The post below about a writer’s personality ran six years ago, and something happened this past week that reminded me of how much we need other writers. I am blessed to have two such people as close friends: one who is my age and in relatively the same stage in life, and one who is […]
healing
Writing Under the Influence and Its Effect on Creativity
Back in high school, I watched people transform from shy wallflowers to social butterflies by drinking. They grew talkative and tried things they would never have done sober. Being under the influence didn’t truly help them, although they swore it did. Being under the influence doesn’t help a writer’s creativity either. [And that includes many other things […]
Beware! Burnout Ahead
“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 […]
Resting and Reflecting Before Re-Aligning
Since I last posted regularly, I’ve written three books (two adult mysteries and one juvenile nonfiction book), traveled, and been sick. The holidays blurred by, to be honest, because one of the book deadlines was December 20th. Two days ago I finished the second adult mystery. One good thing about being sick is all the […]
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 […]
The Pain of Overload
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 […]
Beware! Burnout Ahead!
Published writers, beware! “Writing is not everything,” Lisa Shearin said in a 2010 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 […]
Writing Through Physical Pain
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. […]
Writer Diagnosis: Failure to Thrive
“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 […]
Overloaded Lives
Do you have any margins left in your life? Or is your life marginless? For a long time, I’ve known that something was wrong. People everywhere, of all ages and walks of life, are frazzled. People are anxious and depressed. And why is that especially important to writers? Because tired, frazzled, anxious, depressed writers don’t […]