energy

Mastering Mood-Dependent Writing Stages

Published on by Kristi Holl

Several days this week I was tired and headache-y, yet I needed to get some writing done. I don’t know about you, but I find writing a grueling challenge on the rare days I feel rotten.

That’s why I found one particular chapter in The Write Type by Karen E. Peterson very encouraging. The author said that not all the stages of producing a story or book involve heavy-duty creative thinking. If you’re not feeling the best some days, use that time for a writing job that requires less energy–but still has to be done sometime.

Three of the following stages you’ll be familiar with (prewriting, writing and rewriting.) The other three stages are writing jobs you have to do but rarely give yourself credit for.

Stages of Writing

  • Read-writing: Reading what you’ve already written before revising
  • Co-writing: Discussing with another writer what you want to write or have written, getting feedback and encouragement
  • Rote-writing: typing up lists, references, and hand-written revisions
  • Prewriting: Gathering notes, ideas, and resources, plus jotting down ideas or outlines
  • Writing: creating the story, article, poem, or book
  • Rewriting: editing, revising and proofing

What To Do?

Each stage of writing requires a different kind of energy and concentration. What is most helpful is to match your energy level to the task. I’m NOT talking about unnecessary busy work that is another form of procrastination. But numerous writing tasks all have to be done at some point, but much of it doesn’t have to be done in order.

And if you’re exhausted, start with the easiest task. That’s what I did. I had go through some photos I’d taken, find and watch a couple of YouTube videos on a process I couldn’t quite picture, type up a list from scraps of notes, and re-read a revised chapter to see if it held together.

It took a couple of hours, I made progress, I got some needed writing jobs done on the project, and I didn’t make my headache worse. A good day!

And tomorrow I’ll undoubtedly be ready for one of the more “creative thinking” jobs.

[This is a repeated post from 2015. This doesn’t sound very humble, but sometimes when I need solutions to writing problems, I do a search on my own blog or read something out of my Writer’s First Aid or More Writer’s First Aid books. Sometimes we ALL forget what we already know deep down, but we need a reminder.]

Beware! Burnout Ahead

Published on by Kristi Holl

“Writing is not everything,” says Lisa Shearin in Writer Magazine. “And if you want longevity in this business, play isn’t just important–it’s critical. We get so intensely focused on having achieved the dream and working so hard to keep the dream going, that we’re blind to the signs that if we keep going down that road at a fast pace, that dream could quickly turn into a nightmare.”

Recipe for Burnout

I was very glad to read her opinion piece–and I wish that message was published more often. I wish someone had said it to me years ago. Having a healthy drive is good, but letting yourself be driven–by others or your own inner critic or even your perceived budget needs–will eventually ruin the joy you originally brought to your writing.

“Dreams are meant to be savored and enjoyed,” Shearin says. “You do have to work hard, but sometimes, the work can wait.”

Too Late

Great advice, but what if you’re already burned out? What if–from overwork, juggling too many jobs and family members, a major loss, or chronic illness–your ideas have dried up? I’ve been there twice (previously) in my writing life, and it was a scary place to be.

Peggy Simson Curry spoke about this in a Writer Magazine archive article first published in 1967. She detailed the process she followed to “slowly work [her] way back to writing” and discover what had killed her creative urge in the first place.

Face the Fear

I think most writers would agree with Peggy that fear is at the basis of being unable to write–fear that a writer can’t write anything worth publishing. Burned out writers constantly think of writing something that will sell. 

“This insidious thinking,” Curry says, “persuades the writer to question every story idea that comes to him. He no longer becomes excited with glimpses of theme, characters, setting, threads of plot. He can only ask desperately, ‘But who will want it?'”

Healing Choices

Among other suggestions, this writer said it was very important to deliberately get outside, away from the writing, and just enjoy the world around you. In other words, play.

Coming out of burnout can be done, but it often takes methodical, small daily disciplines to do it. For me lately, it’s been watering the tiny vegetable garden my granddaughters helped plant and walking to a nearby pond to watch the turtles (doing nothing) and walk back. Earlier, when my eyesight was better at night, I stitched small quilted wall hangings, and that finally unclogged my creativity. Things that help will be different for each writer. 

I feel the burnout lifting lately. I still tire more quickly, but a little trip to the pond and back seems to revive me and restore that “want to” so important in writing stories. This time, I am determined to keep up the routine, even when I feel better, and avoid the burnout path in the future. It takes less time–and is more FUN–to do these routines when you already feel well than to do twice as much to regain your failing health (mental and/or physical).

So take time for yourself today, even ten minutes here and there. You’ll be so glad that you did!

How the Chunky Method Saved My Life

Published on by Kristi Holl

A couple of months ago, after being sick and traveling and meeting two book deadlines, I stalled when given some unwelcome health news which required tests and more tests. I got really, really behind on an adult mystery, and for hours I would struggle to write, only to throw it all out at the end of the day.

I was used to writing in 90-minute or two-hour blocks, taking a break, then doing it all again. I’d used that schedule for years, since I no longer have small children living with me. But sickness and burn-out had taken their toll, and I wouldn’t make my deadline at the rate I was going.

Enter the Chunky Method!

I had signed up to attend a Saturday writing workshop, and I was eager to be around other writers t. The speaker, Allie Pleiter, was to talk about her book, The Chunky Method Handbook: Your Step-By-Step Plan to Write That Book Even When Life Gets in the Way. To be honest, I didn’t expect to learn anything really new. I just wanted to be encouraged.

I got so much more!

In a Nutshell

Based on our personalities, our lifestyles, our season of life (small children, day job, retired empty nester) and our health, we all write in different “chunks.” By Allie’s definition, a chunk of writing is what you can comfortably do in one sitting, stopping when you pass the point of “this writing is good” into “the writing I’m doing now will have to be tossed out because it stinks.” She had a test for determining the length of your natural chunk. Big and little chunks are equally valuable.

Frankly, I was going to skip the test when I got home and move on to the rest of her book. I had to get busy! Anyway, my natural chunk for years had been about 90 minutes, or about 1500 words. I knew that already. But was it anymore? My writing life was certainly no longer working.

Back to the Drawing Board

I decided to do the chunky test. (You’re supposed to do this five days in a row, one chunk per day.) I didn’t have five days to use for this, so I did four chunks spread throughout a day. I was careful to stop when I felt too tired to keep going productively. Big discovery!

My chunk had shrunk!

I wasn’t able to comfortably write 1500 words at a sitting. My four chunks averaged only 500 words, and my sitting was only 45 minutes. At first I was really dismayed. I was too far behind to write the novel in 500-word chunks. Or so I thought.

I had nothing to lose by trying this method of writing my “comfortable chunk,” then resting a good while, then doing another “comfortable chunk,” and so on throughout the day.

Changing It Up

It worked! Before the Chunky Method workshop, my struggles had only produced about 1200 words per day, and sometimes not that much. Using the Chunky Method, I was able to average about 5,000 words per day rough draft, and some days nearly 8,000 words. And with the rest breaks between the chunks, where I walked or just went outside, I wasn’t stiff and sore or even very tired in the evenings. [NOTE: Determining your “chunk” is just the first step in the Chunky Method. I would tell you more, but I don’t want to plagiarize her book.]

Because I was writing so close to the deadline, I followed my own advice and got a paid critique from a writer I know and trust who has written award-winning mysteries. (Thank you, Mary Blount Christian!) After revising according to her excellent critique, I was able to turn in the manuscript on time. (And very little revision was requested by the editor this time too.)

So, in case you’re stuck, or you’re trying to write in the midst of stressful circumstances, I’d encourage you to buy The Chunky Method. It could change your writing life. It sure did mine!

Writers Running on Adrenaline

Published on by Kristi Holl

What fuel are you running on?

Many writers these days are frantically running from place to place, working too many hours, volunteering for too many projects, working nights and weekends hoping for approval.

On top of that, in order to write, they are fueled by sugar, caffeine, cigarettes and adrenaline to keep going.

Long-Term Damage to Career and Health

I don’t need to tell you that we live “on alert” these days. We are bombarded from so many information sources. We allow ourselves to be at the beck and call of anyone who calls or texts our cell phone or shoots us an email.

Adrenaline rushes work in the short term. Used like a drug, it pushes tired bodies to work faster and harder. The end result, though, is a crash-and-burn depletion of your reserves.

Go Against the Flow

Do you want to have a long-term writing life? Then while you still have time–while you still have your health–I urge you to develop a counter-cultural lifestyle. Look at your life now. Make a list of the things that have stressed you out this past week.

(No groceries in the cupboard because a meeting ran late and you couldn’t stop at the store? Phone call from a teacher saying little Johnny forgot his required permission slip for the day’s field trip? News of a violent crime in a part of your city you considered safe? A bounced check? Having to work late at night while everyone else is sleeping, just to keep life from derailing?) All of these things make us run on adrenaline that wears down our bodies. And nearly all of these things are preventable.

Replace the Old with the New

Habits that cause you to run on adrenaline are habits that need to be replaced. I can’t tell you which habits you need to exchange, but I can share some of mine.

  • I used to routinely arrive places out of breath and a little bit late, tearing into meetings or classes after the program had begun. So embarrassing. I would sweat it on the way to the meeting, and backed-up traffic skyrocketed my blood pressure. I hated to waste time, so I hated arriving somewhere early and waiting. The change I made? To avoid the adrenaline rush, I planned to leave early enough to arrive early, but took work or a book along, stayed in the parking lot and worked, then walked in calmly ten minutes before the class started.
  • I knew that the days I DIDN’T run on adrenaline were the days I started with exercise and devotional reading and prayer. And yet, too many times, I’d awake feeling energetic, consider the two hours I’d lose if I stuck to my exercise/devotional regimen, and jump into writing instead. Make hay while the sun shines, right? Mostly, I made headaches and a sore back and neck, lowering my productivity. I decided to make my morning ritual non-negotiable. My health regimen actually saves me time in the long run. And I run those days, not on adrenaline, but on healthy energy supplies.
  • I also set a boundary on working in the evenings. I couldn’t see what difference it would make if, while chatting or watching a good movie with my husband, I also answered some email and updated my websites. Most of it was “no think” activity, so what did it harm? A lot, I discovered. My mind wouldn’t shut off when I shut off the computer to go to bed. My neck and back hurt terribly by then. And I felt disgruntled, like I hadn’t had any free time at all that day.

Mostly, I had to convince myself that it wasn’t selfish to slow down and live at a sane pace, to build in a buffer zone or margin around activities so I could make a smooth (not frantic, hurried) transition from one thing to another. What’s that old saying? “We’re supposed to be human beings, not human doings.”

It’s Up to You

No one can make changes for you. And frankly, many people in your life who like all the work you accomplish won’t help you make changes. But make them you must. If you want to have a decent quality of writing life, you’ll have to step outside this current “hurry frantically” electronic culture of ours, and figure out what works for YOU to have a saner, happier life.

Running on premium fuel instead of adrenaline will make you more productive, less stressed, and be better for your health. Saner writers are happier, more productive writers. And doesn’t that sound appealing?

Lions, and Tigers, and Bears…oh my!

Published on by Kristi Holl

Deadlines, and funerals, and a computer virus…oh my! It’s been one of those weeks!

(Photo courtesy of http://the-english-spot.blogspot.com/2009/11/cartoon-idiom-to-be-swamped.html)

A Few Days Later

It’s the weekend, and I’m more tired than I’ve been in a good long while.  And with the holidays coming, I’ve plotted my deadlines and weekly/daily writing “must do” lists on a giant calendar.

And something’s got to give. I won’t make my deadlines if it doesn’t. 

One thing that is going to be put on hold is this blog. I’ll be back when the calendar turns to 2015, but I need the next five weeks to just hunker down and write. I may not be on social media much until then either.

So…Happy Thanksgiving! Have a blessed Christmas. And Have a Happy (Writing) New Year!

Drains in Disguise

Published on by Kristi Holl

I was wrong–again.

For twenty years, I’ve told students and wannabe writers that you have to put the writing first! Do it before other things take over your day.

Fight the impulse to clean your kitchen first, or straighten your office, or clean up the mess the kids made before leaving for school.

“But I can’t work in chaos,” writers protest.

You know what? Neither can I anymore–at least not well! And when I force myself to, the work is doubly tiring. Doubly stressful. Much less satisfying.

Energy Drains in Disguise

Something I read today made me realize my advice might be a tad off. Not wrong altogether, since if we don’t make writing some sort of priority, we won’t do it. However, to eliminate energy drains in your life, you need to look at the whole picture. Certainly all the things you do in a given day take your energy. Every action you take on your lengthy “to do” list uses energy.

What you may not realize is that actions you don’t take use energy as well. Your disorganized office, the piles of laundry on the bedroom floor, the stack of bills to pay, the two birthday gifts to buy and mail today, the clothing needing repair–all this drains your energy reserves as well. It happens whether you are looking at the unfinished business or just thinking about it.

It siphons off energy that could be used in a much more positive way. “These items on your mental ‘to do’ list, the ones you’ve been procrastinating about, distract you or make you feel guilty and drain the very energy you need to accomplish your goals.” (So says Cheryl Richardson in Take Time for Your Life.)

NOT an Excuse to Procrastinate

Taking care of the unfinished business that nags at your mind–and keeps you from feeling like you can settle down to write–may be necessary before you can tackle your writing assignment. Don’t go overboard though, or you’re just procrastinating. Washing the dirty dishes is one thing–taking time to replace the shelf paper in your pantry is something else.

Figure out the things that you MUST have done to feel at peace in your environment, and do ONLY those things. (I do as many of them as I can the night before too.)

Eliminate the chaos in your environment, and you’ll eliminate a LOT of the chaos that blocks your writer’s mind. Now…off to clean my office–and then get to the writing.

Writer Diagnosis: Failure to Thrive

Published on by Kristi Holl

“Psychologists have begun to speak of what is perhaps the largest mental health problem in our day. It is not depression or anxiety, at least not at clinical levels. It is languishing—a failure to thrive.”

~~John Ortberg, The Me I Want to Be

We usually associate this languishing “failure to thrive” with newborns. But we adults can languish in our health, our careers, our marriages (or just about any endeavor). But today I want you to look back over 2013 at the health of your writing life.

Do a Check-Up

What is the health of your writing? Would your writing career be diagnosed as suffering from “failure to thrive”? Is it languishing when you want it to be flourishing?

Some symptoms of languishing might include:

  • A loss of hope and meaning
  • Absence of mental and emotional vitality
  • Weariness of soul
  • Inability to delight in your writing life
  • Feeling an inner deadness

From Languishing to Flourishing

The opposite of those symptoms would include feeling hope, having mental and emotional vitality when you write, being energized by your writing, delighting in your writing life, and feeling “alive” when you are able to get in the flow!

That would define “flourishing.” [Note that I didn’t define flourishing by the number of contracts signed or the size of your royalty checks. Those things make individual days more fun, but they have little to do with overall flourishing as a writer.]

The Missing Ingredient

What if you are starting out 2014 as a weary, languishing writer? Is there anything you can do about it? How do you get from the “languishing” side of the equation over to the “flourishing” side?

You find it in the word “nourish.”

The equation goes like this: Languish + Nourish = Flourish

To be honest, if you are truly languishing in your writing life, it will take lots of nourishing of your writer’s soul to move into flourishing. But the nourishing is FUN! And once you are flourishing with hope and energy again, the nourishing falls more into the daily nurturing and maintenance of your writing life.

  • Some of you need physical nourishing: more sleep, better nutrition, some solitude.
  • Some of you need mental nourishing: a good novel or movie, a trip to a museum.
  • Some of you need spiritual nourishing: prayer, meditation, a walk in the woods.
  • Some of you need emotional nourishing: hugs from kids, a phone call to a friend.
  • Some of us could use nourishing in all four quadrants now and every day.

Take Stock

Flourishing as a writer doesn’t just happen. Life happens instead. And it depletes your energy—all four kinds.

Don’t settle for a languishing writing life in 2014. Make flourishing one of your goals instead! Examine what areas of your life need nourishing, and make a plan to include that nourishing. (Remember: nourishing is FUN!)

Where are you on this continuum?

Languishing —> Nourishing  —> Flourishing!

Where would you like to be? Begin to make those changes today.

And please leave a comment! If you are flourishing now, tell us the nourishing things that got you to that point. If you’re languishing, hopefully some comments will give you ideas to try. Do NOT settle for a diagnosis of “failure to thrive.” Choose to flourish instead.

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?