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 email, phone and in person.

My decision to take a long hiatus or permanent separation from The Irrepressible Writer blog has to do with the very positive need, yearning really, to allow all of my creative energies focus on my current work in progress, as well as on personal essays I’ve set aside for several years.

It’s not a matter of time, nor of physical energy or life-related obstacles. It’s more of a longing to let myself soak, even sink completely, into my other writing. E.L. Konigsberg, via Mrs. Basil E. Frankenweiler (FROM THE MIXED-UP FILES OF MRS. BASIL E. FRANKWEILER) describes the point in time for this goodbye best:

“No, I don’t agree with [the need to learn one new thing every day]. I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal. but you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside you. If you never take time out to let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside you. You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them.”

The time feels right, since I’ve provided a volume of practical and philosophical suggestions based on theory and life, for any writer who struggles with staying resilient and either needs reminders, brush-up-on-optimism tips, or a full course in how to discover, build and maintain resilience. At the end of this post, I offer a step-by-step self-directed “workshop” of links for you, or for future readers.

I leave the blog feeling positive, and positively, about the ability of learned and practiced optimism (optimism by choice, rather than by nature) to change a life, and certainly to decrease the time and energy (and therefore brain capacity) spent in gratuitous negativity.

As writers we face an onslaught of challenges. If you weren’t born with ready-made resilience, you can work hard to create it. When you challenge your mind to think differently, your feelings follow. With practice, with daily choices to learn an optimistic explanatory style instead of pessimistic, you’ll feel increasingly natural about it all. You’ll notice that in response to the vicissitudes of a writer’s life, your skin feels, not tough, but elastic.

Taking time out to let things be…and wishing you well.                        

Self-Directed Resilience Workshop:

http://theirrepressiblewriter.com/2009/11/11/why-jump-in-to-optimism-when-youre-so-familiar-with-despair/

http://theirrepressiblewriter.com/2009/11/13/youve-got-style-which-one-will-it-be/

http://theirrepressiblewriter.com/2009/11/10/wherever-you-are-thats-where-youll-start/

http://theirrepressiblewriter.com/2009/11/12/your-very-first-step-no-even-before-that-one/

http://theirrepressiblewriter.com/2010/04/06/feelings-are-transient-the-good-news-and-the-bad/

http://theirrepressiblewriter.com/2009/11/09/how-to-dispute-pessimistic-thinking/

http://theirrepressiblewriter.com/2010/03/07/tip-for-disputing-negative-thoughts/

http://theirrepressiblewriter.com/2010/01/26/when-youre-being-negative-what-if-youre-wrong/

http://theirrepressiblewriter.com/2009/12/10/writers-unblock-tips-catching-your-negativity-spiral/

http://theirrepressiblewriter.com/2009/12/07/writers-unblock-tips-when-youre-overwhelmed/

http://theirrepressiblewriter.com/2009/11/19/three-things-you-need-to-become-a-more-resilient-writer/

http://theirrepressiblewriter.com/2010/09/23/create-resilience-positive-emotions-by-choice/

The Writer’s Journey:

http://theirrepressiblewriter.com/2010/09/08/resilient-you-open-to-pain/

http://theirrepressiblewriter.com/2010/08/31/michelangelos-advice/

http://theirrepressiblewriter.com/2010/07/20/journey-to-positivity/

http://theirrepressiblewriter.com/2010/07/13/when-should-i-quit/

http://theirrepressiblewriter.com/2010/09/14/rabbi-susyas-advice/

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 of person who finds that you fairly quickly fall short of your New Year goals, you might want to adjust them this time around.

Re-think how you phrase your goals, and make them more realistic and optimistic.  You might preface your resolutions or goals with a phrase such as, “I’m going to make my very best effort to _____________”

The phrase does a couple of things:

1. It softens the promise to yourself, which is not a bad thing, because it takes into account your humanness, and the realities of the world around you.

2. It asks you gently to strive to use your strengths to the best of your ability, which varies from day to day.

These two tips can measurably improve your success with your goals in the coming year. Why? Because they automatically acknowledge that obstacles exist, and that you may not always feel absolutely successful.

That will be way better for your writer’s resilience than falling short.

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 an easy time going along with the  recommended advice to put away a first draft for awhile.

While the advice made perfect intellectual sense, I garnered too much positive energy by continuing to work on a manuscript.

But over time and through many manuscripts, indulging in the positivity of instant gratification became less positive…and less gratifying. It never really got my manuscript where I wanted it to be.

I knew I wanted to do things differently with this work-in-progress, so in June I put that manuscript away for the summer, and only looked at it this week. The excitement of seeing it with fresh eyes was well worth the delayed gratification of almost five months of keeping it in a drawer.

But even now, I’m holding myself back from jumping into the revision. Now that my manuscript’s back in my hands, I’m reining myself in, helping myself to feel cautious and careful as I ponder and plan.

I’m trading the positivity of instant gratification for the positivity of the prize at the end of my work (if there is an end!) – a story that comes close to the dream I have in my heart and mind.

How has this trade-off been for you?

If you’ve ever faced unwanted empty writing time between projects, or while waiting to hear from an editor, critique partners or agent, you may know what I mean.

Sure, you know the solution: “Get to work on something else.” But what if nothing else is pulling at you? What if you just don’t feel like you can begin something new? What if your brain can’t even come up with one single idea?

The two paths below show how you can choose to head into a downward spiral, or keep yourself a productive and resilient writer. The framework below is modeled on Martin Seligman’s ABCDE dispute format.

PATH ONE – Pessministic Explanatory Style: Here’s how a downward spiral can begin:

A (the “Adversity”): The plan for my internal deadline on this next revision is pushed back.

B (the “Belief”): in pessimistic explanatory style:

Maybe the agent and editor who were interested in my manuscript won’t be by the time I finish the revision?

Maybe somebody else will write a book like this before I finish mine…

Maybe I won’t be able to do the necessary revisions even when I do get it back…

I can’t even think of anything else I really want to work on!

C: (the “Consequences”): the emotional consequences of the statement above might be a sinking feeling, a little agitation, and a sadly-inviting blanket that could wrap you in more negative self-talk, becoming angry at yourself for doing negative self-talk, etc.

The result of that? Productivity down. And then usually, more negativity. And then, further loss of energy and productivity.

This is where you might often feel stuck. But you have a choice, even if you’ve come this far down the road. Maybe especially if you’ve come this far…So, here’s where PATH TWO (optimistic explanatory style) begins:

D: (the “Dispute”: a ‘dispute’ is a rational, less catastrophic challenge to your negative thoughts; for more details, go here):

Okay, wait a minute. This is interesting. I’m doing this because I have my heart in a manuscript that I can’t work on right now. That’s hard, but there’s nothing else I can do to speed it up. And even when I get it, the revision is likely to take longer than I think!

This isn’t helping me. In fact, it’s a big energy drain.

Whether or not the editor or agent is still interested is not in my control; getting upset about the possibility is distracting and draining.

I don’t even know what else I feel like writing right now; I don’t have another big idea; but I can certainly find productive ways to spend my writing time: 1) submitting polished manuscripts that need to go out again; 2) writing blog posts ahead of schedule to reduce the pressure on me once I begin working on my revision; 3) pitching some articles to writing blogs and magazines; 4) getting out of the house into my writing “office” so that I can see what comes.

E (this symbolizes “energization” – i.e., the positive energy the dispute has created):

Yep, I already feel better. Focused, productive. By the time I get to my revision, I’ll have lots of useful things done, and be able to go into it feeling that I’ve not wasted the waiting time!

Have you been able to use ‘disputing’ to change your path? Does anything seem to stand in the way of doing that? I’d love to hear your thoughts…

If you’re a writer who’s faced self-doubt, failure, rejection, and despair you may know how difficult it becomes to maintain hope. Hope that someday someone will pay you for your writing and others will read your words and be moved and changed.

And you may know from  your own experience, and this blog, the work it takes for many writers to create and keep resilience. That means not developing a “tough” skin (if you’re a reader of mine, you know I’m not big on “tough skin”) but an elastic one. An elastic mind, heart and soul that can (learn to) bounce back in the face of adversity.

It’s foolish to pretend that it doesn’t matter if we get published or not. But when it’s the only focus – as if it will end the negativity – it can become a driving force for even more negativity. And if it’s not happening soon enough for you, there’s no where to turn that negativity except on yourself.

You can’t learn to be more resilient because the only thing that matters is “the facts” – i.e., you’re not getting published and that’s “bad”. You can’t live in the moment and get satisfaction and meaning from your writer’s journey because publication is essential, psychologically or financially, or both.

One thing I’ve learned in my own writer’s journey is the absence of control I have over most factors necessary to publication. I’ve chosen to focus on the one thing I can absolutely control – the quality of my work.

And I’ve learned other facts. Most writers have income sources other than their writing, from a spouse and/or another profession or job. If you need an income from your writing, it’s incumbent upon you to explore freelance or contract possibilities.

I say this in the most caring way I’m able: tell yourself the truth about whether you might be feeling a little sorry for yourself…as if you deserve more than what you’re getting. There’s no shame in it; it’s normal. It’s just not helpful. And really? It’s not true. Nobody “deserves” or “doesn’t deserve.”

When we feel sorry for ourselves, we talk to ourselves in negative ways – and that just solidifies the closure on creativity, energy and action.

I’ll say it again: your brain reacts to how you talk to yourself.

So…If you think you should quit writing because you’re not getting published, you need to disconnect your writing from publication.

Do it by challenging yourself with this provocative question: If I knew for sure that I would never be published in any way, shape or form, would I stop writing?

If the answer is “no”, think or write about the following without ever referring to being published:

• Why must I write? What is inside me that absolutely must come out via the written word?
• How do I feel when and after writing?
• How do I feel when I don’t write for awhile? Why do I return to it?

These aren’t easy questions. They’re private, often intense. If you can’t answer them yourself, and you’re struggling with these issues, please reach out for help.

Because I think the only reason to quit is if you don’t have to write. If you need income, join the mobs of writers who work to bring in money and keep health insurance, and write in the wee hours of the morning, or late at night. The ability to tell yourself the truth about what you need to do should be a positive thing, not a self-punishment.

Nothing I’ve learned over all the years I’ve been alive, no way I’ve come to change or develop, has replaced the need to put what’s deep inside me into written words.

And it’s that knowledge – and trust of myself and my need to make sense of my inner world – that keeps me on this difficult and wonderful journey.

How about you?

Jenny is the author of the young adult novel QUEEN OF SECRETS which the Horn Book called “a powerful story.” She is also the author of the humorous chapter book THIRD GRADE BABY. Jenny lives in Riverwoods, Illinois with her husband and three children.

THE IRREPRESSIBLE WRITER: What are the specific difficulties you have struggled (continue to struggle) with as part of your writing journey?

Well, first there is simply getting myself to start writing. This is often a daily challenge and I think my biggest challenge. It’s so easy to procrastinate to the point where there isn’t enough time left in the day to get any actual writing done. After that, the thing I have the most trouble with is when a book is released and all the turbulent emotions that go along with that. I find the process (which I’ve only gone through twice) makes me feel extremely raw and vulnerable.

As for the stuff in between, the point I get to with each manuscript where I believe it cannot be fixed, or that I’m not good enough to fix it…well for today at least I feel as though I’m at a point in my writing journey where I can understand and recognize that as a stage in the process even while I’m in it. (Although I’m not in it right now, so that answer might be different if you ask me a few months from now.)

TIW: How have you handled these difficulties? What helps? What doesn’t help?

The getting started with writing is one that I am always looking for new ways to handle. At the moment, working with a timer has been extremely helpful. I set the timer to the amount of time, push go and write without break until it goes off. I used to do an hour but lately have tried the Pomodoro Technique which advocates repeat sessions of 25 minutes with varying breaks between and I think that works really well for me. But ultimately I think it’s about fostering the habit of writing for me. When I get into a groove writing everyday it’s much easier to stay in the groove. When life gets in the way for more than a few days it’s very hard to get back into my writing zone.

Alas, I haven’t solved this problem for myself yet. The best I can do is not beat myself up about it and do the best I can.

Now for the challenges of a book release: I don’t think I’m quite as far along in dealing with this one. The whole process really throws me for a loop, the extremes of ego inflation and deflation are exhausting and completely useless, actually. Neither can help me grow as a writer. I try as best I can to keep distance between my self and my work but other than repeating that as a mantra and turning off Google alerts, I’m not sure I’ve figured out to much about how to deal with the sense of exposure it provokes in me. Hopefully I’ll get a lot more chances to grow and learn about it in the future.

TIW: What is the single most important part of your life (this could be a phrase, a person, a group) that helps you reinforce your resilience as a writer?

I don’t know if I can point to one single thing. What helps me get through is always different depending on the day, the thought, the issue. But one thing I’ve learned in recent years that I do think has been extremely valuable has to do with the nature of thoughts and feelings.

First, thoughts are just thoughts, not truths and that they can be examined and disputed. This might sounds obvious, but it wasn’t until recently that I learned if I had the thought “this writing is terrible” that I didn’t just have to believe it. I could respond to my own thought. “This is a first draft, I’m just exploring the story right now not writing perfect sentences.”

Second, feelings are transient. When I feel low about a review I know that I’m only going to feel that way for an hour or so and then I will feel better. This again might seem obvious, but I truly used to think that if I felt bad about something, I would feel that way forever. Knowing that I won’t makes it much easier to get through it.

TIW: How do you see (or not see) your own beliefs about and/or experience with resilience figuring into your characters or stories? Do you want to highlight aspects of resilience deliberately? or do you find that resilience is simply part of how our characters have to evolve in order to create strong stories?

I don’t know that I’ve ever thought about it in terms of my characters. After the fact I can certainly look at my stories and see that some characters have more resilience than others, or how lack of resilience caused problems in characters lives, but I think this is something that just comes about naturally. Stories are about big moments in character’s lives, changes and conflicts, so how resilient a character is has to come in to play, but I’d prefer to let this evolve organically rather than try to demonstrate or teach.

TIW: Thanks for sharing so much with us, Jenny. You validate so many important points – that feelings are transient; that not beating yourself up is always Step One; that negative self-talk is often not true, and can and should be challenged; and that maintaining resilience is a journey. Best of luck with QUEEN OF SECRETS and your future work!

I hope you’ll enjoy her – here, and there!

by Meredith Resnick

This is my story about how to avoid stagnation. Actually, it is a post about growth.

I love getting a piece of writing to work. And by work I mean flow—which actually implies that I’ve stepped back and let the words—the work—happen. My ego, on the other hand, would like to take credit for working a piece to death and, in the process, grinding my creativity to pieces. It’s true. I try not to let my ego do my writing for me anymore. Sometimes I succumb. It’s usually the result of comparing my work to someone else’s. I would have hoped to have grown out of that by now but, oh well. If I share my experience with you it will help me, too. So, here goes:

I was the kind of writer that went out and found the right words. Really dug for them. I could spend hours researching a term. There is a place for this type of finishing-touch treatment and—lo and behold—it comes somewhere in the final stages of editing. In other words, it happens best, for me anyway, at the end, after the bulk of writing (story finding) is complete.

If I go out and dig for words too quickly, or scour my brain or dictionary for the perfect metaphor before I’ve found the real story I’m writing, I go insane. Once I’m in the insane place I keep trying this approach. Over and over. The insanity comes, not only in the seeking of the perfect words but after I’ve stepped back and realized the words I’ve chosen don’t fit or mean anything to me. If you’ve ever gone on a binge of any kind, you know what I mean.

But because I worked so hard and dug so deep for a string (gossamer) of beautiful (pulchritudinous) words, I’m likely to not want to let go of them—ever. I start trying to find ways to keep a certain sentence, to mold the story around a turn of phrase. I often fall into the trap of overdoing the flow part. Well, yeah. That’s the flip side. It’s what happens if every writing session is about letting my mind and pen just go wherever they want, all my work turns into a disjointed slew that requires hours of dissection. So instead of finding the perfect words out there in the dictionary, I’m on a treasure hunt across 10 new journals I’ve penned. I may look busy. But I’m spinning (in place). Same stagnation, different disguise.

Granted, I’ll unearth a few gems waiting to be polished (or maybe they come ready to use). But the time I spend untangling the jungle of roots (beginning of ideas) instead of growing those ideas is more stagnation. I waste more time and energy trying to surgically extract the phrases that work from the stuff surrounding it. I get bogged down, pent up and tired. The joy of sitting down to accomplish turns into make-work that keeps me from moving forward. For a writer, this is stagnation.

So what to do? Here’s what I do:

Understand that when I sit down to write I’m treading two paths: I’m simultaneously finding the story and relaying the story with language that moves the story along. In the beginning and middle, I keep my eyes on the finding the story, not on finding the words.

I resist the urge to be seduced by teachers and books and workshops and websites that tell me to focus too soon on technique. (My ego likes those.) Instead, I pay attention to teachers who say simple things like: “Keep going.”

I don’t get bogged down in “the language” and “the turn of phrase” and “the big brush strokes” and any number of other writer catch phrases I may have heard or read about. That comes later. And later always comes as long as I dedicate myself to the process in the correct order: Write first, edit (word find, cut, revise, finesse) second.

Understand that I do have a story to tell. As do we all.

It’s not just the negative self-talk that wastes your writing time. It’s the negative self-talk over and over. And over.

Ruminating is a common and unhappy, unproductive activity. And the desire to “just say no” and switch it off can be unsuccessful.

In fact, yelling at Rumination to stop often kicks in a bigger and “better” version. Something bothers us and we’re off and running. We analyze, examine, explore whatever’s on our mind. Maybe we’ll figure out a new angle, a missing piece of information, an answer. We start yelling at ourselves when that doesn’t happen, but we try harder.

Vacuumed into that kind of negativity cycle, we never find what we want – answers, or control over whatever bothered us in the first place. Because the negativity that accompanies rumination fuels it, as well. The negative state  you’re in gets your brain working double-time finding new and not-so-charming negative thoughts, and your downward spiral pulls you in.

When you add rumination to even a bit of negative feeling, it can explode into a major negative emotional experience, even depression. And because you’re ruminating, you can’t see things clearly enough to challenge your irrational thinking.

Here are 3 tips for loosening the tight grasp of rumination:

1. NOTICE that you’re ruminating. Noticing will take you one step outside of the experience, and you need that distance. Develop a catch phrase to remind yourself to notice and write it down, then post it somewhere obvious.
2. ACKNOWLEDGE that the ruminating won’t do you any good, now or in the future, and that it does harm you and waste a huge amount of time. You might ask  yourself, “How do I want to spend the time of my life?”
3. FIND A DISTRACTION THAT ENGAGES BODY, MIND, SPIRIT OR ALL THREE: You aren’t necessarily looking for enjoyment alone, but heartfelt engagement. Something that uses physical, intellectual and/or emotional energy and truly distracts. That kind of engagement breaks the downward spiral and the rumination and builds positive emotions. Unhealthy distractions are transient, and often trigger a new dose of negativity that gets you yelling about the unhealthy distraction (food when you’re not at all hungry; alcohol; smoking; etc.).

Develop a list of reliable, engaging activities that you can “call on” in the face of rumination.

Once you disrupt your rumination, you’re in position to dispute your negative thoughts (want to learn how or get a refresher course? check out this blogpost…and don’t hesitate to contact me if you have questions!

Ruminating writer? You probably have better ways to spend your time, right?

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 dream office.

But instead, I take my paper and pad and write at a conversation-buzzing coffee shop a mile and a half from the house.

Why?

Because I can’t work in this dream office.

That’s not quite true, because I do work there. I see clients for counseling, therapy, coaching.

But I don’t write in the office I made perfect for writing. Because for whatever reasons, I am easily distractable, and discovered awhile ago that I do my best writing away from home, in an environment that strangely creates positivity not because it is beautiful or perfectly quiet, but because it is humming with the kind of noise that helps me concentrate.

So positivity, particularly positivity for the writing life, comes in part from knowing exactly who you are and what you need at any given time, and trying to find a good match for those needs.

Dreams that don’t come true, or at least that get turned on their heads, are part of our characters’ lives, and ours, as well.

And although the disappointment of a dream that doesn’t come true may be very real, the positive emotion created when we take pleasure in the dream’s new form is nurturing.

If we see them as lovely surprises, opportunities, possibilities, dreams with new faces help us flourish.

Have you experienced this? Have you made changes to how or where you write, or what you write about, because you’ve realized your original “dream plan” was just not right for you?

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 definitely social media block. Not that I’m the most active writer on the social media block. I’m definitely not. But for me, beginning to blog on a regular basis, and entering the Twitter and Facebook world, was a big step out.

It was exciting and I was proud of myself for reaching out into the cyberworld. But I’m basically an introvert, and although I love to connect with people, I’m not a big-party person, nor a person who needs or wants constant socialization. I like small groups, individual contacts, and I need plenty of time by myself, as well.

So the hours I was spending with blogs, Twitter and Facebook began to drain me. I wanted to leave it all behind and concentrate on my work-in-progress.

I’d pull away for a few days, then re-enter. At the same time, I happened upon entries in two of my favorite blogs: Shrinking Violet Promotions and Writers Inner Journey. And then my daily email from Greg Pincus’ The Happy Accident dealt with another angle of the same issue – where and how do you spend your time, and why?

Even though I felt supported and validated by these posts, I decided to reach out to Greg for a check-in consultation. I’d gotten started on social media after a webinar with Greg and Mark Blevis.

I knew I’d get a common sense, empathic, and practical response from Greg about my predicament – wanting to stay involved and build connections for myself as a writer and writer’s therapist, but not wanting the social media to become a chore, instead of a pleasure. And not wanting to compromise my writing time and space.

If I knew that, you might ask, why did I need the consultation?

Because I did. Because it helps. Because it’s comforting. Because Greg knows way more than I do about the business of social media, but he also respects that I know more about myself than anyone else does. And because I knew I’d end the hour of phone consultation with a solution for my problem.

With Greg’s respect for who I am and what I want to do, we talked through a social media plan that is a better fit for where I’m at right now, what my goals are right now, how I’m feeling right now. He reminded me that “presence” is not necessarily quantity, and that I am still “there” even when I am not as constantly active.

So, once again, very specific steps and skills created a positive emotional state. For my writing and for my life, that’s crucial:

1. Always the first step, and I think most important: a compassionate or at least neutral assessment of what you’re going through. When you’re annoyed with yourself for whatever you happen to be experiencing, or wish you weren’t feeling it or going through it, you’re stuck.

You’d be surprised how far compassion for yourself goes in eliminating emotional angst.

2. Trust what you need and want and talk to someone who respects that trust.

3. Make a plan that is a “good match” for exactly what you need right now, knowing that the plan may or may not change in the future.

How about for your writing life? Are there writers or writing-related professionals on whom you depend for rational feedback that creates positive emotion for you?