Shorter Focus = Successful Writing

I read a very surprising study recently on the differences between marathon runners who finished the race and those who didn’t. All the runners were equally fit and trained and healthy.

So what was the deciding factor in whether they were hardy enough to finish the 26-mile run?

It depended on where they placed their focus.

And it wasn’t at all where I expected!

Letting Go of the Goal

The runners who finished the race all said, in one way or another, that they had to stop focusing on the finish line and focus on the process instead. Rather than telling themselves, “I can’t run ten more miles to the finish line!” they focused on what they could do. They told themselves, “I can take the next step. If I have to slow down and shuffle, I can still take the next step.”

One reason they stopped focusing on the finish line was because it seemed overwhelming, too difficult. But a second reason they stopped focusing on the finish fascinated me: they actually lost speed. Whether they were ahead of the pack or behind everyone, focusing on the finish line made them slow down.

Parallels with Writing

You often see writing a novel compared to running a marathon. It does have many similarities: training, planning, learning specific skills, endurance, perseverance, and daily plodding! So I suspect that where you focus if you want to finish also applies to writers.

I know for a fact that when I focus on the finish line–the day I can say the book is done–that it feels overwhelming. All the work that needs to be done to get there just looks too difficult. And that feeling of being overwhelmed may be what causes us to slow down and procrastinate even starting the daily “workout.”

The Solution?

I expect that the writer’s solution to this is much like the marathon runner’s answer. We need to focus on what I can do right now. Something small that corresponds to the runner’s “next step.” Small steps don’t look overwhelming. They look simple and do-able, if you’ve made them small enough. And we don’t have to be speed demons either. Like the marathon runner, we can “slow down and shuffle,” if we have to.

They say hardiness consists of three personality characteristics: commitment, control, and challenge. Writers with hardiness–marathon writers–outlast other writers. They commit themselves to what they are doing, they believe they can control themselves and their small part in the publishing process, and they believe challenges are a normal part of the process.

Become a Marathon Finisher!

Are you a “hardy” writer? You may not think so because you’ve seen many of your writing goals go by the wayside. But maybe–just maybe–you have all the hardiness you need to be successful. Perhaps you’ve been focusing on the goal too much instead of just taking that next small (slow) step.

If so, learn and apply this easy mental trick of successful marathon runners!

Writing Through Interruptions

I began writing when I had a newborn (ten days old), a todder (two) and a preschooler. If I couldn’t write through interruptions, I couldn’t write at all most days.

People protest all the time that they can’t write with continual interruptions, and I never had much of a response beyond “just do it!” I knew it was possible if they’d really try it. Then recently I heard about someone who’d led a workshop dealing with this very thing–and she taught the participants a valuable lesson.

Start! Stop! Start Again!

The speaker was ostensibly talking about “carving out time to write.” She suddenly stopped and said, “You may choose to write on your current project or a new one, but decide on something, even if it is just an account of your day. Pick up your pencil and paper and write when I say go.”

She timed the group of writers for three minutes and said, “Put your pencils down” and continued her talk for several minutes. She then repeated the interruption and her instructions. They wrote for three more minutes. The speaker interrupted her talk four different times during the hour and had them write.

At the end of her workshop the participants compared notes. They had all written at least one page, many had more, despite being interrupted four times in only twelve minutes of actual writing! Each time they’d been able go back and pick up a thought and continue. The speaker ended with, “You can revise bad writing, but you cannot revise a blank page. Give yourself permission to write junk, then fix it.”

Change Your Mind

I know this sounds awfully simple, but I encourage you to change your mind about being able to write despite interruptions. So few of us live on a deserted island. Most writers–probably 90% or more–have to deal with distractions and interruptions.

If you need to prove to yourself that you can get back to your writing after an interruption, try that workshop experiment. Either try it alone or with your writing group. See what happens.

It just may turn out that you’ve been believing a lie all this time. Writing may not be as enjoyable when you’re interrupted, but it can be done.

Forget About Age

“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?”  –Satchel Paige

Two writers in the past month mentioned that they were probably too old to start writing. One had waited till her last child had graduated. Another had waited until he retired.

I’d like to debunk that “I’m too old” myth. It’s never too late to get started! It’s always a good time to tackle a new dream.

Jessica Tandy won the Academy Award for Best Actress at age eighty. James Michener didn’t write his first novel until age forty-two, then produced a gazillion bestsellers before he died at age ninety. There’s a woman in my neighborhood who can out-run me, and she’s at least seventy-five now. Youth isn’t everything–not in physical endeavors, nor mental ones.

Experience Rules!

Become comfortable with your current age, even if it’s not what you wish it were. You have tremendous writing potential because you’ve lived long enough to have learned a lot. You have life experience!

For example, years ago I had an elderly student (70’s) who wrote beautiful historical fiction lifted straight out of her childhood–a la Laura Ingalls Wilder. She loved doing it! She didn’t have to do any research, yet her descriptions were superb and rich with detail because she drew on her personal experiences.

Time’s a Wastin’

If writing and publishing are aspirations for you–but you’ve come to it later in life than others–please don’t let that stop you. If you come to the end of your life, will you be disappointed that you didn’t try? I think you will.

You have the same qualities that drive younger writers: creativity,  perseverance, and a passion to succeed. You may not have as much energy, but you probably have a much larger pool of ideas and experiences to draw from. Don’t be afraid to start something new at any stage of life. Chances are good that, if you apply yourself like any other writer, it’s not too late to succeed.

Writing During Summer Travels

Summer is just around the corner. And for many writers, that means traveling to see family and taking vacations while trying to meet deadlines.

Consistent writing may be a necessity during the summer. Can writing and traveling co-exist? Yes, quite happily, but only if you think and plan ahead.

Paved with Good Intentions

We may have the best intentions of writing on trips, but usually we return home with little or nothing accomplished. Since most writers don’t have the luxury of paid vacations—and deadlines approach regardless of summer holiday travel—we need practical ways to squeeze in writing while we journey to see family and friends. It can be done, and without offending anyone or missing out on the festivities. If you plan to hit the road or airways this summer, give these ideas a try.

First, you have to find the time to write. When you first peruse your travel schedule, you may feel convinced that there simply won’t be any time available for your writing. You may have activities planned (or planned for you) that don’t seem to show any gaps of free time. If so, look again.

What about when you check into your motel? Avoid turning on the TV for “company” or to check the local news and weather. Instead, unpack your writing supplies, clean the fly­ers and TV program listings off the desk, and set up an instant office. If you’re staying at someone’s house, make up your mind to write while others watch TV or snooze after a big family dinner.

You can easily find time to write on planes. Just skip watching the movie, ignore the head phones, and leave the in-flight magazines unread. Instead, write longhand or on a laptop on your drop-down table. You can also find time to write on buses and in taxis during long shuttle trips to and from airports. Time spent waiting in airports provides other opportunities to work, whether “people-watching” and jotting notes for your character files or writing longhand while perched on your pile of luggage.

Second, you need places to write. Workplaces for the traveling writer are even easier to find. Depending on the location of your trip, you may find yourself writing on a bench in the mall or at a backyard picnic table at a relative’s home. If your group is staying in a motel, you can write at a table by the pool or sneak down to the lobby and find a comfortable chair behind a potted plant for half an hour. You can write in public libraries. While others in your party shop at the mall, you can write in bookstores that provide chairs and tables. If you’ve planned a day at the beach, try writing while you tan instead of reading or listening to music.

Other places to write on the road include diners, lunch counters, delis, and coffee shops. And don’t forget your bed! Pile up pillows behind your back and grab your notebook or laptop. You can write first thing in the morning if you’re a guest in someone’s home—just let them think you’re sleeping late. Or write in bed before you go to sleep. At first it might not seem like much, but a half hour or full hour of writing can produce more work than we think.

Writing When Traveling: Think Ahead

If your holiday schedule will include traveling, yet you need or want to keep writing while on the road, do some pre-planning before leaving home. Adjust your mind-set ahead of time as well.

Be alert to unexpected changes in your travel plans and grab some impromptu writing sessions. Keep your writing tools handy in order to take advantage of these opportunities to write during your day. Be deter­mined to write in whatever chunks of time you find. If you want to travel, but you also need to work, this is one way to have your cake and eat it too!

Writing after Major Losses

After I’d been publishing for a number of years, I had an eight-year period where major personal and professional losses piled on each other.

During this time, I had four surgeries in thirteen months and took on extra work to pay medical bills. Our teenage adopted child was having severe emotional problems, I went through a divorce, moved twice, remarried, and survived a blended family’s three custody battles. Then came the corporate publishing take-over when my eleven books went out of print. 

Block or Burn-Out?

At that point, I could no longer write; no “Ten Tips for Overcoming Writer’s Block” would help me. The common advice was of no use:  “Just retype the last page of your previous day’s work and you’ll be off and running.” There wasn’t any previous day’s work … or previous month’s either.

I had symptoms of “writer’s burn-out”: by-products of prolonged stress. It can be treated. Each symptom stifles a writer’s creativity in a specific way and needs a specific remedy.

Symptoms

FIRST, my buried feelings refused to come to the surface. I felt like a robot trying to write. My heroine’s impassioned speeches were stilted and wooden. Plots I hatched were so worn they were threadbare. This was because during a crisis we get rigid control over our feelings. We have to in order to deal with things. Over many months, feelings “under control” become “frozen feelings.” This numbing out spells disaster for writers because we rely on emotions to bring characters and conflict to life.

A SECOND symptom concerns your self-image. During stress, self-esteem takes a plunge. To write best, we need to feel good about ourselves. Long-term crises (divorce, child in trouble, job loss) deal heavy blows to even a healthy self-esteem. It leads to increased fears of criticism. How does that affect you as a writer? Even in the best of times, negative reviews and rejected manuscripts are tough to handle. When emotional resources are shot, normal parts of a writer’s life become impossible hurdles, and we become fearful of trying any new project.

THIRD, after prolonged stress, we often are no longer able to unwind. To create, we need a relaxed, “loosened” state of mind. During long-term stress, because of the extraordinary need for tight control of our feelings and behavior, we become rigid and lose our ability to relax that control when the need passes. Always having “everything tightly under control” leaves a writer too rigid to produce a decent rough draft.

Solutions

There are some antidotes to thaw your frozen feelings and restore your confidence. They’re simple–but effective.

FIRST, tackle your “frozen feelings.” Pay attention to yourself, learn again to identify emotions. You’ve probably been so centered on others for months that you lose touch with how you actually feel. Get re-acquainted with yourself. A simple journal of daily events and the feelings aroused can be very helpful. Sample journal entries:  “When John criticized me at lunch I was so furious that my hands shook” or “That meeting with the attorney left me feeling anxious, as if I’d somehow lost his approval.” Identify and record those feelings. Try writing out your prayers and tell God how you feel too.

SECOND, work on your self-esteem. Lost self-confidence is sometimes tied to isolation that sets in during periods of long-term stress. We don’t feel up to seeing people. It’s easy to retreat within our own four walls; writers don’t even have to leave the house to go to work. We tend to get locked into our homes during high-stress periods. Your office begins to resemble a prison. Even in public, we isolate ourselves from others by “putting on a happy face.” To rebuild self-confidence, break your self-imposed isolation. Walk to the park, putter around a museum, take an adult ed class, go to the movies with a friend, and talk to a counselor.  Get out.

THIRD, give yourself permission to relax. Let go of those around you. After living with out-of-control situations, giving up control can seem terrifying. However, giving up the rigid control will probably be necessary if you’re to be a productive writer again. Our best work–our most creative–comes from us when we’re in those relaxed states of mind.

All Healed Now?

Suppose you’ve come this far. You’re now in touch with your feelings, you’ve come out of isolation, and you’re letting other people live their lives while you get on with yours.

Does the writing now flow automatically? Unfortunately, no.

The final task is to coax your creativity out of hiding. It’s not really gone–just merely in hibernation. Often it’s just a matter of changing course, being creative in another area of your life for a time. So try another creative outlet. Each person’s choice will be different. For me, flower gardening and quilting did the trick. Just start small (not some big formal garden or king-sized quilt for a wedding.) You need a no-pressure project.

I planted two tiny plots of petunias and impatiens. I stitched individual quilt squares for wall hangings and table coverings. These were small projects that I worked on for ten or fifteen minutes at a time. Slowly, over time, as I stitched and hoed and prayed, my mind’s rusty gears started to turn. It wasn’t long before my quilting and gardening time produced more story ideas than flowers or wall decorations, and my burn-out was a thing of the past.

Writing Through Relationship Struggles

Do these scenarios sound at all familiar? (They all happened to writers I know.)

  • You’re writing your first picture book, but your husband is jealous of your time at the typewriter and won’t speak to you at supper. (I know this sounds childish, but it happens fairly often.)
  • Or your wife reads your book and asks you what makes you think you’re a writer. (These struggles are not gender-specific.)
  • Or you’re struggling to write, but your recent marital separation has left you too depressed and exhausted to concentrate.
  • Or your wife gained fifty pounds to protest how much time you spend writing. (Yes, this actually happened to a writer friend.)

How to Keep Writing

Many talented writers lose confidence and lay aside their writing dreams because of marital problems. THIS ISN’T NECESSARY. However, it does require you to fall back and regroup when you have an unsupportive spouse, whether this person is just mildly irritated with you or has filed for divorce.

*First, develop faith in yourself. Rather than looking for outside support, look inside. The decision to write is made–and carried out–alone. Then write daily, even if just a journal entry. Nothing–no matter how long you write or how much you are published–builds faith faster that you’re a real writer than the physical act of writing every day.

*Create an outside support system. For me, this starts with God and prayer. Also join or form a writers’ group that can offer you encouragement. Attend writers’ conferences to hear inspirational speakers. Clip or photocopy encouraging articles from The Writer and Writer’s Digest to re-read when needed. I have a six-inch thick file of such articles.

*Change your writing time. When I worked at the dental office during my separation, I wrote for an hour before work and during my lunch hour, a totally different writing schedule for me, but the break in routine was effective.

*Change your surroundings. Our surroundings hold memories. And when they’re bad memories, they stifle our creativity. So change your place of writing. Work in the library or another room in the house.

*Just write. Writing won’t necessarily banish depression, but depression doesn’t have to banish the writing either. Don’t wait until you feel happy to write.  Just keep writing. Don’t edit at this point–nothing sounds good when you’re depressed. Write instead. Journal. Write out your prayers if praying is difficult at this time. (A helpful resource is Writing for Emotional Balance: A Guided Journal to Help You Manage Overwhelming Emotions by Beth Jacobs.)

Relationship struggles happen to most people eventually. It doesn’t have to mean the end of your writing. Take specific steps to keep putting one writing foot in front of the other. You want to have a career left when the dust settles–and you can.

Writing Through the Storms

Writing well requires an enormous amount of concentration and energy, plus a decent dose of self-confidence and courage. It’s not like making widgets on an assembly line, where your mind can wander while your hands stay busy producing.

For that reason, even “normal” amounts of stress can freeze your writing fingers. (“Normal” meaning those stresses that come to us all at times: sick children, rocky marriages, financial problems, etc.) 

Survival Strategies

To write during “normal” stressful times, try these things to get going:

First, inventory your life experiences to create a list of topics to write about. When burned out, or you feel stumped for something to write about, ask yourself questions like, “What has bugged me that I’ve been able to handle effectively?” or “What have I learned from this experience?” From this come articles that make a difference in people’s lives–whether it’s teaching them the healing power of laughter or just helping them to decorate on a shoestring.

Then make an inventory of your life experiences. (My Writer’s First Aid book has a section called “Getting to Know You” which gives you such an inventory to use.) What have you learned in the school of hard knocks? As writer Marshall Cook said, “You have a great pool of living to dip into for your writing. You’ve met scores of different people. You’ve been scores of different people.”  Use that!

Second, switch from output goals to time goals. At least for a while, switch from a set number of pages a day to hours spent writing. (“I will write for one hour;” not “I will produce five pages.”) Skip the daily quota pressure until life settles down. (Or skip it altogether, as I ended up doing.)

Third, schedule your writing time, but be flexible. Sounds contradictory, but it’s not. Do schedule writing time, as usual. Strive to keep that appointment, no matter what else is going on in your life.

But be flexible: if your time is taken by a bedridden father or an emergency call from your daughter’s school, attend to the urgent event, but carve out the writing time later in the day, even if it’s in three or four smaller pieces. Overcome the tendency to think, “My writing time is shot today–I’ll try again tomorrow.”

Fourth, develop a specialty. In stressful times, you often become an expert on your situation. Over the years, I’ve collected extensive libraries on personal recovery, remarriage, writing, quilting, the Civil War, England, and devotional books. You probably have your own collections.

Capitalize on the information you’ve absorbed. Do more research, and slant ideas many ways: for fiction and nonfiction, for children and adults. (Example: if you provide care for a bedridden father, you might write an inspirational piece for Guideposts on having the strength and patience to do it; or a how-to piece for a family magazine on finding the best home health care for an invalid; or a children’s article on how to make visits to elderly grandparents a joy to both child and grandparent; or a middle-grade fiction book on living with a bedridden grandparent.)

Fifth, be yourself. Use your life experiences to express your unique vision of the world and insights into life. Those insights become your style, that special something that is yours alone-voice.

Keep On Keeping On

Be aware that all writers–both the famous and the not-so-famous–deal with stress. They find ways to do this and keep writing–often incorporating those very experiences into their work. Writers write–and not just when the days are easy. We’re like postal workers–pushing on through rain, and snow, and sleet, and dark of night…

You’re not alone in finding it difficult to write some days. But when the dark days pass, you’ll be very glad you continued to work even when it was hard. When the sun comes out again, you’ll be thankful that you spent that time growing as a writer. Then it will be full-steam ahead!

A Writer's Flexibility

Persistence: the first quality a writer must have to make it in this business.

What ranks a close second? It’s being able to give up control and go with life’s flow.

That quality is flexibility.

Persistent Flexibility

I’ve been writing seriously for 35 years, and there are many things I’ve loved about writing. I’ve been thankful for being able to work at home, for making a living at something I love to do, spending my days immersed in words, having a job requiring lots of reading, not having to drive in traffic to my office down the hall, wearing fuzzy slippers to work, not dealing with office bullies, and the list goes on.

But the ability to sustain a writing career over the long haul isn’t easy. It will require extreme flexibility.

Only Pretzels Need Apply

Why is flexibility so crucial? Because life has a way of twisting itself into a pretzel. Your well-planned life (and those of loved ones) takes many unexpected twists and turns. It happens to everyone sooner or later. And if you’ll bend a bit, the writing life allows you to be flexible as well, so you can keep your career and your sanity both.

Over the years, I’ve needed to be flexible in many areas:

  • children, from infancy to adulthood, plus grandchildren now
  • moving, from farm to various towns and across the country
  • finances, from flush to broke (several cycles of this!)
  • health changes, including multiple surgeries, a chronic pain condition, and aging issues

Children: I wrote longhand in doctors’ waiting rooms, bleachers during basketball practice, and while nursing babies. I wrote early morning before toddlers woke up,  while preschoolers watched “Sesame Street,” during school hours, late night waiting for teens on dates, while traveling to see grown children, while grandkids nap, and when I couldn’t sleep during my daughter’s four overseas deployments. Challenges changed every year with the children, but the flexibility of writing let me keep on making a living as an author.

Moving: We lived on a peaceful, isolated Iowa farm when I started writing. Moving to town was a shock, both in the noise level and dealing with neighbors and neighbors’ kids. Later, moving across country to be near kids and grandkids meant living in an apartment for a couple years, and learning to write in the middle of the night because I had two teenage girls living above me who had reverted to infancy and had their days and nights turned around. But my office was open all hours, so during those years I could continue being a working writer.

Finances: For various reasons (more kids, surgeries, single parenting years) there were times when the money coming in was less than the money needing to go out. Flexibility with the writing life counted there too. Some years I took on more writing than I “comfortably” wanted to do, including articles for online publications and work-for-hire series writing. I also said “yes” to more school visits per year than I ever hope to do again. Was it fun working those 60-hour weeks? No, but it turned the cash flow from red to black. A traditional employer doesn’t let you decide when you’re going to work overtime and when you’re not. Writing does.

Health Changes: Starting in my twenties, when the kids were small, I had more than a dozen total surgeries on my neck, face and jaw, ending with nerve damage and a chronic pain condition that saps a lot of energy. For many years, I could not have held down a traditional job. Even today, I occasionally need the flexibility of working when I feel well, whether it’s in the middle of the night or on Saturday or holidays. Writing has allowed me to keep my job when sick. Yes, I might write for three hours in the middle of the night, but later in the day when I fold up, I can take a long nap. It’s a rare employer who allows a two-hour nap mid-day.

Turning Pain into Gain

My two books for writers, Writer’s First Aid: Getting Organized, Getting Inspired, and Sticking to It and More Writer’s First Aid: Getting the Writing Done, could also be subtitled “how to stay flexible in order to keep writing.” My writing students weren’t abandoning their dreams because they couldn’t learn to plot or punctuate dialogue. They were quitting because of day jobs, divorces, caring for babies/kids/aging parents, and other life issues. In my books I shared how writing allows you to be flexible in all these life situations.

And don’t forget: surviving life’s pretzel times always give you something to write about!

Mixing Writing & Adult Children

Keeping with our Mother’s Day theme of combining writing with raising children (Hats Off to Mom WritersCombine Babies and Bylines,Combining Writing and School-Age Kids, Writing During the Teen Years), let’s talk about writing when you have college kids and grown children (plus grandchildren). Again, your writing skills need flexibility!

(with granddaughter, Abby, at a book sale)

Déjà Vu

Just when your days (or evenings and weekends) are blissfully free to write, your college-age children are home for the summer. They turn your precise schedule upside down. They also provide such a temptation to sit and chat and go shopping, etc. Or maybe your adult child moves back home, perhaps with small children. Here are some ways to deal with those situations:

*Don’t abandon your schedule! These people aren’t company or house guests. For the time being, they are simply living with you. Your life doesn’t need to revolve around them. Keep to your schedule.

*Deal with possible interruptions ahead of time. Say something like this to them: “I start work early, but help yourselves to the eggs and juice in the fridge.” Don’t wait on them hand and foot. Resist the urge to clean up their messes in the kitchen and living room until your writing time is finished.

*If your writing room is needed for sleeping space, turn a corner of your bedroom into a temporary study. Have a place where you can close the door and write. During this parenting time, you might write a story for a children’s magazine called “Moving to Grandma’s House.” Or perhaps you’ll share your insight with other grandparents in an article called “Mothering Your Grandchildren.”

*Resist the urge to take over the parenting if you’re not providing childcare. I find it much harder to say “Nana has to work” than I did “Mommy needs to work.” If my kids (with the grandkids) ever lived with me even temporarily, it would be hard for me to keep remembering that I’m not the grandkids’ mother, nor their entertainment committee. My daughters wouldn’t expect it–it’s just something Nanas seem to do!

As with all the other phases of parenting, you can continue to write as children leave home, come back for visits, move back in, and/or bring grandchildren. I started writing when my children were 5, 2 and 10 days old. I now write and mix in the four grandchildren who live close by: 12, 9, 4 and 1. My family will always come first, but there’s room for writing too! You just need to learn the tricks of the trade for each stage.

Writing During the Teen Years

Keeping with our Mother’s Day theme of combining writing with raising children (Hats Off to Mom WritersCombine Babies and Bylines, Combining Writing and School-Age Kids), let’s talk about writing during the teen years–and the skills it will entail.

The main challenge at this time is keeping (and constantly regaining) your sanity! Even normally active teens can leave a parent hyper, worried, deaf, and frustrated: not a state conducive to your best writing. Teens in ongoing trouble can just about finish you off. I discovered Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way during a few years of having one teen in a serious situation. I think that book was instrumental in saving my career.

Surviving and Thriving with Teens

Over the years, I discovered some helpful tips for writing with teens in the house…

*Use ear plugs and white noise machines.  Find soft foam ear plugs, like miniature marshmallows. Ear plugs block out stereos, giggling girls, phones ringing, and TV. You can buy white noise machines in the baby departments of most stores.

*Adjust your schedule–because the kids won’t/can’t adjust theirs. On weekends I waited up to ensure each child got home safely from part-time jobs and dates. I used to doze by the TV and then was too tired to write in the morning, which I resented. So, despite the difficulty making the switch, I started writing from ten to midnight on weekends. Then I would sleep late the next morning without guilt.

*Teenagers’ roughest times (drugs/drinking, pregnancies, school problems) can come close to derailing an author’s ability to write creatively. These problems last for months–or years–and can be a source of major writer’s block. If this is your situation, throughout the day try some free-flowing ten-minute writing exercises to unblock, writing about whatever you’re feeling. Just keep writing–anything. Keep the words flowing during these high-stress times so your ability to write is intact when the crisis finally passes.

Some of those ten-minute segments may later provide you with story/article ideas for teens or parents. Perhaps, with teens underfoot, you’ll write a nonfiction book for parents like my favorite self-help title: Get Out of My Life But First Could You Drive Me and Cheryl to the Mall? Is there any doubt that this author merged raising kids with his writing?