Falling Off the Writing Wagon (or No, My Brain Wasn't Eaten by a Zombie)

You must write every single day of your life...
You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders 

to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads...

may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. 

And out of that love, remake a world."

~ Ray Bradbury

June is the FLX/WordCount Blogathon!  Join us for 30 Days of blogging madness!

E

very time I thought about writing a post last week, I felt exhausted.  Tired, drained and unmotivated were the trending words in my little writerly bubble.

Basically, I had a six year old living in my head all week:

But I don’ wanna write!

No one reads my writing anyway!

I wanna read!

I’m bored!

Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!

A couple of sleepless nights didn’t do the little brat any favours either.  Add to that, severe adrenal fatigue, the possibility of Lyme, and an unhappy digestive tract (bet you saw that one coming) and you have a recipe for a writerly clusterfudge of epic proportions.

Also known as lethargy.

Also known as radio silence.

Also known as writer’s block.

I didn’t just fall off the Blogathon wagon, I rolled down the hill, through a cow patty, and into a haystack.

Where I stayed, on my back, staring blindly at a blank paper sky. 

Image credit: Quickmeme

Just Keep Writing, Just Keep Writing

But what is the one rule of writing that all writers must learn and re-learn? 

Just write.  Type until you can’t type anymore and your hands look like claws and your wrists fall off and your eyes are as “raw as meat in a butcher shop.”*

Even if it’s gobbledygook. 

Even if it’s  painful. 

Even if it’s messy. 

Even if it’s rough.

And don’t stop.

Because if you stop writing, you’ll start editing.  Erasing.  Cursing.  Eating things you shouldn’t (hence the rebellious digestive tract), and eventually, you’ll stop writing altogether.

The only time it’s acceptable to stop writing is when you’re out living and listening.  So you have something to write about.

Or reading.  So you have writing prompts that will kick start your writing.

Or if a zombie ate your brains.  Because then your thoughts would really be scattered and your writing wouldn't make any sense.

So you didn’t blog all 30 days.  Did you write every day or read something that you could write about later?  Yes?  Great!  Then it was a success!

The Three Rs: Rest, Reading and a little Rx

But my name isn’t Pollyanna or Bright Eyes, or Dorothy.   And sometimes, even the smallest task is simply too difficult when you are exhausted and tired and starting a new medication.

That whole myth about writers and artists churning out masterpieces while high or drunk is definitely a myth.  Not that I was high or drunk, but the new medication…oh wait, it was to help calm me down and make me feel happy. I think.

Nevermind.  Maybe it’s not a myth.  Still not really that interested in testing it out.  Oh, Mythbusters!  Yoo hoo!

Bottom line: I wrote abso-freakin-lutely nothing last week.   Instead, I threw myself a writer’s pity party.  Anne Shirley would have loved it.  I was in the depths of despair over my lack of talent and my shoddy consistency ~ blame it on the ADD. Wait.  Isn’t that a song? 

But I read.  A lot.  Some really good stuff.  Some gloriously trashy stuff.  Some books I laughed at ~ not because they were funny, but because they were just that awful.  Some made me cry.

And some…inspired the Muse.

Which is the whole point of reading when you can’t write and writing all the time even if it’s horse caca.  Because that fickle, beautiful Muse ~ she better not find you napping.  Or at the least, without some way of capturing the bones she throws you.

I mean, it looks like she was also able to get that inner 6 year old to shut up and go play in someone else’s head.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

Inviting Perfection: Why Failing is Okay

I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each, it is the performance of a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes, in some area, an athlete of God. Practice means to perform, over and over again in the face of all obstacles, some act of vision, of faith, of desire. Practice is a means of inviting the perfection desired.
~ Martha Graham

June is the FLX/WordCount Blogathon!  Join us for 30 Days of blogging madness!

Y

esterday I talked about whether blogging every day in a challenge would overwhelm readers and inadvertently force the writer to post less than stellar work.

Then I tweeted it to Jeff Goins.

I got schooled…and told some really great advice. 

Writing every day is a habit every writer should cultivate.  And if being part of a blog challenge is how you do it (like me), then that is what you use it for.

We should always be putting forth our best work, but we shouldn’t be afraid to put our words out there at all.  Nobody is perfect; every failure is an opportunity to learn and do better next time.

This is a concept a lot of us struggle with.

The pressure to perform at your peak 100% of the time is ingrained in many of us from a young age.  Failure is seen, not as an opportunity to learn, but an embarrassment to be avoided at all costs.

But think about it.  What is the best part of watching your favorite TV show or movie?  Yes the action was realistic.  The CGI was elegantly executed.  The plot artistically written.  The actors were at their peak.  But all of that pales in comparison to. . .

The gag reel.

I love watching my favorite actors burst out laughing right in the middle of a line.  Or completely forgetting their lines.  And their co-stars doing outrageous things on purpose to mess them up?  Classic.

Tell me the Neutron Cream Prank during the filming of Star Trek: Into Darkness wasn’t just beautiful.

Do you know why we love this?

Because it makes these larger than life stars seem closer.  They make mistakes.  They don’t get it absolutely perfect the first go ‘round.  They love to goof off as much as we do.

They’re human. 

And so are we.  So fail! Fail brilliantly!  Because the important thing about any art is the act of making it.  It brings us closer to ourselves, closer to our destinies, closer to our audience.  And closer to our own humanity.

And doing so invites the perfection we desire.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

What are your daily writing habits?

Write Like A Boy Scout: Why a Writer Should Always Be Prepared

Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it's always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.

~ Neil Gaiman

June is the FLX/WordCount Blogathon!  Join us for 30 Days of blogging madness!

W

riters need to be Boy Scouts: always prepared.

Stories and ideas come from everywhere and no matter how good you think your memory is, if you don’t keep paper or a recording device at hand, you are going to forget some of them.

Of course, some ideas sound way better in our heads.  The old parable is dead on: don’t separate the wheat from the chaff before you harvest, you might pull up some wheat by accident.  Which is another reason it is good to write them down ~ so you can view them in the cold light of the blank page. 

Editing should always come after you’ve puked your guts out, not before.

Sometimes you have to sacrifice a little for your craft.  No one gets by on talent alone.  On Saturday, I gave up an hour of canoeing with friends to write this.  I knew if I didn’t, I would not only miss out on spending some precious time alone, but I would feel unhappy and unfulfilled.  As well as lose some valuable story seeds.

Even if some of them turn out to be weeds not wheat, at least I took the time to plant something.

Writing for Mental Health

The other seeds that are planted when writing down ideas, emotions, perceptions, etc. are seeds of mental well-being.  Because I suffer from cyclothymic depression and mild ADD, it is easy to forget the highs, the good days when the thunder clouds settle in the brain.  In fact, many therapists encourage their patients to keep a journal. 

For the past few days (Saturday was the exception), I felt like I had nothing worth saying, nothing worth sharing.  Intellectually, I may understand that isn’t true.  But the inner child throws a tantrum and wails that she doesn’t want to write.  Stomp! Stomp!  She just wants to retreat to her room (real or imaginary) and read, read, read. 

Not that reading is bad.  A good writer is always reading ~ it’s one way we hone our craft.  But we shouldn’t read to the detriment of our writing.

The other reason it is good to push and write through the bad days, is that by the very act of writing and documenting my depression ~ the highs, the lows, the insecurities, the deep sad ~ I keep the writing muscle in play.

Think of any exercise regimen.  There are days you want to stop ~ you’re bored, you’re tired, you’re busy ~ but if you do stop, it’s more difficult to get back on the treadmill, into the pool, etc.  And lose you some of the ground you’ve gained.

The same can be said of writing.  Writing every day ~ even if it’s crappy writing ~ keeps the ink flowing.  And I have to remind myself of this during periods like this ~ when I feel like an utter failure and like the poorest writer on the planet.  Eventually, I’ll prove myself wrong on that score, and write more things I’m proud of.

I just need to make sure I’m prepared to gather the wheat when it ripens.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

How do you capture ideas on the run? Do you find that writing helps you deal with your depression or other form of mental illness?