by Jenna | Feb 20, 2015 | Writing Articles
It's been a rough couple of months. My mother-in-law passed away at the end of January. I've managed to have two colds since then (yes, I know it's only February 20th), and the second one has been a doozy. I wrote through the first cold. I wrote through her passing. It felt good to write. It became my solace, my place to turn to myself and remember who I am, even in the face of grief and exhaustion. I even finished the rough draft of a new spec script in the midst of all this. But by the second cold (all whilst taking care of a now 9 month old baby), I was pretty fried and quite simply too sick to do much more than a very low rock bottom minimum.
As I've navigated the last 10 days in particular, I've found myself focusing on getting well and doing some minimal amounts of tinkering and research to stay in touch with various projects. And now that I'm emerging (finally!) from this Cold From Hell, I'm facing the need to reboot my own writing habit a bit. I'll make a point to write about that next week. In the meantime, I thought you might enjoy this article (revised and reprinted from 2013) about making the choice about whether or not to write when you're sick, have hit a rough patch in your life, have shaken confidence, are experiencing a loss or grief, or perhaps are suffering from a depleted creative well.
Enjoy!
During a live coaching call for my online writer's community, one of our participants asked about how to know when to push through and write if you're not feeling well, and how to know when to focus on regaining your well-being.
In my opinion, the answer depends a bit on the circumstances, so let's look at some specific scenarios.
1. You've just come down with a wicked cold or flu.
Assuming you have a solid, regular habit in place, when you get really sick or you're just those early stages of wretchedness, I think it's okay to take a few days off from writing, knowing that you'll get back to it as quickly as you can.
When I'm feverish, wiped out, or worse, I know the most important thing I can do for my body is to rest and heal.
I have found myself writing even while sick at times -- because I felt truly drawn to work on my piece and it was nagging at me not to -- but my focus is on listening to my body.
This is very much like being an athlete, and knowing whether or if to train when you're sick or injured, and when to take a day off.
I also trust myself enough deep down, after months of regular writing, to know that I'll re-establish my habit as soon as I am able, usually within 2 to 3 days. The longer you're away from your habit, the harder it is to get going again, so it will behoove you to pay attention to writing again as soon as possible, starting out small, even just 15 minutes a day, and building back up to your full pre-illness writing glory over a few days time.
2. You're going through a rough patch in your life, you're generally tired or run down, maybe you're not sleeping very well, or maybe you're mildly sick.
On the other hand, if the chips are down and you're having a rough time in your life, maybe you aren't sleeping well, or maybe you're getting better from that wicked cold or flu, I'm inclined to recommend that you simply scale back your writing time to get through it. I've been through many challenging personal experiences over the last several years as a writer, and I find that it's much easier to keep writing at a rock bottom minimum level than it is to stop writing altogether (this is because it gets harder and harder to restart, the longer the not-writing goes on, as I mentioned above).
As a writer, it's worth knowing what your minimal level of writing is -- how much will keep you engaged and connected to the work? For me, it's 15 minutes a day -- that's my rock bottom. For someone else, it might be 5 minutes or 60 minutes. The point is, know what YOU need to do to sustain your connection to the work even during a challenging phase.
Along with aiming for your minimum, when you're going through a phase like this, make sure you increase your levels of self-care. Put sleep, healthy food, good hydration, fresh air, and exercise at the top of your list and get yourself back into balance. It'll benefit your writing in the long term.
3. You're in a bad mood or someone said something terrible to you and your confidence is shaken.
A common refrain among writers is, "I'm not in the right mood to write." This can come up for all sorts of reasons, like having a bad night's sleep or a bad day at work. It can also be a bit sneaky, and turn up when you've lost confidence because of something someone said about your writing or if you've been hooked by the Comparison Monster ("Everyone else is doing better at this than I am!").
And what happens is that we start feeling like we need to take time off to rest or to get ourselves feeling better before we write.
But hear this now: Being in a bad mood is NOT a good reason not to write.
There are far too many reasons to resist and procrastinate about writing already, we simply cannot allow our moods to be added to that list.
You may even be surprised to find that when you write on a daily or near-daily basis, your level of productivity and your ability to create are not at all related to your mood. Oftentimes writers find that their best writing and most productive days occur when they did not want to write. And besides, writing will often change your mood for the better anyway.
4. You're going through a painful period of loss, grief, or "personal anguish".
At another end of the spectrum is experiencing an extreme loss -- like a death of a loved one. When my grandmother died in 2012, I felt as though I was in another world -- nearer to the veil between life and death -- and I found it difficult to write fiction in yet an entirely different world. So I choose to take a few days off from "real" writing, though I did do a tiny bit of tinkering with my script one day.
On the other hand, Steven Pressfield recommends writing even during times of "personal anguish" in his excellent post of the same title:
"I’m not saying pain is good. I’m not advocating screwing up our lives for the sake of art. I’m just making the observation that our genius is not us. It can’t be hurt like we can. Its heart can’t be broken. It’s going to send the next trolley down the track whether we like it or not."
My experience is that those few brief days of being between worlds while in grief are the only spans of time in which I have felt truly unable to write, and then, just as I've said above, I still get back to writing as quickly as possible. I also believe it's perfectly appropriate -- important even -- to allow ourselves time to grieve and be with whatever emotions are coming up. When my mother-in-law died recently, writing was my solace, as I mentioned. I also found great comfort in being involved with the writing of her obituary and the letter to our extended family.
5. You need to refill your creative well.
All this said, I AM a firm believer in taking big "put my feet up" days off. I love to pick out a day on my calendar when I can feel the need building up, that I block off "just for me." In my pre-baby days, I would take my older son to school, and then do whatever I felt like doing, usually some combination of a buying a fantastic decaf beverage, watching a movie in bed, taking a nap, and maybe going out for a meal at a favorite restaurant. Now, with a little baby in the house, my days off are even a little more home-centric, but still involve similar indulgences (a movie while he naps, something yummy delivered for lunch, and a long bath.)
On these days, I fully, completely enjoy my not-writing time, and I know I'm replenishing and rebuilding to dive back in the next day.
by Jenna | Oct 30, 2013 | Writing Articles
One of my all time favorite quotes about writing comes from Steven Pressfield, author of what has become my bible for writing, The War of Art*. In it, he says:
"There's a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don't, and the secret is this: It's not the writing part that's hard. What's hard is sitting down to write. What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance."
As a writing habit and motivation coach, I work with writers all over the world who face and tackle this resistance every single day as they struggle to sit down to write. Very often that resistance takes the form of the word "But".
- But I don't have enough time.
- But I don't have enough training.
- But I don't know what to write.
- But I'm not inspired.
- But I'm not a good enough writer.
- But I'm not in the right mood.
- But I need to take care of all these other tasks first.
- But I'm not making enough money yet to justify taking time to write.
- But I don't have a laptop.
- But I'm tired, I didn't get enough sleep last night.
- But I'm too busy.
- But my day job takes up too much of my time.
- But I don't have a private space.
- But my kids will interrupt me.
- But my mom might call and need me.
- But I'm bored with this project.
- But I can't decide which project to start with.
- But I'm stuck.
- But I have writer's block.
- But if I was a real writer, it would come easily to me.
- But I have to deal with this crisis/emergency/major life issue first.
Guess what?
All these Buts are just stories. They are coming up for a deeper reason.
The deeper reason is fear.
Fear is what truly stops us from writing. The Buts are just the surface level rationalizations for fear. They are convenient excuses to keep your butt out of your chair and doing other things so you don't have to face the discomfort of taking on your dream.
Pressfield also says:
"Never forget: This very moment, we can change our lives. There never was a moment, and never will be, when we are without the power to alter our destiny. This second, we can turn the tables on Resistance. This second, we can sit down and do our work."
It turns out that actually DOING the writing is fairly easy. Most of the writers I work with find that once they are actually putting words on the page, they forget about the inner struggle and just do the work. In my writing community we run five weekly group writing sprints to help our writers overcome the resistance to sitting down to write (and to curtail the sense of isolation). My other favorite trick is to write first thing in the morning with a timer running. Pushing the start button gives me a "GO" that gets me into gear even when the Buts are loud and pernicious.
The thing to notice here is that fear is a beacon. It guides you exactly where you need to and even want to go, though you may not be aware of that wanting yet. The thing is, if it wasn't a big, big dream, you wouldn't be afraid of it.
No, I'm not talking here about naturally protective fear that keeps you safe from lions, tigers, and bears -- that's GOOD fear -- I'm talking about the kind of fear that's a holdover from when you were a kid, the kind that's trying to keep you safe from any kind of personal humiliation or risk. This is also the kind of fear that's keeping you "safe" from achieving your dreams.
I didn't quite mean for this to become an ode to Steven Pressfield, but he has so much genius on this subject I can't help sharing a few more of my favorite quotes from him about fear:
"Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do. Remember our rule of thumb: The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it."
And:
"Figure out what scares you the most and do that first."
So it's time.
It's time to stop listening to the Buts, the fears, the doubts, and the rationalizations. It's time to site down and do the work, to coax yourself through the fear with lots of support and promises of rewards, to feed your own well of creative inspiration so you feel consistently nourished and ready to write, and to learn whatever you need to learn so you feel equipped to do the writing. But above all else, it's time to write.
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by Jenna | Jun 20, 2012 | Writing Articles
Over the last week, I’ve seen a lot of conversation about being professional. In part this was from a writer’s perspective, but it also came up in the broader context of reading Steven Pressfield’s new book, Turning Pro: Tap Your Inner Power and Create Your Life’s Work, which is a book for “artists, entrepreneurs, and athletes whose ambition is … to pursue their heart’s calling and make it work.”
If I had to pick one role model to follow, I’d be hard pressed not to choose Steven Pressfield. He’s inspiring, practical, and amazing, and a man after my own heart. If I stand for anything, it’s about helping you get out of your own way and do what you were put here to do.
Do the work
What I love about Steven’s work is that he doesn’t say that it will be easy, that you should do what you love and the money will follow, or any of that.
What he says, instead, is that doing the work is hard. That we have to face our fears everyday and get our butts in our seats no matter what to do the work — whatever it is.
Passion is a misnomer
I also read yesterday that passion is a misnomer (I’ve written about this subject before myself). In this guest essay, Joshua Fields Millburn points out:
“Just because you’re passionate about something doesn’t mean you’ll enjoy every aspect of it.
“In fact, I’ve found the opposite to to be true. While writing my first masterpiece, Falling While Sitting Down, it was a miserable experience 80% of the time. Seriously, much of the time I wanted to put my head through a wall. But the other 20% was magical and exciting and made all the suffering and drudgery well worth it.
“The key is pushing through the tedium of the 80%, so you can find the beauty beneath the banality; it’s there, plentiful in that remaining 20%. You have to tolerate the pain, if you want to pursue your dream.”
Turning pro means being a grown up
When I talked with Elaine yesterday about writing, we agreed with Joshua. Pursuing anything meaningful is hard, a lot of the time. It takes being a grown up and facing the hard sucky parts to get to the other side of completion. It means surfing the waves of pain and self-doubt, sitting on the throne of agony, and doing the work.
It’s time we started telling the truth about that.
Remember, even Ray Kinsella went through his own kind of hell before people came to his field of dreams.
What if we loved even the crummy parts?
And while it’s tempting to pursue one’s calling with the focus on the magical 20% — the epiphanies, sudden insights, and flashy Elvis moments — I can’t help wondering, isn’t it worth it to enjoy ALL of it?
Someone asked me recently, “What’s your story of ‘turning pro?'”
Here’s my answer: The day I turned pro with my writing was the day that I realized that if someone offered me $10,000,000 with the condition that I could never write again, I would turn them down. I knew with incredible conviction that I want to write — I must write — and I will allow nothing to stop me. Not even the bad days where I think I can’t write myself out of a shoebox let alone put a whole script together.
Now the only questions about my writing are: What to write, what to write next, and how to make my writing better and hone my craft. And then what to write after that.
That was the day I turned pro.
When you just can’t do anything else
Steven Pressfield tells a similar story. He talks about how despite his doubts and failures, he knew that he simply couldn’t do anything else but write, and when he tried anything else, he couldn’t stand it. So he had no choice but to keep writing. And he did.
I’m with him.
Bottom line
There’s an idea out there about making “life decisions.” These are unalterable, no-turning-back decisions where you are all in. To me, that’s what it means to turn pro. What about you?
Warmly,
by Jenna | Jun 13, 2012 | Writing Articles
I was emailing with a beloved client this week who was concerned about setting herself up for failure by taking on something she might not be ready for.
I said, "It's not about failing or not failing, it's about learning what works for you and what doesn't, and refining until it does."
She made a great choice to take a midway step toward the thing she was considering.
In the meantime, our conversation got me thinking about failure and our relationship to it.
The Payoff of Incapacity
Then today I started reading Steven Pressfield's new book, Turning Pro: Tap Your Inner Power and Create Your Life's Work. (If you haven't read his stuff, don't wait. He's amazing.) He says:
"There's a difference between failing (which is a natural and normal part of life) and being addicted to failure. When we're addicted to failure, we enjoy it. Each time we fail, we are secretly relieved."
He argues that when you remain addicted to failure you allow yourself to indulge in the "payoff of incapacity." And what's the payoff there? Leaving your talents "unexplored, untried, and unrealized."
And doesn't that make sense?
Let's face it, fulfilling your dreams is wickedly terrifying. What if you do fail? What if you can't rise to the challenge?
It's safer not to try. Easier to stay addicted to failure.
But you don't really want to be a zombie, right?
To me, the risk of not trying is much more costly.
Our culture is filled with shadow people -- speaking of zombies, these are the real walking dead -- never pursuing their hopes and dreams, selling out for the American dream and not living their own.
We pay with our souls when we don't do our Work.
Edison Knew Better
In various online sources, the numbers differ about exactly how many times Thomas Edison failed when he attempted to make a light bulb, but there is agreement on one thing: He made so many attempts that most of us would have given up long before he did. LONG before.
His take on the situation was to say that he had not failed, but rather proven that all those other methods did not work.
Design Better Experiments
Which takes me back to my client and the principle I shared with her.
When we choose to see our "failures" as failed experiments, we can design new ones, and see what works better.
Create Better Systems
For example, I have been terrible about filing for years. On Monday it dawned on me that I simply need a better system and that I haven't completely finished designing that system. I've worked on it, it's better, but it isn't done. That's all. It's not that I'm a bad person or even bad at filing, it's that I don't have a workable system yet.
Look at What's Not Working
As another example, at one point I had a bad system for paying my team too. They would email me their invoices and I would procrastinate about paying them. It wasn't that I didn't want to, it was that it seemed overwhelming. Sometimes I'd even be worried the invoices would be too high. I'd have to force myself to download and open their invoices, figure out how much I owed them, write the checks, address the envelopes, get them in the mail, etc. I'd do it, but it felt like pulling teeth. I was often late.
Needless to say, no one was very happy about it, so we came up with a new system.
My team members now put their invoice numbers and amounts due in the subject lines of their email messages to me. At a glance, I know exactly how much I owe them. We also made an agreement that I'd pay them no later than 2 days after I receive their invoices. And they all send them on a specific day every other week. I also have sheet of pre-printed address labels for each of them ready to go.
Now, when the time comes, I just whip out my checkbook, write out the checks, drop them in the self-sealing envelopes, decorate them with the address labels and stamps and voilà. Done.
Something I used to dread has become simple and doable, just because I took the time to create a system for it.
This Works for the Big Stuff too
When it comes to the big stuff, your Work, this works too.
For example, if you want to build your business, but you're not taking steps each day to do that, look at what's getting in the way and what you're doing instead.
If you want to write but you think you don't have the time, look -- really, truly LOOK -- at what you're doing with with your time.
If you want to put yourself out there for speaking gigs, getting more clients, doing more art, or going on more auditions, look at what you're doing, or not doing, to make that happen.
Then create a system to help you overcome the roadblocks you're unwittingly putting in your own way.
Bottom Line
The beauty of taking time to really LOOK at where your systems are breaking down -- at where you are "failing" -- is that it can make a huge difference in your sense of accomplishment and belief in yourself. Which is so worth the investment.
by Jenna | Apr 26, 2011 | Writing Articles
Resistance is swirling all around us this week.
Are You Resisting Success?
Steven Pressfield, one of my heroes and the author of The War of Art, says in his new book Do The Work: “The more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.”
All the more reason to go for it, right?
Another favorite piece of advice from Steven Pressfield is about how to choose which one of your ideas to pursue first: The one that scares you the most.
The Many, Many Forms of Resistance
Then today as I was reading “Week 8: Recovering a Sense of Strength” in The Artist’s Way, I found the concept of Resistance coming up big time. Julia Cameron talks about the creative blocks we come up with to avoid our art:
- I’m too old. (age block)
- What am I going to get out of it? (finished product block)
- I’m too busy. (workaholism)
- I have more important things to do first. (workaholism)
- I have to overhaul my whole life first. (drama)
Taking Action to Overcome Resistance
Julia makes the point that we must take small, daily, creative actions to accomplish our creative goals rather than looking for one big sweeping gesture. This is one of my biggest pitfalls.
Steven Pressfield makes a similar point about showing up every day, to do the work.
Jennifer Louden says, “Just. Do. The. Writing.“
Sonia Choquette taught us, “Suit up. Shut up. Show Up.” (I’m fairly certain she attributes this teaching to Julia Cameron herself.)
What To Do With All This
At the end of our session today, we outlined our Secret [Big] Dreams. “In a perfect world, I would secretly love to be a ______________.” My answer: A published author.
Then we identified our “true north” for that dream — the how-you-know-when-you-get-there goal. Mine: A real physical book published with a core group 0f raving fans.
We picked a mentor for that dream. (Mine: Steven Pressfield. Seems obvious!)
Then we identified a 5 year vision and a 1 year action plan. My one year action plan looked like this: Write regularly. Get clear on what to focus on.
So I asked myself, “Of all my ideas, what would scare me the most?” The answer: A creativity book. (Holy shit, Batman.)
My participants asked why — my “Who do I think I am?” stories come up fast. But I’m ready to go there anyway. So now I know what my book is about, and I can get to work on it along with my screenplay (which I’ve been working on this week, hurrah!). Yowza.
