By Carol Grannick on April 28, 2010
Here’s my office.
To me, it’s the best room in our home. Two windows looking out on an open street with trees bring in light from sunup to sundown, and many of my favorite office ‘mates’ line the shelves and walls – books, sculpture, prints and wall-hangings.
A perfect place to write…in my mind, a [...]
Posted in Rethinking Writing Obstacles | Tagged writing dreams
By Carol Grannick on April 20, 2010
One day we feel fine, and then we don’t.
In part, that’s because we’re always changing, and our feelings come and go.
One of the ways to pull yourself back into a positive space is to reach out for help.
Recently, I began to sense my inner Medusa waking, but she wasn’t threatening writers’ block. No, it was [...]
Posted in Rethinking Writing Obstacles | Tagged feeling overwhelmed
By Carol Grannick on April 13, 2010
If you want to stay in an upward spiral of positive emotion, or need to nip a negative spiral in the bud, it’s helpful to think of yourself as a hunter-gatherer, searching for and collecting events, experiences and mementos of positivity that you can pull out and use as you need them. It will create [...]
Posted in Learned Resilience: How To Do It | Tagged creating positive emotions, Poetry
By Carol Grannick on April 6, 2010
When you welcome or tolerate them as natural responses, negative feelings pass. That’s the good news.
The bad news? Positive feelings pass, too! And since positive emotions are “lighter” than negative, Dr. Barbara Fredrickson’s research has shown, so far, that a 3:1 ratio of positive emotions to negative emotions is helpful in maintaining an Upward Spiral.
Which [...]
Posted in Learned Resilience: How To Do It | Tagged Barbara Fredrickson, feelings, Ph.D., Upward Spiral
By Carol Grannick on March 29, 2010
I was honored to guest post this week at Meredith Resnick’s Writers’ Inner Journey. If you mosey on over to check out the post on “Letting In The Light: Overcoming Negative Self-Talk”, I encourage you to dive into the site’s wonderful explorations of creativity. Meredith’s interviews are concise and perceptive, probing authors’ and writing professionals’ [...]
Posted in Learned Resilience: How To Do It | Tagged negative self-talk
By Carol Grannick on March 23, 2010
When writers share their struggles with staying resilient and persevering on the writing journey, it helps us all. This is the first of The Irrepressible Writer interviews with writers published, unpublished, known and unknown.
Here, a Houston-based critique group, Will Write For Cake generously shares their thoughts, feelings, struggles and tools for maintaining resilience. First, meet [...]
Posted in Interviews: Resilience At Work | Tagged critique groups, writers' resilience
By Carol Grannick on March 7, 2010
The most frequent way I decrease negativity that’s beginning to feel inappropriate or unproductive is by disputing negative thoughts, because most often, they are incorrect. Of course, it’s always important to remember that negative emotions are perfectly appropriate for many situations; it’s when they feel inappropriate, prolonged and damaging to your energy, productivity and creativity [...]
Posted in Learned Resilience: How To Do It | Tagged negative self-talk, negative thoughts
By Carol Grannick on March 3, 2010
At #kidlitchat on Twitter Tuesday night, March 2, @gregpincus and @bonnieadamson (facilitators of the weekly chat) asked what book or books had inspired us to begin writing for children.
We began on track, then (not unproductively) veered over into books we loved, books that had had impact on us.
I said that, at least on a conscious [...]
Posted in Lessons From Life | Tagged Dr. Seuss
By Carol Grannick on February 25, 2010
This morning as I savored my organic, fair-trade coffee from Costco, I leafed through my Cook’s Garden catalogue, and dreams of spring and summer rushed in.
Now, I’ve gotten much better about living in the present, and have tried to maximize my experience of winter by enjoying the inside life, and not having a tantrum when [...]
Posted in Rethinking Writing Obstacles | Tagged dreaming, writing dreams
By Carol Grannick on February 23, 2010
What I’m saying is this: if you want to become more resilient, you’ll have to work hard at it. You have to teach your brain to think differently in order to become more resilient, more “irrepressible”.
But it does take hold. Even if you hit periods of difficulty during which have to work harder than usual at creating positive emotions.
Posted in Lessons From Life | Tagged learned optimism
