Habit Forming

A journal can get you in the habit of writing regularly, of finding a time and a place to write. You're not just jotting things down at random on little pieces of paper (though this can also be a good idea): you have a notebook and you write in it everyday. Five minutes, an hour. It doesn't matter. You're starting a habit. And while you may think you need great rushes of adrenaline and creative highs to write, the fact is that very little gets written unless writing becomes a habit. Courage and Craft, by Barbara Abercrombie.

Within the past year, I've formed the habit of exercising every morning for at least 20 minutes.  It wasn't easy to form this habit, because it interfered with my morning coffee/reading hour , which is quite sacred.  But now that I have, I find my day is a little bit off kilter if I miss.

I've read it takes 20 repetitions to form a habit.  Would you join me in a writing challenge?  For the next 20 days, we'll spend 10 or 15 minutes writing.  It doesn't matter when, or where, or even what you write about.  It could be something silly your friend said, a new song you heard on the radio, something noteworthy in the news, or a favorite memory from childhood.

Just write everyday.  Who knows, we might just form a writing habit!

Support System

Put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room.  Life isn't a support-system for art.  It's the other way around.  ~On Writing, by Stephen King

These lines appear at the end of a chapter in King's book in which he discusses a difficult time in his writing life, a time when he was drinking a lot - a habit that was wreaking havoc on his family life.  In King's mind "creative endeavor and mind altering substances" were entwined, and he feared that without drinking, he wouldn't be able to write.  Alcohol had become a flawed support system for his writing life.

As writers, we seek support for our creative endeavors, hopefully in more positive sources than alcohol or drugs.  Sometimes it comes from a trusted friend or spouse, or from a set of rituals that surround our writing habits.   But at the end of the day we must be self-supporting, must look within for the confidence to sit at the desk in the corner of the room and meet our ideas head on, mold and shape them into something worthy of putting on a page.

How about you?  Are you a self-supporting writer? Do you have  healthy support systems in place to sustain your creative endeavors?

Worry Wart

When you're a writer, your head is where you live, and if your head is in a distracted, uncomfortable, or painful place, that's all you've got."  ~Dani Shapiro

The other day someone told me that I "live in my head," an assessment that was not meant to be totally complimentary. I'd never considered myself a terribly cerebral person, but I began to reconsider after hearing that comment.  I realized there was definitely truth in those words, and, most importantly, I realized that the living going on in my head was not always healthy.

I worry a lot, and most of that worrying takes place inside my mind where I can stir and agitate and magnify my anxieties into something odious and even dangerous.  Because all this worrying tends to interfere with my ability to move forward with life in general, and sometimes stops my writing dead in its tracks.

We all have worries - bills pile up on the counter, family members get sick and need attention, our jobs make impossible demands on our time and energy, relationships founder.  It's vital to develop healthy coping strategies.  While some people will turn to junk food and alcohol, others find refuge in exercise or needlework, or music.

Use writing as one of those healthy coping strategies for your worries.  Writing about your fears often helps you make sense of them, plus it infuses your writing with a sense of reality and intensity.  Create a fictional character who faces your deepest worry head on and help that character come to terms with it.  Make a list in your journal of everything  you're worried about - then turn the page and make a list of every possible good thing which could dispel those fears.  Research something you're worried about - the environment, the effects of depression, problems which develop in childhood - and write about your research.

You might be surprised to find you've written your worries away.

Be Daring

Daring is the courage to try out the unknown, to move into unfamiliar spaces. That seems to describe perfectly the conundrums, and the promise, of writing, where each day we seem inevitably to create anew, to step into what’s next.  ~Miriam Peskowitz, The Daring Writer's Guide

I'll admit it - I'm not a daredevil in any way, shape, or form.  I like the safety of predictability and it makes me happiest to work within my comfort zone.  But on the few occasions when I have successfully stepped outside the box, it was thrilling enough to make me think that a pint sized daredevil might lurk within me after all.

My first inclination was to say that I'm not a daring writer, either.  But on reflection, I realize that isn't true.  Putting words on paper, whether they're personal reflections in a blog post, or from the mouths of completely fictional characters, is inherently a daring adventure.   So often, the simple act of writing takes us to unknown places within ourselves, spurs us to further inquiry about the world at large, and opens up a line of communication with people we might otherwise never have known.

So be a daring writer ~ dare to delve deep within your soul, dare to write it down, dare to set it free into the world.

Write on Wednesday: What's the most daring thing you've ever done - as a writer, or in life in general.

Recipe Book

When you bake a cake you have ingredients: sugar, flour, butter, baking soda, eggs, milk.  You put them in a bowl and mix them up.  But this does not make a cake.  This makes goop. Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg

In the small notebook I carry around, I often scribble down ideas for personal essays or blog posts, perhaps a word or phrase, maybe a reference to a magazine or newspaper article.  Sometimes in the local cafe or coffee shop,  another patron sparks my interest - perhaps their appearance, or their manner intrigues me, and so I make note of that, thinking they might appear in a story or poem sometime down the road ( when I have time to "really write").

This collection of ideas and thoughts become like a recipe book for my writing.  Combined with structure and grammar, they are the ingredients for the stories I'd like to tell. But putting them all together into an edible product is not as simple as methodically placing them onto the page.  They need what a cook might call a binding agent, something that links them together -  the focal point of what you're trying to say.

Your writing recipe also requires flavor, something to spice up the goop of ingredients you've stirred up.  Spice comes from the details - saying your father liked cars is bland and ordinary.  Saying that he spent every Sunday afternoon washing and waxing his powder blue '57 Chevy, rubbing it tenderly with soft, worn out cotton t-shirts, creates a much tastier sentence.

Look through your writers notebook (of course you have one by now, right?) and make a list of all the ingredients you've jotted down.  Is there anything that binds them together, a common thread which you might use to link some of these ideas into a coherent piece of writing?  Are there ways you can add more details to spice up your ideas?