Karinwritesdangerously

Writing is mentally taxing and sometimes, your brain — or my brain, at least — doesn’t want to kick in and meet the demands I want to make of it. It craves a day off.

What to do, what to do?

I’ve learned a few things that might prove helpful if you (or someone you know) encounters this kind of setback:

Let go of your frustration: Getting frustrated doesn’t help. You can’t bully yourself into accomplishing something you consider productive, The more frustrated you become, the longer it takes to get past this kind of hurdle. So as my mentor and friend Dr. Rob Gilbert* says, Don’t get frustrated, get fascinated! Find the silver lining by slowing down.

Let go of your agenda: Once it becomes clear that, for whatever reason, you are on a different path. let your agenda go. Clinging to it will be counterproductive, so release it.

Go for a less-ambitious goal: Come up with a simpler goal and work toward it. If there’s small research project you need to finish as part of your revision, focus on getting it done. It’s probably straightforward and may involve surfing the ‘net, which is a pretty low-energy activity, Just find a reasonably productive activity and give your mind a break.

Get some rest: It’s more than likely that a slow day can be traced to a restless night, so hit the hay earlier tonight and see if a good night’s sleep will rev you up tomorrow.

Slow days don’t have to be “low” days. Just ride them out and write on!

* Check out Dr. Rob Gilbert’s fabulous Success Hotline: 973-743-4690!

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« The practice of any art has certain general requirements,
quite regardless of whether we deal with the art of carpentry,
medicine, or the art of love. » Erich Fromm

Or the art of writing. At first blush, The Art of Loving may seem like an odd guide to draw on for writing advice, yet it’s surprisingly apt. In the last chapter of this classic, Fromm lays out the ingredients for achieving excellence in any artistic endeavor. What a gift to us as we hone our craft! Reading the chapter is like attending a master class in mastery. Here are Fromm’s five keys to mastery:

Discipline: “I shall never be good at anything if I do not do it in a disciplined way; anything I do only ‘if I am in the mood’ may be a nice or amusing hobby, but I shall never become a master in that art.”

Concentration: “The activity at this very moment must be the only thing that matters, to which one is fully given. If one is concentrated, it matters little what one is doing; the important, as well as the unimportant things assume a new dimension of reality, because they have one’s full attention.”

Patience: “If one is after quick results, one never learns an art. Yet, for modern man, patience is as difficult to practice as discipline and concentration. Our whole industrial system fosters exactly the opposite: quickness.”

Supreme concern: “If the art is not something of supreme importance, the apprentice will never learn it. He will remain, at best, a good dilettante, but will never become a master.”

Devotion: “If one wants to become a master in any art, one’s whole life must be devoted to it, or at least related to it. One’s own person becomes an instrument in the practice of the art, and must be kept fit…”

Discipline. Concentration. Patience. Supreme concern. Devotion.

What a fabulous recipe for mastering our craft as we all write on!

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This week’s “Something Wonderful” is a lovely poem in celebration of Father’s Day. It reminds me of dipping my hand into the pocket of my father’s overcoat when I was a little girl and finding all sorts of treasures:

My Father’s Hats
Mark Irwin

Sunday mornings I would reach
high into his dark closet while standing
on a chair and tiptoeing reach
higher, touching, sometimes fumbling
the soft crowns and imagine
I was in a forest, wind hymning
through pines, where the musky scent
of rain clinging to damp earth was
his scent I loved, lingering on
bands, leather, and on the inner silk
crowns where I would smell his
hair and almost think I was being
held, or climbing a tree, touching
the yellow fruit, leaves whose scent
was that of a clove in the godsome
air, as now, thinking of his fabulous
sleep, I stand on this canyon floor
and watch light slowly close
on water I’m not sure is there.

Wishing all fathers of our hearts and memories a day of sunshine and joy.
May all fathers everywhere honor their sacred calling.

« If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough.”
Mario Andretti

Who’s better equipped than a professional race car driver to help us write dangerously? While most of us think car racing is all about stepping on a gas pedal and roaring down a track, it’s also mentally demanding. Here are a few race car driver tips we can apply:

Flexible goal-setting: Each race demands a decision about how aggressive or conservative an approach is needed to accomplish a driver’s goals. But once a race is under way, “Things change and you really need to act on what’s coming at you and how you’re moving forward.”

Intense preparation: “If he is racing on a new track, a skilled driver soaks in everything he can about the circuit — “the bumps, the turns, the layout…everything.” If it’s a track he’s already raced on, he visualizes each lap until he can draw a map of the circuit in his mind.

Total concentration: “I try not to break my concentration; you’re in the zone and your skill set should automatically take over. The more you think about it the more you get out of the zone and can actually mess up (not a good thing on a race track). You want to allow your subconscious mind to utilize your trained skills.”

Self-motivation: “Racing is basically winning or losing and if you’re not on the top step, you haven’t reached the maximum potential of what you can do. There’s no reason you can’t be the best if you push and try your hardest. I think about that last lap for motivation while I’m training at the gym and that pushes me farther.”

Mental focus: Like any sport, race car driving isn’t just physical — it’s also a mental game. Once you’re in prime physical shape, “it really comes down to your mental ability to focus and concentrate.” You have to be able to adapt quickly without losing focus.

Staying calm and relaxed: Vince Lombardi once said, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” When racing, you have to stay sharp, both physically and mentally. You have to train so that fatigue, “doesn’t affect your race outcome.” “You cannot let fatigue set in…” That’s why staying calm and relaxed even when your adrenalin is pumping is key.

“You want to allow your subconscious mind to utilize your trained skills” — what great advice— and now, revved up, let’s all write on!

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« Cultivate a little [of] the don’t-care habit; don’t worry about what other people may think. This will endear you to others and make you liked and loved all the more. ». Dr. Louis E. Bisch

A fascinating fact: Brother Gilbert, who discovered Babe Ruth, once said, “He looked better striking out than he did hitting home runs.” People often noted that the Babe had a very endearing sense of indifference. Even when he was striking out and the bases were loaded and everyone around him, from his fellow players to the fans against him, was hot and bothered, the Babe radiated calm and remained unconcerned. 

Not a bad strategy: We all know what the opposite is like. When we try too hard, we become overanxious. We blow things out of proportion. We’re afraid to lose and so we bend ourselves out of shape trying to win. And guess what — we want to win so badly, we end up losing. 

Why not take a tip from the Babe? He knew he couldn’t hit 300 every day, so he didn’t bother trying. Instead, he just got up and kept swinging at every pitch. He never let the pressure get to him, because he knew how to shake it off — how to remain indifferent, unbothered by it all. He let all the fuss and anxiety swirl around him, but he never took it on or took it in. To be perturbed is to “alter a normal state or path” — and that’s exactly what Babe Ruth avoided. He kept his eye on the ball.

Cultivating an enlightened sense of indifference can be as helpful a strategy to us as it was for the Babe. Why? Mainly because it offers three powerful benefits:

It keeps us centered: When we don’t let ourselves be thrown off balance by an agent’s rejection or a bad writing day, we rebound more quickly and easily. “The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” — whatever form they take — don’t pierce as deeply.

It keeps us calm: When we remain at ease with ourselves and don’t let setbacks unsettle us, we can get into our writing zone and enter a state of relaxation more easily and fully. A relaxed mind is a creative mind!

It keeps us consistent: Instead of constantly shooting for a home run and straining ourselves by overreaching, we can go for consistency — working steadily and purposefully regardless of how we’re feeling and what’s happening around us. It’s this calmly active, actively calm approach that often leads to real breakthroughs.

My friend and mentor Dr. Rob Gilbert (Success Hotline: 973.743.4690) sums all this up simply: Make things important, but not special. When something is important to us, we value it and work hard at it. But when we make it special, we often tense up and our overanxious over-reaching can sabotage our efforts. 

So let’s take a tip from the legendary Babe Ruth! Let’s cultivate a little of the “don’t-care” habit as we write on!

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Wayne Goldsmith is a high-performance consulting coach. His goal: turning good athletes into great ones: Though his focus is football, there’s so much Wayne said that relates to improving our craft as writers, that I wanted to share some of his insights with you. 

As he points out, there are hundreds of good young players in camps, clinics, and on the field. Virtually all of them have the physical skills — the raw physical talent — to succeed. But over the long term, he asserts, physical talent isn’t enough. — it’s only the beginning. The real critical success factors are what underpins that talent. Talent only gets you so far — it doesn’t equip you for the challenges that life throws at you. 

In Wayne’s view, here are the qualities coaches should help their elite young players to develop (along with my take for us as writers):

1. A sense of self-confidence that can’t be diminished by others — they believe strongly in themselves and aren’t driven by peers. (As writers, we need to cultivate a confident, independent mindset, and a belief in the value of our work that can’t be shaken or diminished by fellow writers, publishers, agents — our peers).

2. A willingness to accept responsibility for the direction their life takes (For us, I believe this involves making choices about our writing lives with intention and focus).

3. A value-based life — making decisions based on integrity, honesty, humility, courage, and discipline (As writers, we surely are called to develop our own set of values to work and live by). 

4. Live every day as if it were the last (For us, I believe this means, going all out, not holding back in fulfilling our potential).

5. Never stop learning (As writers, curiosity and fascination are what spur creativity and drive us forward).

6. Always be nice to mom (Be kind and grateful to those who nurture and support us).

7. Love the game (Bring passion and joy to our writing life everywhere and all the time).

Wayne also wants young athletes to “think like champions.” As he put it, champions aim to create training regimens for themselves that are more demanding than any game. They see training as the minimum — the starting point — and they always strive to push past it. Champions demand more of themselves—great advice for us as we all write on!

« Write your heart out. »
Bernard Malamud

Joyce Carol Oates cited this quote several times during a talk she once gave. You could certainly say she’s followed Bernard’s advice: she’s written close to 100 novels, novellas, poetry collections, and children’s books. How does she do it? She never starts with a story idea in mind. Instead, she always begins with characters and a setting that she treats like a character with its own personality.

When it comes to getting to know your characters, Joyce had some juicy advice: Start by creating two characters, then have them talk to each other on paper and just listen. If you do this for a short time, she says, nothing much will happen. But if you stay with it for two hours, you’ll have something you can use. 

Staying with it, that’s key says Joyce. That’s what seasoned writers do and what inexperienced writers can’t or won’t do. Whenever Joyce starts a new novel, the first six weeks of writing are like hell and she’s miserable. Nothing seems to be coming together and it’s very frustrating. While a novice might simply quit at that point, Joyce observes, a seasoned veteran knows enough to push past the discomfort and discouragement and keep writing until something valuable emerges from all the seeming confusion.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Serious writers stay with their work through thick and thin; novices can’t take the heat and quit before they really get started. Every day when we write, we face the same choice: do we wrestle with the page or do we surrender? Do we keep working over that paragraph until it sparkles or do we just go with what we’ve got? Do we work through that thorny revision or look for something easier to work on? Do we push ourselves to grow or stay where we are? Let’s be seasoned veterans. Let’s ask ourselves this question at the end of every work session: Did I write my heart out? 

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« Merrily, we roll along, roll along, roll along. Merrily, we roll along… »

Sometimes, you just have one of those days or even several days, where everything falls into place. You’re alert and attuned to the page — and words seem to flow like honey. What writerly bliss!

Let’s fully embrace every wondrous moment in our writing life:

Enjoy it: First and foremost, enjoy the fruits of your labor! You’ve surely worked hard in order to reap a period of rich and productive creativity. Savor it! Soak it all in, so you can summon up moments of ease, when your mind was humming and words were flowing in days ahead.

Be grateful: Take a few moments throughout the day to give thanks for this expression of abundance in your life. The muses have smiled upon you and given you a gift. Just as we all do, they enjoy being appreciated.

Make a joyful noise: Let your friends know that you’re on a roll! We all find comfort from our writing buddies when we hit a dry spell. It’s equally important to share creative abundance! A rising tide lifts all boats — your good fortune can give your writer friends a boost.

Don’t try to analyze it: When you’re on a creative roll, it’s tempting to try to figure out how you got there so you can do it again. If there was a formula, we’d know about it! Just keep working, buoyed by the promise that more richly satisfying creativity lies ahead if you keep going.

Creative Joy and Abundance are so nourishing! They can sustain us over many a rough patch. Have you ever experienced a truly satisfying bout of creative energy? I’d love to hear about it as we all write on!

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A Boy, A Lake, A Sun

My little boy, the vast, still lake,
And the big low sun
Keep each other company
Now the day is done.

The child is quiet, and his curls
Are full of evening light,
He sits in utter confidence
On the edge of night.

A little golden bubble cast
Up from eternity,
The sun is just as much his friend
As the evening bee.

He does not know he is small
Or different or apart,
The sun is not a grander thing
Than a daisy’s heart.

But he is pleased to have me come
And moves to let me sit
Beside him and the setting sun,
And I am proud of it.

Robert P. Tristram Coffin

« How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. » Anne Frank

What a gentle, joyful spirit shines through Anne’s words! Today, June 12, is her birthday. She was born in 1929, but her lovely life was cut short. She spent her last few years hiding behind bookcases in the secret rooms of an attic in Amsterdam during World War II. Month after month, she lived her life in cramped quarters among difficult, frightened adults. And yet, she never lost hope, as we know from her amazing words, penned in her young hand in a classic memoir beloved from generation to generation, The Diary of Anne Frank. Some of her words of wisdom to light our way:

“Riches, prestige, everything can be lost. But the happiness in your heart can only be dimmed; it will always be there as long as you live, to make you happy again.”

“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God … I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.”

“We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.”

“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.”

“Human greatness does not lie in wealth or power, but in character and goodness.”

“An empty day, though clear and bright, is just as dark as any night.”

“As long as this exists, this sunshine and this cloudless sky, and as long as I can enjoy it, how can I be sad?”

“I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out.”

“People can tell you to keep your mouth shut, but that doesn’t stop you from having your own opinion.”

“No one has ever become poor by giving.”

“In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.”

“Where there’s hope, there’s life. It fills us with fresh courage and makes us strong again.”

“The good news is that you don’t know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!”

On August 1, 1944, Anne Frank wrote the last entry in her diary. “I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are still truly good at heart…” The Franks were arrested by the Gestapo three days later.

“What a bold, beautiful spirit! May her words inspire and uplift you as we all write on!