Writing

When Life Gets in the Way: Writing through Tough Times

By on January 22, 2020   /   Articles, For Writers, Health, Writing, Writing  

Four months after my debut novel, Kat Greene Comes Clean, was published, my father went missing. It was late December, bitterly cold, and he left without a coat. And his cane. At 95, my dad was extremely frail, and he suffered from dementia. I called 911 in a panic.

Within minutes, NYPD detectives flooded my parents’ Manhattan apartment, asking questions and taking notes. They issued a Silver Alert, and promised to find my dad. “The old guys never get far,” the lead detective assured me. “Don’t worry.”

My mom wasn’t worried because, like my dad, she has dementia and had no idea what was going on. But I was a nervous wreck. New York is a big place, and my dad was probably confused, hungry, and cold. I feared the worst.

Afternoon turned into evening, and then into night. Finally, my father was located at the Empire Hotel, two blocks from Lincoln Center. He had taken a cab, the fare paid in coins from a velvet Alexander McQueen makeup bag. If I found this detail confounding, imagine my surprise when the hotel manager informed me that my dad had checked himself into a room, raided the minibar, and owed $685 plus tax. I would have paid anything, of course. My dad was safe.

But then, four months and three health-care aides later, my dad went missing… again. This time, he was found wandering the streets of SoHo, with a broken finger and lacerations on his face. He was rushed to the hospital, where I met him in the ER. He wasn’t as lucky this time. He developed a severe kidney infection and, after half a year in hospice care, passed away at home. He was 96 years old.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: This story is depressing! You write funny stuff. BE FUNNY!

I wish I could. But at the time, there was no room in my life for humor—or for writing. I tried, but I didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to succeed. I was always on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it did. Again, and again, and again.

I’m still dealing with my fair share of stress (my mom now has advanced dementia), but I’ve found a way to balance life-related responsibilities with my writing. Here’s how you can, too:

Adjust your expectations. If you’re going through tough times—and, like me, juggling a zillion things at once—there’s no way you can be as productive, or as focused, as you were before. Think about it: Your brain has to work overtime just to keep up! Plus, stress has a sneaky way of sapping your emotional and physical energy. So, if you can, cut yourself some slack. Set realistic, manageable writing goals. If you’re used to writing 2,000 words a day, write a thousand. Or five hundred, or 250. Or whatever number your schedule, and emotional energy, allows. If you don’t hit a specific target, that’s okay too. Just write every day, even if it’s for 15 minutes. You’ll feel good for having done it.

Try journaling. Expressing your thoughts and feelings in written form is an excellent stress-management tool. It’s also been shown to be highly therapeutic. So, if you don’t keep a journal already, now would be a good time to start. You don’t have to write pages and pages; just a few lines a day. Or one line, if that’s all you’ve got in you. Just get your thoughts (and more often, your frustrations) down on paper, and see where it leads. There are many ways to journal, but if you find that journaling is not for you, give yourself permission to stop. You can always try again later. Or don’t. Make (or break) the rules as you see fit. This is something you’re doing for you.

 

Limit social media. It’s tempting to mindlessly scroll through social media—or binge-watch Netflix, or spend hours searching YouTube for cute-kitty videos—when you’re stressed and in need of distraction. (When my dad was sick, I played Wordscapes until my vision was blurry.) But the hours you engage in unproductive phone activities are hours you can’t get back. Plus, screen time wreaks havoc on your concentration. Removing apps from your phone is the obvious solution, but it’s unlikely you will do this (I still have Wordscapes on mine). Instead, think of screen time as a reward for writing time. Five hundred words = fifteen minutes of Wordscapes; one thousand words = an episode of 90 Day Fiancé (or pick your poison). The point is, you’re allowed to zone out when the time is right—but don’t make a habit of it. Your time is too valuable to waste. (For advice on how to walk away from social media completely, check out this post from Salon.)

You do YOU. Writers often compare themselves to others. That’s what we do. But as Teddy Roosevelt famously said, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” He was right. Knowing that your friend’s debut MG novel sold eight billion copies and has been optioned for a movie starring Kylie Jenner (or Kendall Jenner, if you prefer) while yours is languishing in a bargain bin at Costco is a fact of life—but don’t dwell on it. You have enough on your plate to worry about! By all means celebrate your friends’ achievements, but don’t let their success(es) overshadow your own. Sometimes getting out bed in the morning is enough.

Practice self-care. This should be a given, but if you’re busy looking out for others’ needs, you tend to ignore your own—or put them last. This is understandable (I’m guilty of this, too), but try to put yourself first once in a while. Squeeze in a run, or have coffee with a friend. Get a massage, if that’s your thing, or sneak out to a museum or art gallery. Catch up on your sleep; eat Frito’s Corn Chips. Dance. Whatever it takes to bring you to your happy place, do it!

And finally…

Expect setbacks. It’s important to remember that most things in life are out of your control, like when a parent develops dementia–and dies. When a child is sick or disabled and needs constant care. Unemployment; bankruptcy; a house fire; divorce… You can only do so much to keep afloat emotionally. Sometimes, it will feel like an impossible struggle. You’ll miss deadlines. Bills will go unpaid; birthday cards unsent. For every step forward, you can expect two—or fifty—steps back.

Grieving isn’t linear, and I miss my dad every day. Still, he would have wanted me to keep writing, and that’s what I’m trying to do. I hope you will, too.

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Writing Exercises—Ways to Warm Up Your Students’ Brains

By on January 13, 2020   /   For Teachers, Teacher Tips, Writing  

A lot of times we talk about using writing exercises as a warm up for our “real” writing. But I was curious: Do most writers really do this? I don’t typically warm up by doing a writing prompt. Instead, I enjoy going for a run on a wooded trail before I sit down to write in the morning. It’s not just the exercise but being out in nature that inspires me. I often solve some writing snag while I’m in the thick of the forest. I stop and look around, soaking up the feel of the wind, the sun, the sky.

I thought I’d throw the question out to other children’s book writers: How do you wake up your brain before diving into your work? Here’s what they said:

  • Listen to music
  • Go for a walk
  • Stretch
  • Reread what was written the day before
  • Listen to a poetry podcast
  • Journal
  • Eat a good breakfast
  • Look at a photo and write about it
  • Create a word bank
  • Review research related to the topic of the book (for nonfiction)

You might want to help your students become mindful of what gets them warmed up to begin writing. Maybe they do like beginning with a writing prompt. Or doodling. Or passing out the writing folders to the other students to get up and moving. Here’s a way to help you (or your students) find out.

Have your students do an experiment: As a class, come up with four different ways to wake up the brain before beginning a writing assignment. A few you could try include:

  • Listen to soothing music
  • Stretch or do simple yoga positions
  • Write from a writing prompt
  • Free journal
  • Take a walk around the school (if possible, outside)

Each day, have the class try one method followed by their usual writing assignment. Afterward, have each student write down how they felt about it:

  • Did you feel your writing flowed more or less than usual after the activity?
  • Did you feel more or less energized?
  • Did you feel more or less focused in your writing?

After the experiment concludes, discuss as a class what students learned about what helps them warm up for writing. Which method was most useful? Why? They may be surprised!

Need some writing prompts? Here are some good ones:

https://www.journalbuddies.com/prompts-by-grade/fun-writing-prompts-for-middle-school/

https://www.dailyteachingtools.com/journal-writing-prompts.html

https://www.lindsay-price.com/playwriting/the-ten-best-writing-warm-ups/

https://www.writingmindset.org/teach/2018/3/24/how-to-rock-a-focused-writing-warm-up

 

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My Favorite Writing Tools

By on December 27, 2019   /   Articles, For Writers, Writing  

Favorite Writing ToolsIt’s the end of the year. For most people, the changing of the calendar is a time to take stock of where you’ve been and to figure out where you want to go. Successes are counted; vision boards are created; goals are written; and a shiny new year of possibility is just waiting for the clock to strike midnight.

It’s a hopeful time.

This year, I decided not to wait for the new year to revamp my writing life. I dove in early – not with the stock-taking or the goal-setting components though. I’m already pretty clear about where I’ve been and where I’d like to get. Instead, I focused on the regular sit-down-and-write parts of the job. What’s working? What’s not? And are there some writing tools I can use to make all of it easier?

For the last few weeks, I’ve been trying things out. I’ve created some rituals to help make the transition to writing quicker and easier and I’ve gotten rid of some tools/habits that just aren’t working. I’ve also played with some new tools to see what might make me more efficient and more organized. I thought I’d share my current writing tool box with you all as a little New Year’s gift, with the hope that you might find something on my list that will make writing a little easier for you too.

This Year’s Top Writing Tools

Evernote:

People have suggested this program to me forever, and I’ve resisted, whole-heartedly, until this month when my computer crashed, and I lost a ton of writing-research bookmarks and links.

So I gave in and tried the free version of Evernote. Now, I’m a little bit hooked.

Evernote is a cloud-based note-taking application that lets you clip web articles, save picture, take notes and generally organize your life and your projects across all of your devices. For someone like me who failed at Scrivener and never remembers to use One Note, Evernote’s a bit of a miracle. Now my web links, random thoughts, beat sheet, and character sketches are all in one, easy-to-search place.

At least everything except the things I hand write. Yep, I still like to write things down. Journals, sticky notes, legal pads – story ideas, character sketches, sudden bursts of inspiration are scattered throughout my house. So this month, I cleaned it up. Sticky notes get typed into Evernote. So does legal pad planning. Everything else goes into the journal dedicated to my work in progress – and it’s all dated and tabbed so I can easily see what was actually a useful idea and what was just me rambling along. One thing hasn’t changed, though. I’m picky about my hand writing tools. They have to feel good and be exactly the right size, large enough to write fast and loose in and small enough to fit in my purse. My favorite place for project notebooks and a solid pen is:

Peter Pauper Press:

Their notebooks are solid and durable and the paper is thick, so colored ink and highlighters don’t bleed through. Their pens are pretty, just heavy enough, and easy (and cheap) to refill. I’ve been using their notebooks and pens for years now, and it’s one part of my writing system that I’m not going to change.

The next tool, however, is a huge change from my usual writing work. You see, I’m one of those writers who likes it quiet. I don’t have novel playlists or soundtracks, and I don’t write while the TV is keeping me company in the background. I don’t need complete silence though, coffee house chatter is fine – and every so often I’ll even break out one of those ambient noise apps and write to a rainstorm or some ocean waves. But all that changed the other day when I was reminded of the power of binaural beats. I’ve used Frequency Following Response in my hypnosis practice many times, but I’ve never used it to help with my own writing focus.

Brainwave Entrainment

Brainwave entrainment is basically listening to two specific sound frequencies at the same time. These frequencies trick your brain into creating a third frequency, a binaural beat, that helps lead your brain into a desired state – relaxed, meditative, focused, alert, etc. Admittedly, the whole thing is a little woo and the science on it is pretty much a big maybe right now. But lots of people swear by it, and I’ve noticed that if I listen to the right frequencies for a few minutes (paired with some ambient sounds like a waterfall or ocean waves) when I start a writing session, I slip into a work state more quickly than if I just sit down and try to write. There’s a lot of interesting articles about it on the internet and some free apps/YouTube videos to check out if you’re interested. Just know, it’s not for everyone.

The last thing on my list is my go-to inspirational book. I know a lot of people turn to Anne Lamott and Bird by Bird with things get tough – and I love it, too, but my go-to break-out-of-a-slump book is one by novelist Steven Pressfield.

The War of Art

It’s a small book and a quick read.  And it’s usually the tough love reminder I need to walk through my fear and get back to work.

So, that’s my current list of favorite writing tools. I’m still testing out a couple more – like the list-making application Trello and a bullet journal style calendar/day planner. Maybe I’ll update this post when I’ve sorted those out. In the meantime, I’d love to hear about your favorite writing tools. What can’t you live without? And what are you going to change or try this year to make the day-to-day work go smoother? Please share in the comments below!

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