d better walk the poor dog first.”

Guilt is piled on by this voice, and you crumble under its weight. You put your writing dream on the back burner until a time when you’re less burdened by responsibility.

Voice of Intimidation

This voice is snide and cryptic. It slaps your hand when you try to crawl out of the box that is your life and declare yourself a writer. “Who do you think you are?” this voice asks. “You’ll make a fool of yourself!”

Doubt and low self-worth take these statements as the truth, and that of course only serves to further lower your self-esteem. Cowering, you crawl back in the box and close the lid on your dreams.

(The rest of the article on self-sabotage (which also includes the voices of fear, compassion, and procrastination) is here. It’s from the “Creating the Writing Life You Love” section of my Writer’s First Aid: Getting Organized, Getting Inspired, and Sticking to It.

Jealousy: Conquering the Green-Eyed Monster

Published on by Kristi Holl

Last weekend, I went to a 75th Anniversary showing of “Gone With the Wind” in a local theater. It was a treat! After the Civil War ended, Scarlet OHara nearly starved with her family on their broken down plantation while she burned with jealousy toward anyone who still had money. Later, after marrying Rhett Butler, Scarlet built a gaudy mansion in Atlanta to make her enemies “pea-green with envy” in return.

Unfortunately, she found (like many writers) that having people jealous of her success caused her as much heartache as when she was jealous herself.

Private Pain

Jealousy. Envy. The green-eyed monster. Call it what you will, it attacks writers on a regular basis.

We don’t talk about it much. Sometimes it’s just a twinge, like a side ache. Other times it’s a full-fledged cramp. It can strike when someone in your writing group sells a story or book, when someone on Facebook posts a glowing book review, when we see that someone’s book (that we started and couldn’t even finish) just landed a major movie deal: any of these can bring the sting of jealousy.

On the flip side of the coin, if our story just sold or garnered the starred review or landed on the short list for a big award, we can find ourselves stunned, in the position of receiving cold shoulders, raised eyebrows, rejection, and backbiting. This can happen if you finally sell your first manuscript, but your friends haven’t sold anything yet. As Bette Midler once said, “The worst part of success is to try finding someone who is happy for you.” Frankly, both types of jealousy present challenges, but the second type feels like betrayal, so can be more difficult to handle.

I’m not sure why, but I only had to deal with others’ jealousy very early in my career, when I decided to break out of the farm wife mold and write on the side. I think it’s when you first do something different than what others expect that you run into the most jealousy. Oddly enough, there was nothing much to be jealous of back then! After people in the family and community got used to my being a writer, I don’t recall any more catty remarks or put-downs, even after winning awards and being able to write full-time. If there was jealousy at that point, they kept it to themselves.

What’s a Writer To Do?

If you’re jealous–or others are jealous of your success–there are a number of ways to deal with it. 

First, here are some methods for dealing with others’ jealousy.

  1. You can call a spade a spade. Tell them they’re jealous and to knock it off and let you enjoy your success. This only tends to aggravate the problem though.
  2. If the person listening to your success story is a struggling writer—one genuinely working to write and sell—be sensitive to her feelings. Do share. Be happy, but don’t gloat. Don’t spend the whole critique period talking about your success. Keep it in balance.
  3. Find a writer who is more published than you are, then shout your success from the rooftops. Do you have an instructor or mentor who’s helped you in some way? Those are great people to share good news with, and you can pull out all the stops. They’ll be as excited as you are. I love having a former student publish, then write to share the news.
  4. Brace yourself with certain family members. Jealousy coming from nonwriters (including your family) is trickier, and often the most painful. Family members who were super-supportive while you played the Rejection Slip Blues can turn cold and rejecting themselves when you begin selling. I’ve never understood this type of jealousy, but I’ve seen it in my own life and other writers’ lives often enough to know it’s real. Writers tend to withdraw and shut down when their success stories fall on the deaf ears of family members. Be sensitive to your family issues, but don’t let the nonsupport go on too long. Confront it. Your sale or good review is an achievement, and it should be recognized, just as you recognize their accomplishments. [And be sure you are developing supportive friends outside your family circle.]

When You’re the Jealous One

Oops! Your claws are showing! What should you do if you’re the jealous one? Here are things to try:

  1. Try to distance yourself from the jealousy. Put some space between yourself and the other writer for a moment, and view the event objectively. What can you learn from this writer’s success experience? How did she find the right market for her book? How did he help promote his novel so that it got such great publicity? Did they do something you could use to boost your own success? Find the lesson in the experience. And then if you really want to nip the jealousy at its roots, smile and congratulate the writer on her success. Fake it till you make it!
  2. Choose to make that “enemy” into a friend. Rachel Simon, in The Writer’s Survival Guide, talked about one of her friends, Marianne, who was having great difficulty dealing with the success of another new writer. “The extreme heat of Marianne’s envy made her see just how much she wanted to succeed. So Marianne set herself to combating envy with harder work and, instead of seeing her friend as someone to revile, saw her friend as a pioneer leading the way. And so Marianne turned the object of her envy into an object of inspiration.”
  3. Don’t focus on someone else’s success, if it brings down your own self-esteem. Instead, get to work on your own manuscript! Your mind can only concentrate on one thing at a time, the experts tell us, so turn your attention away from the object of your jealousy and address your own writing. Bonnie Friedman agrees in her article, “Envy, the Writer’s Disease,” that the remedy for jealousy is focusing on your own work. “Not the thinking about it. Not the assessing of it. But the doing of it.”
  4. Develop a sense of humor. Probably one of the best ways to handle jealousy, if you can muster the courage, is to laugh about it. I challenge you to read Anne Lamott’s chapter on jealousy in Bird by Bird and not laugh out loud. She doesn’t pull any punches, but her honesty about the not-so-nice feelings we can harbor about others is so refreshing. “Jealousy is such a direct attack on whatever measure of confidence you’ve been able to muster,” Anne says. “But if you continue to write, you are probably going to have to deal with it, because some wonderful, dazzling successes are going to happen for some of the most awful, angry, undeserving writers you know—people who are, in other words, not you.”

So the next time the green-eyed monster takes a chunk out of your hide, remember Scarlet O’Hara’s other famous line: “I’ll go crazy if I think about that now. I’ll think about that tomorrow.” And by the time tomorrow comes, you’ll be so involved in your own writing project again that the envy will shrink to its proper proportions.

Stuck in the Writing Doldrums?

Published on by Kristi Holl

In the midst of the doldrums, our writing lives come to a standstill. We stop writing, reading craft books and magazines,  journaling, critiquing, and researching.

There is actually a place near the equator named the Doldrums. Because of shifting winds and calm spots in the area, a sailboat caught in the Doldrums could be stranded for days due to lack of wind. When we’re caught in the writing doldrums, our writing boat is stranded for days too.

What causes this? The Doldrums near the equator are caused by alternating calms and squalls. Super highs and super lows. Hyperactivity and then no activity.

That’s exactly what causes the writing doldrums too.

Uneven Pacing

The cycling back and forth between hyperactivity and doldrums is where many of us live. NOTE: the hyperactivity can be writing-related or nonwriting activity. Writerly hyperactivity includes writing marathons for ten hours, getting caught up in the Twitter-Facebook-LinkedIn-Pinterest-blog frenzy, and other ways of operating in hyper-drive. Nonwriting hyperactivity can be rushing from one kids’ activity to another while juggling your day job, a birthday party, a sick parent, and your aerobics class.

Either way, you’re too busy and out of balance. This always–and I do mean ALWAYS–is followed by the doldrums where you just can’t make yourself do a thing. (Partly it’s nature’s way of making you slow down and rest.)

Is this your pattern? If so, you’ve probably noticed that the time spent in the doldrums effectively wipes out how much you gained during the hyper, super active times.

The Solution

Do you get tired of crashing, of having days of no productivity that follow your super productive days? After the flurry of frenzied activity that accompanies your adrenaline rush, your bodies, minds, emotions and spirits shut down. This can be prevented though!

It takes daily discipline, but it can be done. And oddly enough, the discipline that’s called for is slowing down. You want to avoid the hyperactive days–be they writing or nonwriting hyper days–so that the doldrums don’t automatically follow.

To avoid the crash, you have to avoid the frantic days that precede it.

Balance and Pacing

If you want to have a writing career that will go the distance, your best bet is to avoid the extreme highs so you can avoid the extreme lows. Even if you can write five straight hours, it’s better for most people to stop after two hours and take a break. Do something else, something physical. Change gears. Let the adrenaline subside. You can write again later if you have time.

If you’re hyper in the nonwriting world, it may mean saying “no” a lot more often. Not everyone who asks for your assistance needs it nearly as much as you need to stop and take a few deep breaths and relax. Most of us have such an automatic “yes” that we don’t even stop to think or pray about the request. It’s only later–when we’re up till midnight trying to get our own things done–that we realize we agreed to something that we should have declined.

The Pay-Off

The writers who last, who keep producing quality writing, are usually those who have found a way to stay on an even keel most of the time. Then they can write daily, produce pages that add up over time, and still have a balanced life away from the keyboard.

Give yourself permission to get out of hyper drive, and thus avoid the writing doldrums. You’re the only one who can make that change. I urge you–and ME–to begin today.

Writing Through Physical Pain

Published on by Kristi Holl

When my kids were toddlers and in grade school, I was wired shut for eleven weeks after two jaw surgeries. I’d had some health problems over the years, but being wired shut topped them all. I couldn’t talk to my four small children or even call a friend.

I was dying to talk, but couldn’t. So I hurried to my computer where my characters “talked” onscreen. Dialogue flew back and forth, and (rather surprisingly) this mental conversation went a long ways toward satisfying me. Usually I wrote a MG novel in 5-6 months, but it took me just two months to write Danger at Hanging Rock, turning this post-surgical problem into salable writing.

A Real Pain

Writing about pain and writing through pain is possible. Not FUN, but possible. Health problems crop up routinely. They range from short-term problems (like your son’s broken leg), to things needing constant close attention (like diabetes or arthritis). The most serious problems (like terminal illness or a death in the family) affect us all, sooner or later.

However, instead of quitting, we can also transform these experiences into publishable writing, whether it’s a simple case of the flu or a stay in the hospital. It’s tempting with short-term health problems to abandon our writing “until things settle down.” If at all possible, don’t do that.

Instead, stand back, rethink, and keep going. For example, I finished a mystery called Cast a Single Shadow during my four-year-old daughter’s hospital stay. I couldn’t sleep, so I borrowed a nurse’s clipboard and wrote while the rest of the hospital slept.

Chronic Pain: Another Story

I’ve had TMJ, facial nerve damage from several surgeries, and arthritis in my jaw joints for 30 years. I’ve also had five neck surgeries to deal with a chronic pain condition. The two main challenges for writers and artists with chronic pain are (1) finding the energy to write, and (2) fighting depression.

Writing, as you know, demands a high level of energy, and people fighting chronic pain may use 30-50% of their daily energy just fighting their pain. If chronic pain threatens to stop you from writing, try these things:

  • Accept pain as a fact in your life.  Don’t compare your life with anyone else’s or brood about “how life should be.” It won’t help. Books like Judy Gann‘s excellent title The God of all Comfort: devotions of hope for those who chronically suffer will help and encourage you. You’ll realize that many others deal with chronic pain–and overcome  it. You can too.
  • Fight the depression.  If possible, try writing about the positive aspects of your situation. (“Life’s Simple Pleasures” was an article written by a migraine sufferer about learning to appreciate what most people take for granted, like a night’s sleep, a picnic with the family, or planting tulips.) Any type of writing you enjoy is helpful in fighting depression because it tends to distract you from your pain (like when you forget your headache during an exciting movie).
  • Find the energy. Create mini-goals (for example, writing just fifteen minutes at a time). Divide each writing task into thin, achievable slices. Assure yourself that you only have to complete one mini-goal or slice, then stop if you need to. Pace your activities, even on the days you feel better than usual. Pushing yourself only increases chronic pain.

Terminal Illness

Terminal illness and a death in the family tax your creativity the most. The shock, numbness, and months of extended grief can derail even the most  dedicated writers. However, even in these cases, certain strategies can keep you going.

Why would you even want to keep writing during such a stressful time? The point of it is so that you still have a career when the weeks or months have passed. You don’t have to start over at Square One. Yes, you take the necessary time to grieve or deal with things. However, if you put your writing “on hold” until things are “back to normal,” you may find it too difficult to get started again.

Keeping that in mind, some tips during a really rough patch might include:

  • Journal your feelings.  Journal in hospitals, waiting rooms, and cafeterias. Your deepest heart-felt thoughts will provide excellent material for later. They may become fillers, daily devotions or even greeting card verses for people in similar circumstances. Or…no one may ever see your writing, and that’s okay too. Either way, you keep up your writing habit, which will pay huge dividends later.
  • Encourage and coax, but don’t push yourself to write. Burnout occurs when the demands we put on ourselves outweigh our energy supply. Some days you just won’t be able to put pen to paper.
  • Again, write about your experiences.  It can be the best healer of all. To deal with the pain after my dad died thirty years ago, I wrote The Rose Beyond the Wall, a middle-grade novel about a grandmother with terminal cancer.  It was a book written from the heart. Despite its subject, it’s a hopeful book for children, and it sold well in hardcover and paperback. Think about doing the same thing with your experiences.

Remember that “this too shall pass,” and when it does, you’ll be in a position to share with others what you’ve learned. That’s a writer’s satisfaction that money can’t buy.

The Best YES

Published on by Kristi Holl

One of my friends is a writing coach. She spots things in my writing life when I can’t see “the writing forest for the trees.”

She recently asked how the writing was going with my new contracted mysteries, the ones with firm deadlines that are longer than anything I’ve ever written before.

How many chapters had I written?

Truth Telling

I was embarrassed to tell her how little writing I’d accomplished in August so far. It wasn’t my fault that my writing timetable got derailed. Yes, I had scheduled quite a few babysitting days for various events. But that isn’t what did it. They were planned for weeks ago and fully enjoyed.

“It’s other people’s emergencies that got me,” I confessed.

Tell Me More

“What emergencies?” she asked.

I gave her the last week’s list. It included things like cars over-heating when someone needed to get to work. I was glad to help out, taking people to work one day and loaning my car another day. (And doing my errands during rush hour instead, a time I usually avoided.) I watched a neighbor’s kids when she didn’t want to take them with her to the dog grooming place. I filled in for someone when I should probably have been home with my sore throat. 

I didn’t feel resentful. No one’s “stuff” happened just to derail my writing or make me work late four nights in a row. I just felt tired by the time I got to my writing. Too tired to get much of it done, which made me sad. (And fearful that I might let this opportunity slip through my fingers.)

Some Hard Truths

“Yes,” my writer friend said, “emergencies DO happen. But everything you described to me is more of an inconvenience than an emergency. It’s stuff that happens to everyone: a sick child, a car needing repair, packing for a vacation, or a dog needing to go to the vet. They aren’t emergencies.”

I pondered that. Each phone call had sure sounded like an emergency.

“These people wanted you to drop everything and make their lives EASIER. They didn’t want to deal with the normal problems that everyone runs into who have children, cars, and pets. You stepped in so they didn’t have to cope. If you didn’t have some big deadlines, it might not matter. But if you don’t let others deal with their own normal problems, you’ll just fall further behind.” And maybe lose those contracts, I added silently. 

Paradigm Shift

Hmmm… It’s true that I often call other people’s problems “emergencies” that really aren’t. And it’s true that even if I still choose to help, often it could be done later, after I finish work. Just because someone wants it done now doesn’t mean it always NEEDS to be done now. Or, horror of horrors, when asked for help, I could have said, “No, I’m sorry, but I can’t today.” Period.

Writing and making deadlines is a good thing. Helping someone truly in need is also a good thing. But choosing between them can be hard.

A Christian author who deals with the tough issue of choosing between one good thing and another good thing is Lysa TerKeurst in The Best Yes: Making Wise Decisions in the Midst of Endless Demands. If we use up our time and energy by saying “yes” to many unnecessary things, we won’t have any time or energy to say YES to the best things. As Lysa says, we don’t become Wonder Woman; we become worn-out woman.

If you find yourself also in the position of wanting to devote more time to writing opportunities—but so many people are wanting your time—you might enjoy this book too. I expect I’ll be blogging about it in the future.

Time for Change

In the meantime, today when you are asked to postpone your writing in order to assist someone else, stop first. Think about it.

  • Does it really require your help?
  • Does it have to be right now?
  • If the person has to wait for your help, do they take care of it themselves? [This happens a lot!]
  • Is this just a normal problem any person would have in that situation or season of life? In that case, you might be doing them more of a favor if you let them struggle and grow and mature in their role.

And while they do that, you can struggle and grow and mature in your writing. A win-win solution!

Sometimes we worry so much about being selfish that we go overboard the other way. It’s not wrong to say “no” or “not now.” And if you do it often enough, you might actually get some writing done!

First, You Gotta Write!

Published on by Kristi Holl

As I mentioned in Tuesday’s post, one of my goals for the sabbatical was to regain my love of writing. It had become such a chore, and I wasn’t sure why.

I hoped it was because I had contracted for a couple of educational books in topics I wasn’t interested in. Don’t get me wrong. I was very grateful for the work. It just wasn’t fun. And no matter how “creative” I tried to be, it felt like I was writing term papers for kids.

Was It That Simple? No

So the first thing I decided about the sabbatical was that I was going to put serious writing time into an unfinished novel. I still loved the story, although it wasn’t a commercial topic. I wanted to write it anyway.

So that’s what I did. Did that solve the problem? Well…no.

I couldn’t get started. And when I did, I couldn’t stick with it. This happened day after day. And it became painfully clear that I’d never recover my love for writing unless I was actually writing!

I Am NOT Blocked!

I refused to think I was blocked. Saying “I have writer’s block” always sounded like a cop-out to me. But whatever I chose to label it, I wasn’t writing. And the first week had slipped by already.

Then my friend sent me an email about overcoming procrastination. The procedure was for tackling business tasks you don’t want to do: filing estimated taxes, cleaning your office, developing proposals, and the like.

But the procedure intrigued me because it dealt with changing how you think. And changing my automatic non-conscious thinking has been the most helpful thing I’ve ever done in many areas of my life. So I applied her procrastination technique to my writing.

You may find the technique too simple, or even silly. (I did when I first read it.) But I’m going to pass it along here, just in case. It worked for me, and it might work for you too.

Overcoming Procrastination Tip

Here’s the step-by-step procedure:

  1. Think of something in your work day that you need to do that typically drains your energy or causes you to procrastinate.
  2. Notice your self-talk before, during, and after the dreaded event. (e.g. I don’t want to do this, this is so boring, what a waste of time, I can’t do this, what’s the point of this?)
  3. Now get curious. How could you reframe that event so that it becomes positive? (e.g. I’m so glad to be a writer, I’m blessed to have a good imagination, I have something to say that will entertain/help/encourage people, my writing skills improve with every project, I’ll feel like a real writer when I’m done, this is what I was created for, etc.)
  4. Before, during and after you accomplish the writing, take three deep breaths and remind yourself of the reasons you feel good about what you are choosing to do. (NOTE: I started small, just writing for ten minutes each time.)
  5. Imagine that the writing goes smoothly and effortlessly and has a positive result.

That’s it!

Did It Work?

The email my friend sent me said that if you practice this approach at least three times in a row with a work task, you could expect significant change in performance, attitude and energy.

I noticed a more positive attitude came first. (I suppose that happened because I realized I wasn’t honestly blocked.) The performance increased second. (I started writing longer than ten minutes at a time within a couple of days.) I can honestly say I felt better in both those areas after using the technique three times. The writing energy didn’t increase until a week had gone by. (I had been sick right before the sabbatical, so that might have been partly why.)

I didn’t keep using the technique after the blocked feeling passed (except when I had to do a different writing-related task that I didn’t enjoy, like filing self-employed taxes.) But any time that the writing felt stuck or I was just tired, I found that reading those statements aloud before, during and after the writing did help get my head back on straight.

In order to love writing, we have to be writing. If you’re stuck, this simple technique just might do the trick.

Regaining Your Love of Writing

Published on by Kristi Holl

Before my three-month sabbatical started, I printed out a few articles that struck a chord and that I wanted to take time to ponder. One such article was “When the Thrill is Gone.”

Here’s a bit of what it said, and I hope you’ll read the whole article.

In recent weeks, I have had conversations with a genuinely startling number of writers who confess that they have lost their hunger to write. One says he is weary of the struggle to publish; another says she’s lost her motivation; another just shrugs. “It’s hard.”

Some wonder if they ever had any talent to begin with, or maybe they did and it has dried up like last year’s clover. Some have lost hope of ever landing that longed-for contract or agent to help with the overwhelming business of publishing. Others have dived into indie publishing with great hope only to discover it’s a lot of work for little return.

The thrill is gone. Maybe it’s time to throw in the towel, get a divorce from this ridiculous passion, call it quits on a marriage no one but you ever thought was going to amount to anything.

The author of the article, Barbara O’Neal, was so right when she said this could be caused by a number of different things-–but it isn’t the writing. 

So What Causes It?

She mentioned several causes, and if you feel like you’ve lost your love of writing, they are worth exploring:

  • exhaustion from various aspects of your writing career added to stress from life experiences
  • internal and external pressure (from our own expectations and expectations of others in our writing life)

On Friday, after you’ve had a chance to read her article and do some thinking about it, I’ll share with you some of things I discovered about my own loss of joy in writing–and how it came back.

The author gives a five-step process for recovering your love of writing, and I think it would be worth your time to print out her whole article. If you don’t need it today, you will need it sometime in the future. Life happens. Exhaustion and pressure happen. And writing dreams–and the love of writing which propels us forward–can die on the vine.

Don’t let that happen to you.