Five Ways to Spark Energy and Excitement for Your Work-in-Progress!

Welcome back to the Strength Building Series! So far, we've talked about what strength even means (because the wrong definition is the first step to sabotaging it). And then we focused in on building strength of imagination (because imagination is central to everything we do!).

And today—I'm really excited. Which is appropriate. Because today we're talking about how to increase our enthusiasm for our work.

I know! I know! I'm gonna have to simmer down so much to even write this thing...

Ahem. Okay. Being sensible. 

So, first thing: why even bring up enthusiasm? Why is this a place where we need to build strength?

To find the answer, think back for a sec to our Self-Care Series, when we talked all things Julia Cameron.

And one of the more mind-blowing things that she pointed out was: when it comes to sustainable momentum in our work, enthusiasm trumps discipline.

Yeah. It's still incredible. 

And that shifted my focus from "How can I be more disciplined?" to "How can I be more enthusiastic?" Which is a pretty huge course correction.

Building enthusiasm. It's essential for the kind of work we want to do.

... And before anyone gets worried that I'm about to base all our hard work on a mere feeling, let's refresh on Julia Cameron's definition of enthusiasm. She says: 

Enthusiasm is not an emotional state. It is a spiritual commitment, a loving surrender to our creative process, a loving recognition of all the creativity around us. ... 
     Enthusiasm is grounded in play, not work. ... It is joy, not duty, that makes for a lasting bond.

Okay. If that was waaay more mushy-sounding than you really care for on a Thursday, let's look at it like this:

The way Cameron is using enthusiasm isn't about "how we feel right now." 

It's about 1) commitment, 2) openness, 3) creativity, 4) process, 5) play, 6) joy and 7) yes, okay, love.

Which is why, to build enthusiasm, we're going to dive into the work itself (commitment!). No matter where we're at in it (process!). 

We're going to mess around (creativity!) and try new things (openness!). And yes, it's going to be playful. It's going to be about enjoying what we're making. And even, dare I say it, loving it.

Sound good? Sound ... fun? 

Here are my five favorite ways to build playfulness and enthusiasm for my work-in-progress.

Check them out, stay open, and don't worry about "doing it right." Just dive in and give these a try.

1) Embrace the Souvenir Method.

... I was about to say "this is one of my favorite things to do with a piece I'm working on!" and then I realized I'd just be saying this about everything I'm talking about today.

So I figured I'd spare you the repetition...

AND YET IT'S TRUE!

The souvenir method is a gorgeous little way to keep your mind and heart centered in your story. Plus it's fun.

.... Annnnd it gives you a rush.

Okay. Here's what you do: 

First, get your mindset. 

This is super important to remember: You're going to be visiting your draft-in-process as if it's a place. As if you're an explorer. You're going to be looking for souvenirs: things to take out of context and bring to a new place.

In other words: You are not about to spiral into a critique-festival. You're not going to indulge in beating yourself up. You will not, even for a moment, whisper to yourself that your draft is "crap." Okay? 

This isn't about judging what's there. Not at all. This can be done with the messiest, crappiest drafts, I promise you. (Because I definitely have.)

Pick up your draft. You can start from any place. From the beginning if you like, or any chapter at all.

And read. Read slowly. Let yourself explore. 

Read like you're looking at something new. Switch off your editing brain, and just experience the story.

While you're doing that, keep your eyes open for any line, any sentence, any phrase, that seems to especially capture the feel of a particular moment of your story. 

Such as:

• a passage that pinpoints a vital aspect of the setting

• a line of dialogue that shows off your protagonist's snarkiness

• an exchange or moment between two characters that hints at the truth of their relationship

• a key moment in the rise of the conflict

• any moment that sums up a character's personality 

Don't think perfection here. Think "candid snapshot."

You're looking for moments that get the feel of your story, even more than the accuracy. 

And—even more importantly—you're looking for bits and phrases and scraps that mean something to you. 

You're looking for the sentences that register in your writerly heart. The little "aha!" feeling when a phrase resonates especially. 

Another reader might look at what you've chosen and see a bunch of scraps of sentences, bits of paragraphs.

But when you read it through, you hopefully hear your protagonist's voice, or sense a moment between the two love interests, or feel the prickle of anxiety before a major plot point.

Go for resonance and atmosphere more than just "yes, this sums up the passage well."

Does that make sense?

Personally, I copy and paste what I've chosen into its own document. I play around with the formatting: I put little separators between each passage.

Sometimes I'll have three sentences from a section, and other times I'll just have lifted one little phrase. If one of the clips needs a brief note to remind me of context, I throw that in as well.

When I'm done, I have about a page or so of moments from my story that set my mind and heart ringing. Moments that, when I read them together, as a whole, re-immerse me into my story. 

Which is oh-so helpful for those times when I've been away from the work, and am trying to find my way back in. 

2) Create a Gallery of Nouns.

This is one that I've used recently. It's fun and seemingly simplistic... but it's been part of my post-summer re-entry to my novel, and has helped so much!

Here's what I did: While rereading my draft so far, I paused every few pages, and doodled one of the nouns that had been mentioned in the story. 

That's it.

So, as I read, I made little silly sketches of things like: the cat a character dreamed about, the spider my main character chased from her room, the row of herbs on her mom's windowsill. 

I gave each little drawing a label: "Olivia's splendid lemon cake," "a gorgeous straw hat for the beach," "the mailbox with one postcard inside." 

And then I went through and colored everything in.

I didn't care that the drawings didn't look perfect—they were meant to just be light-hearted, quick, and fun. And when I sat back, I had a kind of visual catalogue of my story so far.

Images that stood in for character moments, points of tension, or just part of the opening setting that my characters will miss later in the story, when they're far away.

What's valuable about this technique is how playful and simple it can be. But it slyly involves our ability to visualize our own story, and to translate it into another art form: a doodle, a sketch, a selection of colors.

And there's something pretty magical about being able to see bits of your story laid out on a page. 

3) Let Music Be the Food of Story.

If you've been a long-time reader, you've heard me mention this a time or three. But that's because it's my all-time favorite!!

And I'm especially smitten with it because this simple tool, more than anything else, saved my connection to my story over a long, difficult summer.

Because of some tough circumstances, I had to let weeks go by without drafting, yet I stayed open and connected to my novel idea. How?

With a playlist of music.

I've slowly built a playlist of songs that remind me of key moments in my trilogy. These aren't soundtracks, by the way. The playlist isn't focused on instrumental songs.

It's a compilation of pieces that somehow link me to a character as a whole, to a character's backstory, to a moment of the plot, to a key relationship, to a story transition... the possibilities are, of course, endless!

The lyrics don't have to be 100% applicable to my story moment. If a handful of key lines resonate, that's good enough for me.

It turns out that it's the atmosphere and the mood of the song that's absolutely pivotal.

It's hard to just talk about music, so here are three examples from my playlist: 

Example 1: Scarlett Johansson singing "Before My Time."

Yes, it's from a movie about ice. But on my playlist, it's linked to the moment we meet an old resistance leader. When she comes on stage for the first time, she's tired of hoping, and tired of trying for change. 

Some of the lyrics are spot-on for her character, but I especially love the weariness in ScarJo's voice and the lament of the violin. I can practically feel my character when I hear this. SO perfect.

Example 2: Lana Del Rey's wonderfully depressing "Once Upon a Dream."

It's a more chilling version of a familiar song from kidhood... which is why it's spot on for my playlist. In my mind, this song references a fairly evil character who creeps around within, yup, dreams. And he's just focused his attention on my protagonist.

He's tricked her once before into believing he could be helpful, so the lyrics in the song even hint a smidge at the character's backstory and their history together.

There's also a kind of fatal inevitability in the song that I love... It helps me remember how trapped my protagonist feels in this moment, and how high the stakes are for her. Oooh. So good. 

Example 3: Of Monsters and Men's live version of "King and Lionheart."

It's more simple and haunting than their original version, and it's one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite bands. *high five*

It's also totally perfect for late in the trilogy, when my protagonist has been through a lot. She and her ragged friends are working alongside a king, and they're all gearing up for a climax that's sure to be very, very messy.

But the feel of this song and a fair amount of the lyrics are just exactly right. And honestly? I still get chills listening to this song, thinking of my main character. 

Whew! So. Those are some that have worked for me. 

The main thing to remember is that you're looking more for atmosphere and mood than for lyrics. A few spot-on lyrics are excellent, of course, but it's the feel of the song that seals it. 

So, see what you think. Basically, you'll know it when you hear it.

When it hits just right, I feel this incredible expansive rush, where I can see my characters in my mind, and—more importantly—feel what they are feeling, and hear what they are thinking.

I sense their weariness, or their uncertainty and fear, or their dogged hope. 

I can't say this enough: building a playlist is RIDICULOUSLY FUN.

It feels like procrastinating, but let me say it again: nothing saved my work this summer more than this. You can totally justify the time, in other words. ;)

Once you have a playlist—even if it's just a handful of songs—you have gold.

Play it in the car, listen to it while you cook, dance to it, take walks with it. And when you hear the songs, send your heart and your mind right into the center of your story.

You don't have to do any hard-core plotting (although I've definitely discovered plot this way). You don't have to jot down notes, or expand characterization (although, again, that has happened along the way for me).

You don't have to be "productive" with this tool at all. The biggest and best gift that it gives is a connection to the emotional and mental climate of your work.

It keeps it real and breathing and lively in your mind. 

And when that's true, allllllll good things can follow. 

4) Give It the Big Screen Treatment.

If the above strategies have been at all up your alley, don't stop there! This next idea can feel a little more tricky, but once you get the hang of it, it is pure fun and super helpful.

It also might keep you from sleeping, if you choose to do this right before bed. (So. Many. Times. I get all story-giddy and lie awake for hours. You've been warned.)

So: I love to dream up trailers for my book. As if it were a huge summer blockbuster.

I do this all in my head: I slowly fade in to some kind of panoramic story-view. Introduce characters in a moment, a glance, a funny line. 

And then I try to zoom in on the most tantalizing moments. The funniest lines, the jaw-dropping cliff-hangers, the moments of loss. You know. The way a good trailer does.

I cut from one moment to the next to the next in my mind. I imagine stirring epic music, or heart-stopping silence. Even a little slo mo, when it feels right.

... Basically I just have a blast. That's it in a nutshell.

And each time I do this, the resulting "trailer" looks different. 

What's glorious about this is how it, again, forces you to get visual about your story.

But also, it helps you focus on what movie trailers do best: excitement, intrigue, resonance. It helps you connect with the emotional points of your story. 

When I'm mired in too much thinking about structure and plot, and when my work starts to feel tedious, I retreat to this strategy. I pull up IMDb and watch a bunch of movie trailers.

And then, comfortable with the whole movie-trailer genre again, I close my eyes and dream up my own.

Seriously, my friends, when you start to get the hang of it, this can inspire enthusiasm like nothing else.

5) Believe In Where It Could Go.

Okay. This final enthusiasm-builder might sound more than a little goofy. BUT I've read this advice from several other writers (James Scott Bell and Heather Sellers for a start), and so I had to give it a try.

... And when I did, I couldn't stop smiling. 

Here it is: Make up endorsements for your work-in-progress, from authors you admire.

Yes really!

(IMMEDIATE DISCLAIMER: Don't, for the love of pete, publish them or pretend that they are real or everyone gets into trouble. Okay. Just had to say that. Common sense. Right. Okay.) 

Anyway: Write that kind of endorsement that would just thrill you. What you'd dream of them saying.

Write endorsements that emphasize those key parts of the story that they most loved. Everything that you're aspiring to in your work.

Type the endorsements onto a mock title page, and print it off. Hang it in your work area, or put it somewhere else where you can see it. 

Read them often. Smile.

... This isn't about getting our hopes up, or setting our hearts on something perhaps won't happen. Dream endorsements are a long shot, sure. 

But the strength of this tool is a lot like the strength in affirmations. When we state the direction we're heading in, it helps us change course. Saying out loud what we want can keep us on track.

Plus, if these "endorsements" make you smile... then why not? 

The main point is: they are a fun way to help you remember your goal. Your vision for the story.

The fact that, all this work, all these words, all these hours, are going into a craft you're making to give other people an experience.

Maybe you're trying to make them laugh. Or make 'em cry. (In a good way.)

Maybe you want to whisk them off to strange lands for strange adventures. Or maybe you're trying to open their eyes to what's in their backyard.

You want them to think. You want them to feel. 

Write little blurbs for yourself that point you in that direction: that help you remember you're inventing an experience. It's about a heart, about emotions.

This little endorsement-writing trick can seem so small, so silly.

But it can lift us above the daily grind, just when we need it most, and set our focus back on the big picture.

---

And there you have it! Five ways to strengthen your enthusiasm and stay playful with your work-in-progress.

All five of these have been absolutely key at different points in my writing life. They have cheered me, excited me, steadied me, and brought my stories back from near-death.

Pretty dang exciting, frankly. 

Which ones have you tried before? What will you try next?

Do you have any favorite ways to stoke writerly enthusiasm? Pass 'em along!! We all need plenty of good tools for this!

Explode Your Creativity (and Just Have a Lot More Fun!) by Strengthening This One Dynamic Skill

Have you ever read a book that felt like the author was standing waaaaay too far away from you?

There's this weird kind of distance—like they're standing outside of their own book. That incredibly tedious, frustrating sensation that the writer is writing about their story. 

Know what I mean?

Their scenes feel like static, lifeless things that the writer is pointing to and explaining to me.

... Instead of whisking me up and sticking me right in the middle of the story itself. 

Confession One: With this kind of book, I don't last long as a reader.

Confession Two: And I can totally become this kind of writer, when I'm not careful.

Yiiiiiiiiikes.

Spoiler alert: I'm not about to dive into the differences of "showing versus telling." And I'm not going to unpack the more descriptive styles of writing as opposed to the more stark.

Nope. What's on my mind is the big, overarching, world-shaping superpower that we all have access to as writers. 

Imagination.

Today we're gonna dive into how we can strengthen that oh-so-vital aspect of our craft.

But before we start, WHY does it feel so silly to talk about imagination? Like it is so very uncool and unadult.

After kicking off this series on strength-building, I feel like I've just waltzed into a weightlifting class and announced, "Today, we fingerpaint!"

And yet. Training our imaginations has a lot more to do with athletic prowess than anything goofy or simplistic. (Not to knock fingerpainting. Fingerpainting is awesome.)

After all, my friends, we're creating people and conflicts and settings and whole worlds in our minds. 

That's one heck of a barbell to hoist off the ground.

Okay? So let's not belittle ourselves by sneering at the term "imagination."

It's just the name of the muscle we happen to use for this incredibly powerful work we do.

How We Get Toned, Build Muscle, and Increase Imaginative Flexibility

As I come back to my novel after a turbulent summer, I'm realizing how much time I've spent away from the inner workings of my story. I've used my creativity to solve daily problems ... instead of using it to dive into my characters' world.

So my imagination has lost a whole lot of muscle mass. It's gotten scrawny. It skips the stairs and heads for the elevator. And its joints are all stiff and inflexible. 

So when I ask it to work hard on my novel, it kinda gasps and shakes and then looks around for a bag of chips.

No bueno.

I want my novel to thrive this autumn. Right? And you want yours to be amazing too, I'm sure. 

Which means it's time to build some serious strength in imagination!

So ...

So, how do we do that?

Well, a lot goes into this, for sure. We could talk about nurturing our curiosity, pouring ourselves into wonder, and taking ourselves exploring on artist dates, all of which are essential components to a full imagination-health routine. 

But I think that there's one skill that's more vital than all the rest.

Something that can totally dry up when we forget how important it is. When we start "coasting," and skimp on our attention to it.

But when we practice it over and over, ohhhh, look out.

Our writing gets richer, stronger, and generally more awesome.

I'm talking about the simple yet incredibly challenging practice of fully visualizing what we are about to write.

This is the practice of taking a scene that exists as an idea in your head, and then experiencing it. As if you were there, in the scene. 

Being present inside it, as completely and totally as possible.

THAT.

Yeah. Like I said: it's simple. Yet super challenging. 

James Scott Bell sums up this kind of imagination practice so well in his book Plot & Structure: "Be an actor." He says: 

I'll ... try to live the emotions. I'll act out the parts I've created. Almost always what I feel "in character" will make me add to or change the scene. ...
     Vividly imagine the scene, step by step, in your mind. Let it play like a movie. But instead of watching the movie from a seat in the theater, be in the scene.

Be. In. The. Scene.

So—we've probably all done this to some degree. There are scenes and moments in our stories that tend to just drop into our imaginations, right? And other pivotal scenes can be easy for us to tumble into and experience vividly.

But I know that, for myself, I tend to not make this immersive imagining a key part of my writing routine.

Instead, I get by on low-grade visualizing. Barely seeing it in my head, I instead think my way through: I guess the character could say this, and then he'd reply with this, and so she'd counter with this. 

But too much of that, and writing just feels like manipulating ideas of people, notions of conflict, rough sketches of setting.

Instead of the living, breathing story itself. 

Instead of the kind of story that makes its readers stay up waaaaay too late at night finishing it.

The kind of story that haunts readers and inspires their dreams.

My friends, visualizing our stories changes everything.

It keeps us from standing outside a scene and writing about the action. Instead, it plunges us inside it, so that we create the scene. First in our heads, and then on paper.

And our readers? Better be prepared to be carried away.

Five Essentials for Imagination Practice

This is a practice, so be super patient. Especially if you're as rusty at it as I am!

Be incredibly kind to yourself, refuse to expect perfection, and just keep coming back to it.

As you do, here are five things to remember that might make all the difference for you.

1. Be willing to move slowly.

It's when I'm trying to hurry through my work that all pretense of richly imagining the scene just goes straight out the window. 

I'll have the merest glimmer of the scene in my head as I pound it out on a keyboard.

Now, I'm not at all against writing fast: I think it's the coolest thing ever, and I want to get better at it. (Because THIS!)

But as we get ready to write quickly, our preparation time is a key moment for visualizing. 

That's when we can slow down, and take the time to fully sink into whatever it is we're about to write. 

If you're tempted to rush, like I can be, it's good to take a deep breath and remember what it feels like to be totally blown away as a reader.

Is it worth it, for an incredible scene? 

OH yeah. Totally worth it. 

2. Build the whole scene.

It's terribly easy for me to fall into a rut with what I imagine for my scenes. If I could get away with it, I'd have faceless, undetailed characters and nearly blank settings. I'm stronger on voice quality and emotional beats and overall action. 

But setting details? Physical characteristics? 

Ack! I have to remind myself to not leave them out.

So, as you plunge your imagination into the scene, feel into all these lifelike details: 

• The sensations of the air, the temperature, dampness or dryness...

• The quality of the space—claustrophobic, exposed, oppressive, frivolous, light...

• All the sounds: of gadgets, people, movement, weather, animals, distant traffic, or hollow stillness...

• Scent. It's so easy to forget! The smells of the people, the rooms, the outdoor spaces, fabrics, foods, mustiness...

• And then of course, the feel of the emotions: tension, excitement, nerves, hope, shame, uncertainty, expectation...

We could probably come up with a list five times as long as this. (Which would be awesome, but really overwhelming too, haha!) 

The point is: try to be as present in your visualization of the scene as you would be in real life.

Notice what you notice. Feel what you feel. And figure out alllll the little details that affect you.

3. And definitely expect it to feel super weird.

It can help to remember: this might be really uncomfortable.

Sometimes, when I'm visualizing a scene, something in my head says, "Hold up. This is a really strange thing to be doing. NOT very normal. Not very adult. So let's not." 

Right? 

It's important to remember that, especially when we're new to this kind of imagination training, it might seem really weird, or childish, or wild, or uncertain. 

But it's still worth it.

Basically? Keep on going, even when it feels strange.

Even if something in you wants to say, "Ack, that's enough, right? We have a general idea of this scene. Let's just hurry up and write it already." 

Hang on. Even in that tough place.

Why? Because this is where strength starts to build.

Strength happens every time we don't quit when we want to quit.

Just like when we're jogging a longer route than usual, or wobbling in a yoga balancing pose, or lifting a weight that's right at our limit—we will want to quit.

We cry, "Okay, enough, I'm done!"

But if you push through the discomfort, if you hold on, then you get better, stronger, more flexible, more stable. 

You're inventing worlds in your mind, my friend. It takes strength and skill. Keep going. It's worth it.

4. Don't grab the distraction bait.

When it gets tough or challenging, it's so easy to think, "I need back-up!"

So we drop out of our intense imagining, and go find: a good Google image spread, or a Wikipedia page, or maybe check out that one Instagram account, or go make coffee.

Or basically do anything but the imagining.

But the longer we can focus allllllll our attention on this, the more rich and deep and well-constructed it will be.

So if you need more details in your scene, just make them up. Even if they might not be accurate or will need updating later.

If you're getting bored and this visualizing feels tedious, add something that puts you back on your edge. Raymond Chandler would send in a man with a gun. Personally, I like to throw in something weird, off kilter, askew.

What would most re-engage your attention? Send it in there.

5. Whatever else you do, don't hold back the most essential part of the scene. 

Deeply imagining a scene is a choice. And a skill. I've felt it get easier with practice... and then much harder when I'm out of practice.

So when we engage with this, we're increasing our skill, for sure. 

But we're also re-choosing and re-committing to our own story. 

We're deciding to live in it. Inhabit it. Participate inside it.

When I do this, I'm pushing myself to experience my story not just as a reader, but essentially as a character. 

I become someone who can peer into the absolute central workings of it. I get to witness all the exquisite moments that won't make it onto the "main stage" of the finished page. I spend my working hours wandering other realities.

And that is when I feel like the writing life is the most incredible, satisfying, and adventurous life that there can be.

It's pretty freaking amazing, in other words.

What we have to remember is that this isn't just an exercise.

It isn't just a strength-building, creativity-enhancing strategy.

It's a way of life. A way of working.

And it's the most literally mind-bending part of our craft.

It gifts us with the ability to write our stories from inside of them. Instead of from a distance, like we're merely pulling puppet strings.

If we’re not imagining, we’re settling for less. Less from our stories, less for our readers, but also less of an experience as writers.

When I think of fully imagining a scene, I'm reminded of this quote by—guess who!—Julia Cameron, in her book Walking in This World. (She's referring to the start of a larger project, but I think it applies equally well to this idea of visualizing our stories.) 

She writes: 

Horseback riders who jump the Grand Prix fences of terrifying heights talk of "throwing their heart" over the fence so their horse jumps after it. We must do the same.

That image just grabs me. Can't that be how we pursue this?

Let's not make visualizing just one more static exercise for mere technical improvement. 

Let's turn it into an opportunity to throw our hearts more fully into our scenes.

And let the action and the details and the writing itself jump after it—to great heights.

How to Make Those Huge Self-Care Changes (Without Panicking or Giving Up!)

Holy moly, my friends: We covered some major territory this August.

It was the month of self-care for writers, and we came at it from every angle! From looking at our ability to rest, to how we protect our creativity; from nurturing our artistic selves, to embracing enthusiasm over discipline.

I talked a LOT about my favorite new life-changing resources for overhauling my creative lifestyle and for becoming the kind of human I most want to be. We talked about pulling shame out by its roots, and we talked about the space-creating power of saying "no." 

WHEW! Sometimes it felt like self-care, and sometimes maybe it felt a little more like sandpaper, but either way: I hope it did some deep, good things for you and your writing work. 

Before we wrap up the series, though, I've realized that there are four things left to say. Each one is fairly small, but when you bring them together, all this self-care stuff kinda clicks into place.

Ready? This'll be fun. Here's where we start:

1. We can't underestimate the power of play.

One thing that came up over and over and over this month—from Brené Brown and Julia Cameron—was how vital it is to play. 

It nourishes our imaginations, our work, our creativity, and our whole dang lives. So important! And yet, so dismissible. 

I'm working on being intentional about playfulness, because I'm convinced of its benefits ... but it does not come easily for me.

And if that's you, too, then I wanna share something that's helped me so much. Here's what I've realized: 

Play isn't a reward for a job well done.
It is its prerequisite.

As I've added more playfulness into my days, I've found more ease in my work.

And even though Julia Cameron told me that would happen, I still felt kinda shocked. I mean—I was just goofing off! Being silly! Pulling out an old hobby or three from when I was a kid, and suddenly, my heart feels lighter when I work? 

Strange but true.

And when you realize that playing well is a prerequisite for doing great work, it becomes a priority.

Pro tip: If you are working on protecting your time and schedule so that you have the space to play and pursue hobbies, it can feel tricky.

Especially if you're new to this whole idea of play being important.

So here's what I've been doing: instead of calling it play, I call it prep. 

So, if anyone asks you why you aren't free, and it's because you've blocked out that time to play and delight in creativity, do not say, "I can't do it because I'm going to be messing around with a kid's watercolor set all afternoon." *apologetic grin*

Don't say that unless you feel extremely confident. (In which case: good for you, go to it!)

Instead, say with all earnestness, "I need the afternoon to do some essential preparations for my work week."

People are much more likely to nod seriously back to you. (At least, that's been true for me, so far!) And then you go and pull out your paint set and have a blast!

And actually, that statement is the fullest version of the truth. A truth that we need to keep saying out loud, to ourselves, to others: Play is our best prep.

2. And also, we've gotta resist the temptation to skip the chiropractics. 

After guzzling as much information and wisdom as we've covered in this series, it's easy to feel a little bloated. A bit dazed.

The question I faced over and over this summer was: How can I possibly put all of this into action, all at once?

You know the feeling, right? When you're reading a book and every chapter presents about eighty things that you'd like to instantly adopt in your life? 

Whew! It's dizzying.

My temptation is usually to follow this little process: 

• Take a zillion impassioned notes

• Tell everyone how amazing it is and how my life has definitely changed

• Reread the notes and become fatally overwhelmed

• Collapse

• Forget the book

• Come across a new life-changing book, and begin the process again...

It's a very exhilarating process, but not quite as helpful as it could be, haha! ;)

Let's be honest: It can get uncomfortable when our minds or our hearts have outdistanced our actions.

You know? When you have all this amazing information, or when you feel so strongly that something is right... but then you come up against your patterns, behaviors, habits, environment.

And it can feel so dang hard to change course, that it's easier to just let go of all the new stuff and slip into old ways. 

The trouble with that? Is no matter how hard we try to numb our new awareness, no matter how we try to quiet the new information, we've still been changed. 

And if we live in the old way, we can get this weird feeling of disconnection. Feeling a little out-of-place in our lives.

We're forcing ourselves to ignore the new truth we've discovered, and that just doesn't sit so well.

So how do we bring integrity into our lives? That lovely alignment of what we believe, what we know, what we feel, and how we behave? 

I'm fairly new to the world of chiropractors and the amazing transformations they can achieve. But the two chiropractors I've met with have worked little step by little step.

Moving my spine back into alignment, one subtle adjustment at a time. Or healing my body from a tangle of troubles, one little behavior at a time.

Meaning? 

You don't have to go after all of this, all at once. Integrity can happen a little at a time. The key is just that you start.

Maybe you start with the single biggest behavior. You find the largest game changer, the most enormous truth, and you just work on digesting that into your life.

The rest can wait.

Or, maybe you start from the other end. You find the one thing that seems easiest, that feels the most within reach. Pick the tiniest, most doable change. And commit to just doing that.

The rest can wait.

So maybe you start with the big, and begin by tackling shame resilience or perfectionism.

Or maybe you start with the small sustainable thing, and write three pages every morning or give yourself permission to have a ten-minute nap every afternoon.

Whatever you pick, be super proud of yourself. You're bringing your habits into integrity, and that's a beautiful process.

As I've worked on this bit by little bit this summer, I've felt my self-respect totally shift. Because when we're working toward integrity, respect is a natural byproduct. 

It's amazing how big an internal difference even those small choices can make. Everything starts to feel better when we take steps to line up what we know with what we do!

And that brings us to...

3. Let's make practice our new favorite word.

Seriously. I have fallen in love with the concept of practice.

I used to only see it as (I admit it) a form of drudgery. What can I say, more than a decade of music practice on two instruments... I didn't always love it! :)

But Brené Brown caught my attention early on in The Gift of Imperfection as she talked about practicing courage. 

Practicing compassion.

Huh, I thought. What an unusual way to describe it. She referred to a gratitude practice, a vulnerability practice.

That's a new way to frame that kind of behavior, right?

But the power of the word practice didn't fully hit me until, actually, I was doing a yoga video. (Yoga with Adriene—if you want a recommendation—is very accessible, hilarious, and oh-so lovely.) 

And in the midst of working on a pose, she said, We don't get on our yoga mats to DO yoga. We PRACTICE yoga. Let yourself practice.

... At which point I fell out of the pose and just stared, because that's it. It all hit home. 

It's too easy to view everything through a pass/fail lens. Did I do well, did I do my best, did I pass? Every time we show up with writing, creativity, self-awareness, playfulness, courage, or any other behavior we're trying to improve.

That pressure of "I have to do my best, every time!" can be really draining, really restricting. And frankly, it's death to all these beautiful creative behaviors we've been working on this month. 

Let's skip the pass/fail idea. Life is not a series of final drafts: it's a long and glorious field for practicing.

So we practice our courage, and we practice our compassion.

We practice saying "no" when we need to, and we practice getting more rest.

Through the practicing process, we can explore. "Does this work better, or could I try it this other way?" We can stay curious. We can experiment. We're more free.

So I'm going to embrace the beauty and flexibility of practice. And when I remember that I'm just practicing, my willingness to try quadruples. Even when the thing I'm trying out (courage! shame resilience! the next draft of the novel!) is daunting and difficult. 

Heck, I'm just practicing! We'll see how it goes.

So, as you think about whatever struck you most in this month of exploring self-care, I'd commend to you that concept of practice. Keep reminding yourself, you don't have to get it right the first, or third, or eleventh time. 

What a relief, right? Let's show up for practice.

4. What next? Here's my tool of choice for moving forward...

You know me: I took the idea of creative preparation, and my deep desire for integrity, as well as my willingness to practice deeply and persistently.

And guess what that all added up to, for me?

A list. Yes. Because I love lists with a love that will not die.

This is a very, very unusual list, though. 

It's a list full of baby steps, in all the directions that I want to go. 

And I promise, it's a total antithesis to my old, arthritic, perfectionist-driven lists. Unlike so many lists I've made, this one doesn't feel like shackles.

Nope. This feels more like training wheels, like kindhearted coaching. Like the best sort of game. Like a series of exciting invitations.

I made it because I didn't want to forget anything. And then I expanded it because I wanted to keep coming back to these new, beautiful reminders.

... And because I realized that if I stopped and worked on metabolizing each new realization as it first hit me, then it would take me a decade to finish these books. They were that rich and full of insight.

I wanted to keep practicing the new behaviors, and to check back in with each one, and check back again. And all the while, the list grew and grew.

So now, it's a series of sweet baby steps, one after another leading me further along this new way of being. 

This is how I'm practicing. This is how I'm working toward alignment, toward integrity. I'm encouraged and guided by the loveliest, most inviting list I've ever made in my life.

It's full of incredibly kind reminders to think about authenticity, courage, self-compassion, creativity, and playfulness.

It holds invitations for bigger artist dates, splashier treats for my imagination, and ways to coax and cajole me out of my many ruts. 

And as I've been working through the items on it, I've felt myself changing. I'm feeling a bit more free, more brave, more authentic. It's incredibly exciting, and I can't wait to see where it leads!

So how about you, my brave lionhearted friends? You've stuck around through a pretty wild month: this definitely hasn't sounded like a typical "writing" blog lately! 

Where are you at, after everything we've talked about? What feels exciting for you? What are you working on?

Given everything we've covered this month—what's the kindest practice you could start? Or where do you feel the most out of line with your integrity? 

Do you feel like you want to start something big? Or, equally brave, begin something small? 

September is such a lovely time for beginning new behaviors. Who do you want to be, for the rest of the year? 

Continue Your Idea-Making Awesomeness with These Six Amazing Guides!

We writers live among our ideas. Kind of a cool reality, isn't it?

It's the truth: The degree to which our ideas delight us is the degree to which we're going to have exciting and enjoyable writing lives. 

That's what I'm aiming for! You too, I'm guessing. ;)

I hope that Idea Camp has been fun for you! You now have some fantastic strategies for making appealing, useable, and energizing ideas! 

SUPER good news for your work-in-progress, and for all those works to come! (Your future projects are all stoked, by the way.) 

But today's our last post for Idea Camp. And the writing life is a big one. Which means that, we're all going to appreciate having even more idea-making guidance in the days to come!

Here are six of my favorite books for creativity and idea-making. If you've been reading the blog for a while, you've heard of them all. But they're a part of my core team when it comes to creativity, so they deserve a big shout-out at the end of Idea Camp!

If you want to level up in terms of creativity, consistency with idea-making, and general awesomeness (that's all of us, right?!), then these are the books to read!

1) A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative, by Roger von Oech

This is, no surprise, a totally off-the-wall book. (Title kinda gives that away, right?) But it is super helpful at shaking up the way we normally think.

Von Oech asks provocative questions about creativity, and he flips the ways we normally approach problems.

This is where I learned about the oracle method, "stepping stone" ideas, and a bunch of other ways to reframe creative problems. (His concept of "the second right answer" is totally brilliant and oh so helpful!)

This book will help you with your writing, for sure, but—bonus!—it will also make you a creative, problem-solving dynamo in the rest of your life as well. 

2) Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert

Yup, it was a mega-sensation in all creative-minded circles for a while, and for good reason. I devoured it, and then listened in on the accompanying podcast, "Magic Lessons," as well.

I just love Gilbert's frank discussion of creativity, her view of the artist's life, and her perspective on ideas like inspiration, wonder, and following your curiosity.

It's also just a thoroughly enjoyable read! This isn't so much a book about actively generating ideas, but the way she approaches creativity will definitely shift the pressure you feel in your writing life.

And that shift will bring wonder-filled ideas in its wake!

(I especially loved: the trickster vs. martyr discussion; the "sandwiches" we eat in pursuit of what we love; and the story about the lobster. Oh my gosh, the lobster. I laughed 'til I cried!)

PS, if you can't wait to get the book, check out her fantastic interview about Big Magic with Marie Forleo. It's all the things!!

3) Steal Like an Artist, by Austin Kleon

Yep, I've done a post on this one before. But it's worth bringing up again here, because Kleon has such a helpful way of describing idea creation: he breaks it down and makes it feel so doable.

I love his whole concept of "the genealogy of ideas," and how he recommends learning from the artists you admire. He says: 

Copy your heroes. Examine where you fall short. What's in there that makes you different? That's what you should amplify and transform into your own work.

How's that for inspiring?! Geez!

And then I'm also haunted by this bit of brilliance: 

Think about your favorite work and your creative heroes. What did they miss? What didn't they make? ... If all your favorite makers got together and collaborated, what would they make with you leading the crew? 
     Go make that stuff.

Riiiiiight?? Doesn't that just get your mind fizzing? The whole book is like that, so, if you haven't checked it out yet ... um, go do that.

(He has a pretty fantastic blog as well... hop on over. And also, if you're trying to wrap your mind around the whole Internet, social media, how-to-be-seen thing, his book Show Your Work! is also exquisite and deeply encouraging. It gave me the courage to start this blog.)

4) The Creative Habit, by Twyla Tharp

This one again! For sure. Not only does Tharp talk about all aspects of the creative life in a compelling and exciting way, but she also has incredible tips on how to find ideas.

The whole book is helpful for this, but the best chapter for finding ideas is "Scratching." Scratching is Tharp's term for that process of hunting for an idea. She has a bunch of great habits and routines for idea searching... you've gotta read that chapter and try her exercises! You'll have plenty of new ways to forage for brilliance.

5) The Story Grid, by Shawn Coyne

My favorite-ever structure book belongs in Idea Camp?! Yup.

Because if you're writing a novel, and you don't know what do to next, it helps soooooo much to remember the conventions of the genre you're dealing with, the parts of story form (in scenes, in acts), and the "change curve" that Coyne explains.

Having a solid grasp of novel structure definitely saved my idea-making bacon with my work-in-progress! And understanding story form is critical when you're defining the problem that you're trying to solve. 

6) A Writer's Book of Days, by Judy Reeves

This is THE BEST writing exercise book I've ever encountered and it literally changed my view of my writing and my imagination. For the much, much better. 

It is seriously good.

Working through her daily writing prompts showed me just how incredible my brain can be at making ideas. At creating stories out of thin air. Even on days when I felt dull.

If you give the habit of writing exercises a try, you'll get into the mode of having a flexible, ready, energized mind, eager to snatch and develop any idea that crosses your path. 

BASICALLY, you acquire idea-making superpowers. Yes, really.

Because some of the best ideas you'll ever get, you'll get while your pen is moving. And that is an exhilaration that's worth finding!

Oh, and the articles and essays that make up the rest of the content? MEGA valuable and encouraging.

Dive in: you won't regret it.

---

We did it!! A month of relishing all things idea-related. WHOA.

I'd love to hear how you're doing: which idea-generating practices have been the most helpful? Any writing blocks blasted away? 

The second half of our writing year is going to be so full of good ideas now! Mmmm. Happy dreaming, lionhearts!

We're Going to Be Invincible Writers! (Welcome to Idea Camp.)

One of my favorite feelings in the writing life is when I'm just brimming with ideas.

You know the feeling?

When you feel like your mind and heart are just giving off sparks. When your creativity feels warm and flexible. 

Solving plot problems feels like a fun challenge (instead of something crushing). Creating stories feels like the best kind of adventure (instead of like bashing your face against a wall).

With plenty of ideas at my fingertips, I feel basically invincible as a writer.

Mmmmmm. It is completely awesome.

It is also completely not how I'm feeling at the moment.

(Anyone with me on that?)

The first half of this year has been more than a little rocky. And in all the chaos, I lost the knack for searching out ideas. 

Worse than that, I fell out of the habit of finding them and picking them up. Collecting ideas like the best shells and seaglass on the beach.

Without the continual practice of finding ideas, writing feels incredibly, um, uphill. As in, completely vertical. Cliff scaling.

It's a struggle, is what I'm saying.

I'm finally getting back into my draft-in-progress, and I want to dive in deep! But the idea-making-machine in my brain is rusty and cold. (Yowch.)

So ... I have this plan. 

I'm declaring June the the month of idea-making.

This is the perfect time to get back into the habit of finding amazing ideas. To practice snatching them out of the air, and spying them around corners. 

I want to pull apart all my favorite idea-gathering practices, remember everything that works, and then open my arms wide to a zillion new ideas.

Does that sound good to you?

Can we create and cultivate a healthy idea-gathering practice?

So that each of us has a huge crop of ideas that get us excited, ideas that motivate us to write and write and write?

Because THAT is how I want to spend my summer. Brimming and sparking with incredible ideas.

Mmmm. Heck YES.

Welcome to Idea Camp. Let's jump in.

---

Today, let's start by laying a foundation. Getting the ground of our minds ready to explode with ideas for the rest of the month.

(I'm practically jumping up and down with excitement here. Don't mind me. This is just going to save my sanity and my story, so ... let's do a few high-kicks for that!)

I'm a sucker for a definition, and, bonus, I love inventing my own. 

So, for the purposes of Idea Camp, this is our definition of an IDEA (just so we're all clear on what we're looking for): 

an appealing, useable concept with velocity.

Appealing: I am not super interested in just cranking out a bunch of so-called "ideas" that I have zero desire to work on. 

Believe me, I've done it before. I've followed prompts from creativity books and generated a list of stuff that seemed tired and unappetizing. 

That is not what we're looking for this month. 

We want ideas that beg to be used. That hit that mental sweet spot. 

Useable: Obviously. I want stuff I can plug into my writing life, my story-in-progress, or whatever I've got going on. And you do too, right? 

Velocity: When I think of a good idea, it has movement. It pushes me, pulls me, practically shoves me toward a writing pad.

I almost don't notice that I'm jotting it down, but I do feel an incredible rush of energy.

Good ideas aren't static. They have a buzz.

So that's what we're looking for this month: A bunch of ideas that you love, that suit your work, and that fizz with electricity.

Let's start by exploring the most essential part of that whole equation: You. 

Today we're going to create two lists that will be gold in our search for ideas. 

We're going to start by creating a big list of things that you find interesting, intriguing. The subjects that naturally draw out your attention, excitement, and passion.

Maybe that sounds obvious, too easy, or pointless. But here's what I've found: I can be spectacularly blind to what I love. 

Shocking, but true.

When casting around for a new idea, I can totally forget the subjects that most excite me. And then I wind up with a dud that my brain might find "acceptable, workable," but which my heart and creativity absolutely veto.

It's frustrating.

Save yourself the time and the slog by building a catalogue of topics that get your heart racing and your fingers tingling.

Woo! You ready?

Grab some paper or pull up a blank document, and just hang out with these questions for a while.

You can start at the top and work straight through, or start with the ones that seem easiest, or the ones you're most excited to probe into.

However you do it, write down as many answers as you can for each prompt.

• In general, what intrigues you, draws you in? What kinds of situations, people, occupations, places?

• What topics, problems, or subjects are you naturally passionate and excited about? 

• What makes you angry? (On the news, on Twitter or Facebook, in books, in relationships...)

• What situations, questions, or images fill your brain with interesting possibilities? 

• What do you find yourself always noticing—in relationships, in public places, in families, in stores, in cities?

• What do you keep taking pictures of? 

• What themes and scenarios crop up in your favorite books?

• What magazines or blogs are you most pulled toward? Which sections in particular? Which columns, articles, posts?

• What documentaries are you always interested in watching? 

• What kinds of books are you always ready to pick up?

• What types of art just grab you? Which forms, what colors, what presentations?

• What movies are you always willing to see? What themes or premises or genres are your favorites?

• What are your most recent favorite ideas? (For stories, characters, other projects...)

YUP, I know. It can be hard to step out of the way you think, and take notes on your own mind. It's tough for me too!

Come back to this list a few more times, cycle back through the questions, and add to it. The longer your list, the more options you'll have later.

Because this, my friends, is an extremely valuable practice: to find out what you love. To keep studying where your best ideas will spring from.

We'll be coming back to this list again and again this month.

Whew! Shake out your hands, shake out your brain, and then:

Let's make a second list. This is the Curiosity List!

It's definitely related to the first list, but it has a slightly different flavor.

Ever since reading Elizabeth Gilbert's fantastic book on creativity, Big Magic, I've started keeping a Curiosity List.

And I LOVE my Curiosity List. 

It's pretty self-explanatory: Any time something crosses my path that makes me think, "huh, that's kind of cool," I add it to the list. (My latest entries: the dances of bees, and mimes in Paris—they even have a school!) 

Unlike our first list, this isn't necessarily stuff I know a lot about. It's not going to be the subject of a bunch of conversations of mine, or something I've diligently been studying.

I don't even have super strong emotions about any of the items.

It's just a list of little things that sort of nudge my mind. Things I'm, well, curious about. (Bats that live under bridges, Cambridge University, the legends of Bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest, near-space travel...) 

So what good is a Curiosity List?

Well, in Elizabeth Gilbert's terms, it's a list of clues.

Clues to where your next ideas could be. Clues to what projects you'll want to pursue, what subjects you'll want to learn more about.

(I spend twenty minutes on Fridays just diving into one of the items from my Curiosity List. I just explore, I take notes or I don't, and I have a lot of fun doing it!)

Like the first list, this is a map to where some of your best ideas are going to be.

So, what are you curious about? 

What beckons you? What's intriguing—even if only slightly?

Even if it doesn't seem to have anything to do with writing, your work-in-progress, or anything you could create with?

Even if it seems "dumb" or random? Write it all down.

Push yourself to list at least twenty things that nudge your curiosity. 

Topics, stories, types of architecture, animals, situations, people, occupations... anything at all. 

Once you start, you might get on a roll. And that's great.

If you can, get fifty down. Or more. 

Keep coming back to it, during the rest of this month, and keep building it.

Try to notice when something catches your heart, makes you smile without realizing it, makes your heart leap a bit. 

Stay alert to anything that catches your interest, anything that snags your curiosity. Even just a little. Even just barely.

---

Whew! THAT was some seriously important work! Everyone go get chocolate, or wine, or both. (Wait, is it still morning? Cream in your coffee, then.)

These two lists are going to be super helpful the rest of the month.

They're gonna shape where and how we dig for new ideas. They can help us resuscitate ideas that aren't quite right (by sprinkling in one of our beloved or curious topics).

Best of all, they'll help us know when we're on the right track toward ideas that feel like magic. 

Ooooh, feel that?

I think my idea-making machine just gave off a few sparks.

This Is Why You Can Embrace the Crappiest of Crappy First Drafts (Bad Drafts Aren't Just for Beginners!)

Oh, it's going to be one of those good Mondays, you know?

I can just feel it.

How are you doing today, lionheart? Does it feel like spring?

I'm much cheerier and more sane than I was last week, because I have written thousands and thousands of words on my novel in progress. Whew. I just needed to stop planning and get scribbling, and that's made all the difference to my mood, and my mindset.

... In some ways.

In other ways—which you're familiar with too, if you've ever written anything down—I'm feeling a smidge bleak.

Because this draft is, like all other first drafts, QUITE a mess.

I'm thrilled to be moving forward on my draft. But I'm frustrated that the draft sounds weak, the voice is a little off, and some scenes are frankly a little dull. (Even though they get the story to the right place—yay, structure!)

In other words, it's a first draft, and it's behaving exactly like one.

I know that. You know that.

We all know first drafts are rough, messy, crappy drafts. 

... But it's easy to believe that at some point we'll emerge from the Forest of Crappy First Drafts, and break into a glorious place where our first drafts aren't bad at all. 

Where we write marvelously the first time around.

Which is why today's much-needed writing-life quote comes from Eric Maisel, in his (lovely! must read!) book, A Writer's Paris: 

"Everything changes the instant you accept that you are bound to do lots of inferior work. Then no particular piece of inferior work is much of a blow. You just burn it and get on with your masterpiece."

THERE WE GO.

It's extremely counter-productive to wait around for the day when our first drafts are pristine.

Writing improvement doesn't happen in a neat, straight, predictable line.

Have you seen this in your own work, your own first drafts: Moments of true writerly brilliance coexist right next to moments of true writerly befuddlement.

I can write a gem and, in the very next paragraph, write pure slop.

On the same day! In the same ten minutes! 

I go back and forth. Gems, slop, mediocrity, beauty, back to muddling, back to something solid, a bit more crap, and then oh, good, a lovely little twist at the end of the chapter.

And that's my drafting process.

What I love about Maisel's quote is that it helps us to think of this good draft/bad draft thing more like we're operating in a ratio, not like we're moving chronologically to a new stage of no mistakes.

Ratios! And last Thursday I mentioned percents! What, is this a math blog now?

But go with me on this.

What if there's a kind of proportion that exists: we must do x amount of really crappy work, in order to do x amount of really brilliant work.

It isn't that we graduate from doing the crappy work; it's just that the more crappy work we plow through, the more opportunities we have to write gems.

Does that make sense?

In other words, it doesn't do any good to cut ourselves off, or to stop writing, or even slow down, just because the crappy work shows up.

It has to be there. It's doing its job, holding up its side of the ratio. 

As Maisel says, we're bound to do lots of it!! 

And if we stop now, we don't get to the work in the other part of the ratio—the really brilliant stuff!

We don't magically arrive at a place where everything, from first draft to final, is impeccable. We just don't. 

With time and experience that ratio might change: we might not have to do quite so much inferior work to get the really good stuff. Maybe. 

But in the meantime, if we let our bad work stop us, we're believing the wrong thing about progress as a writer. It would mean we've bought into the idea that we can't write magnificently, even amidst the crap.

Don't believe it for a moment, my lionhearted friend!

When you see the crap show up in your work, keep right on moving! You are that much closer to writing the good stuff.

If you're feeling almost cheesily optimistic (which I am, because, hello, it's spring!!), you can almost take the crappy stuff as a good sign. 

You're on your way to the best stuff in the draft. It's like a promise.

You gotta keep going. 

Inferior work simply doesn't mean we're inferior writers. It is just what happens when we write.

Part of the process. Part of the ratio.

Right? Good.

Let's get on with our masterpieces.

How to Dodge Burnout in Your Writing Life Before It Even Comes Close

One of the most freeing, and most daunting, pieces of my writing life is simply this: I am my own boss.

It means that my degree of contentment, fulfillment, and happiness in my job is basically up to me. 

Which is completely wonderful and a bit frightening, at the same time. 

It also means that when something goes wrong in my writing life or writing process, it's up to me to figure out what happened. 

"EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE," is how I used to respond.

Which is a very accurate feeling. But a really unhelpful diagnosis.

But if we're all being our own bosses (which we totally are), and if we're going to do amazing things in 2016 (which HECK YES we are!!), then we need to learn how to discover what goes wrong in our writing lives. 

And figure out how to fix it. And get it going again.

And just to clarify: I'm not talking about what's gone wrong in our novels, though of course that's also our job to unravel.

I'm talking about what happens when the whole darn writing life rolls over and sticks its feet in the air. Or, when its engine won't start and the radio won't either.

Or whatever other metaphor feels right to you.

If our goals are going to happen, then we need to know what to do to make sure our writing life is working well, all systems go, everything healthy. 

One of the ways that I run my own self diagnostic is by thinking of myself as a team.

Yes, I know that can be a little weird, but stick with me here. If you're working for yourself, if you're working alone, you're still managing a team's worth of jobs, right? 

It's just you, but you're performing all the different tasks, fulfilling half a dozen roles. You're the one doing all the things.

Right? 

The way I think about it, the Writing Team of Me breaks into these roles:

• Chief Executive Officer: She's the general manager of everything. She plans for the long-haul. She has her eyes on a career that will span decades and reach great heights. She's extremely ambitious, but also has a strong administrative focus. She manages all the other members of the team as well, and brings them in line with her vision for the career.
   

• Chief Creative Officer: She's the "idea girl." She manages the entire imagination matrix and generates the big gooey ideas that turn into novels, as well as the smaller ideas that illuminate scenes and blog posts and other little projects. She manages the overall creative vision, as well as the flavor of everything the team produces. She animates and signs off on every bit of work we do around here.
   

• The Staff Writers: They take everything from the CEO and the CCO and turn it into words, words, words. These are the draft monkeys, the paragraph producers. They're super hard workers, but they like to have a good time whenever possible. 
   

• The Editor: She works closely with the staff writers. Sometimes she gets overexcited and tries to interfere too soon, so they stick her in the hallway with a thesaurus and a knitting project. But when managed well, she's an essential part of the team. She cleans up all sentences, adjusts flow of content, and does all proofreading tasks. (She hates how often the staff writers stick "words" like kinda and gotta into this blog. She can be somewhat mollified by gin. Don't tell her we know that.)
   

• Public Relations Manager: She's our social media guru! She's overflowing with ideas for ways to get our words out there, meet the team's ideal audience, find out what that audience wants, and then give it to them! She's highly caffeinated and absolutely adores the Internet. If her doctor would allow it, she'd never sleep.
   

• The Intern/Administrative Assistant: She's the catch-all girl, filling in all the gaps, doing what no one else seems to remember to do. She makes the coffee, cleans the junk out of the office area, purges file folders, makes sure all the tools and equipment run smoothly. She dashes out to grab office supplies, does preliminary research on projects, and performs assorted janitorial duties (bless her heart!). 

... Annnd that's my team. (We're interviewing a Publisher and an Accountant, because, you know, 2016 is when Everything Happens. But that's still down the road a teeny bit.)

Your team might look and feel a little different—you might have more roles, or less. More vivacious personalities or quieter ones.

The point is: We're embodying a variety of roles as writers, every day, every week. And I think it can be incredibly valuable to take some time and figure out: What does that particular role need? What is it missing? 

This is a great way to sift through the overwhelming feeling of "something's wrong," or "something could be running better." Or even, to avoid burnout and deep neglect before they even happen.

(Which is part of being a really stellar boss, by the way.)

What would happen if you had an interview with each member of your team? 

Yeah, I know. It's a little bit weird. But we're writers: we can get away with weird. Treat it like a freewriting exercise, and just see what happens. (It could be really cool.)

If you're up for it: Grab a blank notebook, or pull up a clean document on your computer.

Figure out who your team is, and what the general idea is behind each role. (If you don't know where to start, you can borrow my team's descriptions. I promise that they won't mind.)

When you have a clear-ish idea about which is which, ask each team member these questions, and then listen as they tell you. Take notes, jot down exact things that they say, and try to follow each thought further. 

Ready? Here goes: 

1) What is going really well in your job right now? What are you really happy with?

2) What is not going well? Where are you most frustrated?

3) Where do you feel like the rest of the team is asking too much of you? Do you feel undervalued?

4) What would you need so that you could do your job really, really well? (I.e., tools, more learning, celebration, extra support, assistance, time off, more time with a certain project, free time for brainstorming...)

5) What would make the environment you work in (the tools you use, the space you occupy, the sounds you hear) the best place for you to work?

6) Is there anything else you want to tell me? 

Okay. Maybe that felt a little hokey. Or maybe you realized something about how you work. 

For me, running through this exercise always amazes me, because it helps me realize how much I'm doing. It helps me respect each member of my team that much more. 

It makes me more patient, less demanding. I become more flexible with assigning deadlines, and more quick to add in support. 

What about you? What did you discover?

If we forget how many different roles we're doing, and how many different angles we're working from, we can feel at odds with ourselves.

And our whole team will wind up being understaffed and malnourished.

The goal of this experiment is to find a happy balance where each member of your team is satisfied. Where all their needs are met, and where each is operating out of their best possible environment.

That's an exciting thought, right? 

So don't be afraid to experiment a bit. And to recalibrate how you work until you get to that place.

Adjust a few things, see how everyone on your team feels, and then make new adjustments. 

Because if we can figure out how to do that, we're on our way to having a writing practice that runs incredibly well, that meets its goals, and does it all without killing us. 

Which sounds GREAT to me. 

And the rest of 2016? Pffft. No worries.

We'll climb those big mountains. Tackle those enormous goals.

We'll have our whole team striding forward together—and we'll be unstoppable.

---

If you want to dive deeper into creative self-management, you've gotta check out: Making Ideas Happen, by Scott Belsky, and Steal Like an Artist, by Austin Kleon. They're keepers.

Flabbergast Yourself: Pursuing a Continual Sense of Wonder

When was the last time something stopped you in your tracks and just amazed you?

When were you so intrigued by something that you lost track of time, lost track of everything, and just soaked up that thing? 

When was the last time you were overwhelmed by wonder?

One of the things I loved most about Elizabeth Gilbert's book Big Magic (and there were a lot of things to love!) was how she described the request of her creative soul: "More wonder, please." 

Wonder. 

I haven't thought much about that word, that idea. I tend to focus on inspiration, which is also a lovely word, but which is—for me at least—more cluttered with demands. 

Inspiration means: one thing causes another. Right? This moment, object, or sensation generates an idea.

Which is very cool. Which is something we writers subsist on. Absolutely.

Wonder, to my thinking, is more simple. It doesn't have to cause anything except a feeling. It doesn't have to give you ideas and the energy to make them.

All it does is amaze you. 

And maybe that leads to inspiration, and maybe that inspiration leads to work.

Or, maybe, it doesn't.

Maybe it just fills you up. Dazzles you. (Which is a nice feeling, by the way.)

Either way, I'm now convinced that it's one of the main food groups for artists. And that, the more wonder we soak up, the more creative energy we'll have for the art we create.

Wonder isn't a luxury.

Honestly, my first instinct with this? Is to just say: "That's nice."

That's nice. Good for you, wonder seekers. But I've got to be practical. I have deadlines and lists and stuff.

And besides, I don't always know what wonder is to me. 

Better to just skip it and get on with repairing my outline, right? Better to just optimize my drafting process, right?

I'd think all those thoughts very self-righteously... and then go through a period of burnout, and not understand why. (Hm.)

But what if wonder is like taking a daily multivitamin for your creativity? What if it boosts your anti-writer's-block immune system? What if it actually fuels your inspiration? 

What if it isn't a luxury at all? What if it's exactly what we need to be having?

The self-aware wonder seeker.

If wonder is the thing that fills up the well of creativity, and if it's part of that inspiration equation...

Then the question is: What astonishes you?

We owe it to our own creativity to figure out what that is. What are that paths you can take that you know will land you on wonder's doorstep? What is it that always yields a bit of amazement?

I have this feeling that it's gonna pay off for us big time if we can figure that out.

If this is a hard question, I totally get it. I'm with you. I actually feel like a complete novice with this. 

So, I'm gonna learn from someone I've learned from my whole life. 

My dad grew up in Nebraska—land of wild winters and scorching summers. And he has always modeled a wonder for the outdoors.

Great thing about the outdoors: It's big. Really, really, really big.

So it's a perfect starting point in our quest for wonder. 

... Because there are so many things to choose from!! If oceans don't inspire wonder for you, go to the mountains. If mountains leave you flat [sorry, couldn't resist], look to the desert, the arctic, the Amazon.

Or, look up.

My dad taught my sisters and me about the stars. Even when we were little kids, he patiently showed us the constellations, teaching us the distinctive patterns to look for, and how they all fit together. He would train his huge telescope at the moon and let us stare at the craters 'til our eyes watered.

Once he woke us in the middle of the night, and we scrambled into our clothes and drove out to the middle of the cornfields so we could watch a comet smudge the sky.

I have big wonder roots in the stars... But I forgot about most of that.

... Until I was messing around with watercolors and looking for a new subject. I googled photographs of the planets on a whim—and was startled at how much amazement bubbled up in me. 

Staring at their colors, at their immensity, and then dabbing a little version of them onto paper: I felt blown away. Definitely an experience of wonder.

So, if you've lost touch with this part of yourself, it might take a bit of exploring. Might help to figure out what moved you when you were a kid.

But however you get there, your creativity would love for you to know exactly what it is that dazzles you. 

Always nourish wonder. (So that wonder can always nourish you.)

Now that we know it's vital, and now that we have some ideas of what works for us, we have to make it part of our artistic practice.

This is something that I personally need to do a lot more of: Seeking wonder on a regular basis.

Right? Because it needs to be replenished. What about: a taste of wonder every day. Just something small, like painting the planets. Or cloud gazing. 

And then a really big hit of it on a regular basis. Maybe every weekend, or every other week: go for a wonder-seeking field trip. Finding a way to be astonished in a big way.

So what would that look like for you? How can you find five minutes to stare in amazement at something? Or to listen to some music that floors you?

And where could you go, or what could you do, to find wonder on a bigger scale?

Can we make the time for this? (Kinda like making time to breathe, making time to sleep...) 

And then, can we pay full attention, just focus everything we've got on the source of that wonder, and let it fill our creativity up?

Mmm. I think this is exactly what I need to be doing. I would love a wonder-filled 2016.

How about you?

Don't know where to start? Take a cue from my dad. His birthday's this weekend, so why not grab some time to step outside and find some stars. That light's been traveling a long time just so you could see it: sit with that fact a while, and let it blow your mind. 

---

What is wonder-full to you? What kinds of dazzling things are you exploring lately? Please share with all the lionhearts in the comments, so that we can rehab our sense of wonder together!

The One Resolution that Really Will Change *Everything*

Oh, I love the goal-setting, resolution-making days. I love that unique energy that fizzes around the end of the year.

How's your 2016 looking? Do you have some really big plans? 

High five. I do too. Dreaming so big for this new year! It's going to be amazing—I can't even wait.

But lately I've been realizing that, in this storm of resolution-making, it's easy to overlook one of the most important parts of our writing lives.

It's the thing that is absolutely critical to your happiness and well-being as a writer. The thing that can transform the quality of your writing life entirely.

It's this super-obvious truth, but it's really easy to miss.

Ready? Here it is:

The quality of your writing life, and my writing life, isn't really defined by the Big Moments.

You know. Those big things like: Finishing the manuscript. Publishing the manuscript. Sending out the story. Sending out the query. Getting an agent. Getting a publisher. Hitting a sales goal. Hitting an income goal.

The big stuff. It doesn't define us.

Those moments are super important, obviously. Some of them are turning points. Some of them are just events that are nice but then fade away. Some of them, certainly, adjust how we'll be going forward.

So, please: I don't mean to say that they aren't important. 

But what I do want to point out is: while the Big Moments are worth moving toward, our writing lives are actually made up of days.

Little days of doing our writing. 

That is what the vast majority of our time is going to look like.

The writer + the project + the keyboard + a lot of hours over a long period of time. 

That's a writing life.

Which means that: the quality of our writing life will be immensely and overwhelmingly shaped by the quality of our writing days.

And I don't just mean writing excellent quality.

I mean having a happy writing day. A fulfilling writing day. 

Getting up from a writing session, whether it was twenty minutes or four hours, and thinking: That was good work. That was actually fun! That was creatively fulfilling.

You know what I mean?

I've realized in my own self that it is so tempting to focus on the HUGE things that I need and want to move forward.

It can be really easy to make the writing days slaves to the big writing moments.

And then suddenly, I have a long string of frenetic days. I'm running around feeling stressed and crazy, trying to beat myself into becoming a more disciplined person, all in the service of getting to the next Big Thing, the next Big Goal, whatever that is. 

Aiming for a big goal is really nice.

But using a long string of really sucky, miserable days, in order to get to that big goal? Not so much. Not so nice.

So I've fallen out of love with that way of thinking. With having really horrible days, all in the service of a really important goal. I've just stopped wanting to do that.

Don't get me wrong: Goals are vital. (Seriously, please read The One Thing if you haven't yet. You'll loooove it.) 

Goals are wonderful. But your individual writing days are EQUALLY vital, wonderful, beautiful, and important.

Especially the ones that don't feel important.

My writing life is made up of a very long string of very un-flashy writing days. 

I don't have any legitimately Big Moments yet, but I do have some highlights. Getting a call to say that my short story was chosen for first place. Monetary awards for words I'd written, work I'd done. A few times when I was publicly cheered on for what I do and how I do it.

That was nice. That was pleasant.

And that had absolutely no bearing on the quality of my writing days either before or after the event. 

It still came down to me, alone, with the words, with the insecurities, trying to work. 

I think that when we seek the next Big Writing Moment, it's pretty tempting to believe that the quality of our writing days will magically shift and change. They will absorb all that bigness and now be beautiful.

That we will be stunningly confident. That we will write with poise. That we will look really good while we do it. (All good hair days, from here on out.)

And while there might be some truth in some of that, and while opportunities do create a new direction, I think that, at the base of it, the quality of our days is really up to us.

This is good news, by the way.

It means that, if you want a really happy writing life, seek a really happy writing day. 

Not agents, publishers, movie deals, multibook contracts, six-figure sales, bestseller lists.

Aim for excellence, by all means. Focus on your goals, and godspeed. 

But if you want a quality shift, look at your days, not your goals. 

Nicole Johnson wrote, "The quality of my life is determined by one thing: my attitude toward it."

Whoa. You get to pick how awesome your writing life is. No one else gets to dictate that: just you.

So, if I could make a suggestion: Choose happy, and choose it right now. Love your writing life because it's your writing life.

Not for the things it will get you, the attention it might win you, or any kind of glamour that might be down the road. Not for the big moments. 

Love it because you love words. Love it because it's challenging and enjoyable and incredible.

Be happy today, be brave today, and write your heart out. 

That will be the biggest and best change you can make.

---

This idea—that we really live in the small moments and the days, and not in the big, once-in-a-lifetime moments—was first introduced to me in a talk by Paul David Tripp. (He was talking about this principle in terms of marriage and spiritual life, but it's completely true for writing lives as well.)

I was shocked by how much I thought the big moments mattered, and how much I thought the little moments didn't. Totally backwards, haha! 

5 Things To Do (Right Away!) When You Feel Like Your Life Is Stuck

For some reason, it tends to happen around holidays.

Maybe because there are so many conversations, so many people to catch up with, and so many chances to rehash the "so how is your writing going" question. 

Maybe because it's also a hard season for focusing. Writing projects, writing progress, writing in general: it can all feel kind of stuck.

Ohhhh, that Stuck Feeling. It can get bitter. It can get ugly. It can spread. And fast.

This used to happen to me a lot. And yes, weirdly enough, right around Christmas time, it would hit me in a bad way. 

Suddenly I'd find that at night, I did not have visions of sugarplums dancing in my head. I had visions of being exposed as a total failure at the whole writing thing. Visions of giving up writing, of doing something else, anything else.

And then I'd realize that I'm not just bad at writing, I'm bad at everything. And actually, I wouldn't be able to think of a single thing I was good at.

Which can get a bit depressing.

... Does this happen to anyone else, or is it just me?? Whew. Let's all have some chocolate.

That Stuck Feeling and I: we go way, way back. We have a lot of history. And I've learned some things about how to deal with it. (Besides the chocolate, which I'm guessing is obvious.)

Here's what I'm practicing, any time that Stuck Feeling shows up. Read on and arm yourself!

1) Know your enemy and its tricks.

For starters, this is a feeling, and that's important to know.

Like all feelings, it will insist that it tells the absolute, unvarnished truth. 100% reality. It will cross its arms and try to stare you down.

It will remind you of the zillion things that you are waiting on, which are all outside of your control. 

Money, lodgings, opportunities, access, time, space, ideas, skills, did-I-mention-money, teachers, fellow writers, paid professionals, attention... It can generate an endless list of Things Waited On. 

This feeling is relentless.

When it shows up for me, it works SO HARD until I finally say back to it: "Yes, you are right. I am stuck. Everything is stuck."

At which point, the Stuck Feeling puts a bag over my head, just in case I wise up and start seeing all the opportunities around me. 

It is such a trap.

The best and most effective way to expose this feeling as a definite lie, the best way to banish it, is to do something New. 

Something good and new for yourself and your writing.

Preferably something nourishing.

To that end:

2) Try a writing challenge.

It doesn't have to be a huge challenge; you might not have the energy for huge effort. 

Design your own tiny challenge instead. Grab a book of writing exercises (I always recommend this one) or find some online.

Grab a notebook and a timer. Try writing just five minutes on a prompt, and force yourself to do five prompts in a row. After just that half hour of work, you might feel completely different. 

(Of course, if you get carried away, feel free to do the whole dang book. It might change your life.)

3) Actively nurture your curiosity. 

I recently read Elizabeth Gilbert's book Big Magic, and she makes a wonderful case for following your curiosity. She says that anything you're interested in—even if it's just the tiniest bit of interest—is worth focusing on. 

She writes: "It's a clue. It might seem like nothing, but it's a clue. Follow that clue. Trust it. See where curiosity will lead you next. ... Following that scavenger hunt of curiosity can lead you to amazing, unexpected places." 

So when the Feeling of Stuckness rises up, try seeking your curiosity. Force your attention away from all the wailing internal voices (I know, they're super loud!), and ask yourself:

Is there anything that you're interested in? Anything? At all?

And then treat that bit of interest like a clue, and follow it. Learn a little more about it. Explore.

And then look around for the next clue.

4) Explode your creativity. 

Move in a direction other than writing. Give the words a break. Give 'em some space to refresh.

And go try something else for a while. Go dance wildly and awkwardly to some loud music: get a bit sweaty. 

Or try picking up a pen and sketching. Grab some simple, schoolkid watercolors and dabble in painting for a while. 

I started doing that this summer, and every time I pick up my sketchbook, I feel wonderfully calm and focused. (In other words, the opposite of stuck and screaming.)

... The main thing is: move. This Stuck Feeling can work like a numbing drug, and make you forget how strong you are, in your mind, your body, your heart. 

If it says you're stuck, go out and learn. Go out and do. Make something with your hands. Go on a hike. Explore.

Outrun the thing.

5) Remember how creative rhythms work.

I've seen this pattern again and again in my writing life (and the rest of my life too!). I'll feel stuck (and wretched) and I'll think that's whole story: I'm not moving forward and I'm awful.

I think everything's over. 

... And then something happens.

It turns out that, during that Stuck time, something inside me was gathering. Energy was building, getting ready to connect with an insight that was just around the corner. A revelation, an epiphany. Something that makes all the difference. 

Or I suddenly encounter a bunch of resources that are exactly what I need, and I leap ahead.

Or I experience some other major shift in how I think about myself, my creativity, my writing life, and the whole shebang.

And not only am I moving again, I'm racing.

This has happened so many times. 

Here's what I think: Before our brains and hearts do something big, they sometimes pull in for a while. They get quiet and still.

And sometimes this goes on longer than we feel comfortable with.

I don't know if it's like that for everyone, but it has happened to me more times than I can count. 

And I'm slowly catching on. I am trying to remind myself to not go running and wailing that I'm stuck.

I tell myself that what I think of as stuck might actually be a period of invisible growth. Something good is brewing, even if I can't tell what it is yet.

So no more running. No more wailing. I need all my energy for the Big Thing that is just around the corner, moving slowly toward me. 

So that's what I'd say to you. The next time you feel stuck, like everything has just stopped, like there's no momentum:

Lean toward the next challenge. Even though you can't see it yet.

Take really good care of yourself and give yourself a lot of grace and a lot of room. Practice a skill, learn something new, listen for your curiosity, keep working.

When you sense despair thrumming beside you, shift away from it.

Because something fantastic is up ahead. And it will need all the energy you can spare.