By Carol Grannick on December 31, 2010
This will be my last post at The Irrepressible Writer for awhile or forever, although it won’t be my last commentary on creating and maintaining resilience for the writer’s journey.
My tri-yearly column continues at Illinois-SCBWI’s The Prairie Wind and I’ll happily guest post, put my two cents into conversations, and remain available for consultation via [...]
Posted in Learned Resilience: How To Do It, Lessons From Life, Rethinking Writing Obstacles | Tagged How to Stop Negative Thinking, Resilience Workshop
By Carol Grannick on December 23, 2010
This site at the Chicago Botanic Gardens made me think: are there are times as a writer when you might feel like you’re just barely hanging on? When the obstacles of the writing life seem overwhelming and almost – almost – more than you can bear? You’re at the edge of despair, but not willing to [...]
Posted in Learned Resilience: How To Do It, Lessons From Life | Tagged negative feelings
By Carol Grannick on December 19, 2010
I’m so pleased to present this interview with Kate Messner, author of the brand-new SUGAR AND ICE ( Walker, 2010) and THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z. ( Walker 2010 ).
Here, Kate generously discusses writing resilience – having it, pumping it up, and reinforcing its importance in the writers’ journey.
If you struggle with [...]
Posted in Interviews: Resilience At Work, Learned Resilience: How To Do It | Tagged Kate Messner, SUGAR AND ICE, THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z., writers' resilience
By Carol Grannick on December 8, 2010
It seems to be human nature to want to begin anew by setting goals we can’t possibly meet.
So…nothing wrong with beginning anew as we come up on January 2011 (yikes!)…and nothing wrong with setting goals, even making resolutions or vows. Such activities are built in to our secular and many religious frameworks.
If you’re the type [...]
Posted in Learned Resilience: How To Do It, Rethinking Writing Obstacles | Tagged writing goals, writing resolutions
By Carol Grannick on November 25, 2010
This Thanksgiving week, I read two wonderful columns that talk about gratitude in different, yet linked ways.
For those of us who are always on the journey to create serious positivity, gratitude is considered to be a mainstay.
So here’s Mary Schmich from the Chicago Tribune and Robert Wright from the New York Times. They’ve both said [...]
Posted in Lessons From Life | Tagged gratitude
By Carol Grannick on November 18, 2010
I’m “re-visioning” a middle grade novel that is very close to my heart, and it’s feeling lovely. Of course I wish I could finish it quickly. Of course I know I shouldn’t, and can’t.
The other day on a visit to the Chicago Botanic Garden, the Zig-Zag Bridge joining the mainland to the Japanese Island validated [...]
Posted in Learned Resilience: How To Do It, Lessons From Life | Tagged revision, Transitions
By Carol Grannick on November 9, 2010
Speaking of transitions, which I did last week, every time you want to begin writing, you go through a mini-transition. For lots of writers, getting started each day can be hard.
Do you ever feel like you need a forklift to hoist yourself into your writing “place”?
Meredith Resnick of the Writers Inner Journey, talks about moving [...]
Posted in Learned Resilience: How To Do It, Lessons From Life | Tagged Writers' transitions
By Carol Grannick on November 4, 2010
I’ve blogged here about how transitions can be difficult periods.
Still, they’re not fun, so I keep forgetting that I always seem to need them.
Take my current transition between planning a revision and actually beginning the writing. It was like starting an old, faithful car in a Chicago winter that had been standing unused for a [...]
Posted in Learned Resilience: How To Do It, Lessons From Life | Tagged Transitions, Writing
By Carol Grannick on November 2, 2010
Elizabeth Bernstein’s recent article in the Wall Street Journal, “I’m Very, Very, Very Sorry…Really?” has powerful applications to your life as a resilient writer.
When you find yourself in the middle of a downward spiral of negativity and you don’t know how you got there, the best – albeit a little goofy-sounding – solution is to [...]
Posted in Uncategorized
By Carol Grannick on October 28, 2010
Sometimes you have to trade one kind of positivity to get even more of another.
In the writing life, that can mean putting aside a manuscript you’d love to keep working on because you’ll have a fresher, probably stronger, perspective for the “re-visioning” to come.
In the first years of writing for children I didn’t have [...]
Posted in Lessons From Life, Rethinking Writing Obstacles | Tagged positivity, positivity for writers
