When Life Intervenes

Recently, I've had some things happen which has made me question my life as a writer and I've run the gamut of emotions from weepy to out and out mad. These times also skew my world view and make me wonder about the big picture. During these times, I look at what I've done to get my motivation back. I look at old blogs, various other notes I've written to myself and other methods to get my groove back.

I was happy to run across this blog which I had written for someone else as it helped me a lot. Hopefully, it will say something to you as well.

Writing Blues

What’s a writer to do when they can’t write?

I have experienced this many times and most of them have been around the time when I have just finished a deadline of some sort. However, recently I have found I’m not up to my usual 5K per day and I’ve had to go back to some interesting stratedies I’ve developed years ago to get me back on track.

More importantly, I’ve been recently asked that question by many writers and I’ll tell you exactly what I tell them: It depends what you’re writing and what the problem is. And this is very true. You must be able to figure out just why you aren’t writing. It can be a variety of things which keep you from your goals.

First, if you’re ill, you just do the best you can. Since I have allergy days quite frequently in both the spring and the fall, I make sure my daily word count is exceeded on some days so that I can make up for those days of the pounding head. Illnesses of any kind aren’t good and you must heal yourself before you can heal your writing.

Now, if it’s because I can’t get my Muse going, that in itself is a completely different thing. There are a few techniques I use to try and get things flowing again. Here’s my list:

1. Listen to music – when nothing comes, I will sit down and listen to music as I attempt to write. Again, the type of music depends upon what I’m writing. Something classical just won’t do if I’m writing a battle scene so I make the music appropriate to what I’m doing.

2. Write anything – the day doesn’t always start good and I don’t always start on my story right away. Sometimes, the best I can do has nothing to do with what I’m writing. So I just write. Usually by the end of the second hour, I’m back on track for the story.

3. Plot a new story – I have a lot of series going and sometimes the best thing for me is to move away from the story I’m working on and start plotting the next one. For many of my stories, I am a pantser which means I just work it out in my head and sit down to write. However, when I’m working on a series I have to make sure that I don’t violate something I’ve previously done in the series. This also allows me to plan new and different things for the books. And it also just gets me back into writing.

4. Read – I can’t say this enough, read the genre that you write. If you’re doing urban fantasy, read urban fantasy, if you’re doing futuristic, read futuristic. You must know your market and you will never gain that knowledge unless you read the genre.

5. Take care of yourself – What I mean by this is get a massage, take a walk, talk to your kids, make love with your husband or significant other. It can’t all be about the writing because without you there would be no writing.

If none of these techniques work, then try to remember why you became a writer. Grasp that same joy and use it to elevate yourself to feel the creativeness rise in you. Embrace it when it arrives and make sure you nurture your muse as much as you can.

Being creative can be a finicky business and as a writer, you may need to do a variety of things before you can again create the stories you love. Just never give up on your dream to bring those stories to life because if you don’t, they will never get written!

Good luck in all your writing endeavors!

Have a great week everyone...and I should have some wonderful news next week!

Lynn

Journey Into 2010 – Commit to Writing

Like many of the writers on this blog, I too am stopping to reflect some on last year. For me, it was a fairly productive year as I wrote many words and accomplished a lot of things. But many of those items weren’t on my ‘To Do’ list as they were thrust upon me because I volunteered or I just wanted to do them.

True, had I kept to my own list instead of allowing the distractions to pull me away, I would have done more of what I had seen for myself at the beginning of the year. But I really figure it this way: I did exactly what I was supposed to do, no more, no less.

Now many would say I’m crazy for saying something like this but it is my belief everything happens for a reason and in the exact manner it was supposed to happen. There is order in the mad chaos known as our world and part of our task as writers is to put meaning to that order.

As writers, we create and rewrite our stories until they shine. If we’re lucky, we get to present them to the world in a nice shiny package called a book. We get to tell our friends and family, we advertise about it and blog. Basically, we tell the world our baby has arrived and like a real baby, once it’s there we don’t care one bit about how painful it was to get out into the world. It has arrived and we breathe a sigh of relief.

If we’re really fortunate, we are blessed with the ability to repeat the process as many times during the year that we so desire. If we want a slow year we produce little, a heavy year we work our fingers to the bone. But we produce so you as our readers can enjoy what we have to share.

One of the personal commitments I made to myself last year was to present a series where a new writer could start at the beginning of the year reading this blog and by the end be a published writer. Well, welcome to the first column of the year.

If one truly wants to be a writer, you must commit to writing. You need to set goals, plan books, put together a small business plan and study the publishing world so you can make the most informed decisions possible. All of these things and more will be discussed during the next year but first, you must start with the commitment process.

You need to commit to write daily, no matter what. And that means demanding families, homework, blogs, house cleaning, answering emails, web surfing and a million other things must all be put into a proper perspective in regards to your writing time. If the tasks of the day are too much for you, get up fifteen minutes early to write. If you do better at night when the house is all quite because they are all asleep, stay up an extra fifteen to get what you need done.

Another part is to start small. I have seen many a writer fall by the way side because they wanted to write 5-10K a day when they could barely set aside enough time to do 50-100 words daily. Know your limitations and abide by them. Things can change, so this is always adjustable. The point here is to just put aside the time to write daily, no matter what.

If you are the type who must have a contract for something like this, make the contract with yourself. If can be as simple as ‘I will write 1000 words per day’ and sign and date it. You can make it more specific by adding when you plan to do this, where, when you’re going to re-evaluate the contract to continue your journey.

I would love to hear about your experiences with making the commitment to write. Next week, I’ll talk about goal setting but first, I’d just love to see you all sitting behind your computer to write. Good luck!

See you all next week!

Lynn

The Middle Place

We all have a middle place, a time in our lives where we start looking at things differently, start realizing our own mortality and what we’re going to leave behind.

That was not the case when I opened the article below whose link had arrived from a friend in my email box. No, those things were the furthest from my mind. I had opened this article because she said it was cool and because it talked about author promotion. Take a moment and read the article and you’ll see what I mean.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/23/AR2009092304603.html

Okay, I think, just what is so special about this person. She had this great story idea, she does some readings and bang, she gets a lot of media time. Geez, what does she have that I don’t? So, I decide to go one more step and go to her website. Take a look.

http://kellycorrigan.com/themiddleplace/newsevents/index.html

Yeah, the website is great and I just love the layout and if I were a jealous kind of person I would be jealous. But I’m not because I’m still intrigued by what is making her so popular. Why are these myopic look at one’s life so great? Geez, I’m only 51 and I am blessed to not ever really having a devastating disease and it is my one hope that I never get Alzheimer’s which is what my mother died of.

So, I’m not getting it and then I see the YouTube link, realizing that it all started here. Sigh. Now go look at it and come back to read the rest of this blog.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_4qwVLqt9Q

I get it. I so, so get it as I sit here trying to type through the haze of tears. Maybe it’s just because I am still reeling from the news that a 40 yo brother of a friend died so unexpectedly. Maybe it’s because I’ve been suddenly missing my mother and God only knows why. Maybe it's because my dog, who had been kissed by the fairies with his one blue eye and one brown eye, had also unexpected died at the beginning of this month. Or maybe it’s because I feel stymied by my own fears and wants and desires that I seem not to be moving forward in my own writing career and this brought it all to the forefront.

Maybe I just needed a good cry. So thank you Kelly Corrigan for bringing it all into focus once again. You don’t know me and probably never will but with just those three things you have enriched my life in ways I didn’t know it needed to be enriched. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart. This is just the kick I need.

And like a good little consumer girl, the next time I am out, I will be trying to find your book so I can purchase. So don’t be offended if the first place I look is Costco followed by Wal-Mart as I have a very cheap, very Scottish husband who is always admonishing me for spending more on books than I must.

Good luck in everything you do, Kelly, you deserve to be the ‘it’ girl as you have a way with words.

Here are the other websites mentioned in article http:/www.shewrites.com/ and http://www.inkwellmanagement.com/about.php

And no, no big promo push this week because even I need to rest. But here’s the winner of this week’s drawing: Tierney O'Malley.

See you all next week.

Lynn