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Ready, Set…Pause?

by | Coaching 101, Discouragement, Publication

Do you dream of publication? Do you yearn to see your name on the cover of a book? Do you long to have your words touch others?

Maybe you’ve already reached the milestone of publication and now you’re pressing toward new dreams: a multitude of followers, rave reviews, bestseller lists. Not because you’re chasing success, but because you long to impact readers with a message that’s moved you. Changed you.

Whether you’re at the starting block or already racing toward your goals, you’re likely focused on the finish line.

But what if the race is a marathon and you were expecting a sprint?

You’ve run and run and now your legs feel leaden and your lungs ache. It seems the end is nowhere in sight. Did you miss a marker? Are you off course?

Do you push forward?

Or do you quit?

Maybe, you simply pause…

Last week, after nearly thirty years of writing, publishing, and impact, while staring at yet another blank Word document, a long to-do list whirring in my mind, discouragement called my name. And I answered. For an hour or so, discouragement and a few of his unsavory friends—frustration, fear, and fatigue—worked hard to pull me off course.

Fortunately, I’ve run this race long enough to recognize when it’s time to slow my pace, or even pause.

So, what does it look like to pause on the course? Do you step off and enjoy a long weekend at a spa? If that’s an option for you, do it!

But for many of us, a pause may prove more mundane. After I walked away from my computer last week, my pause included organizing a shelf in my closet and unloading the dishwasher. The tasks gave me a sense of having finished something. A completed project, whatever it is, offers an emotional boost. More importantly, the tasks gave my mind space to roam, to remember, and ultimately to reboot.

Here are a few tips for when it’s your turn to pause on the course:

Let Your Mind Meander

Choose an activity that requires little focus, something rote. Let your mind wander. It’s often during those times when our best ideas present themselves, or the solution to a problem comes to us. How many times has a brilliant thought shown up while you were in the shower?

Pay Attention to Your Thoughts

While giving your mind space to wander is valuable, you must also pay attention to your thoughts and tune out those that accuse or condemn. They’re not helpful. Ever. Instead, listen for thoughts that inform the project you’ve walked away from, thoughts that offer new insight, and thoughts that encourage you.

Recall Your Reasons

In order to get back in the race, it’s helpful to rehearse, on occasion, your reason for entering in the first place. Recall your compelling why and let it motivate you. If you’ve created a mission statement, recite it. If you can’t recall or come up with a sound purpose to support the project you’ve walked away from, maybe it’s time to reevaluate.

If after you’ve taken some time away from your work you find you’re still stuck or struggling, call in your cheering section. We all need others who will cheer us on, those who know why we began running in the first place, those who will come alongside us and help us, if necessary, cross the finish line to “The End.”

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What’s Your Why?

by | Coaching 101

 

Why do you write?

Why do you put fingers to keyboard and pound out words?

Why do you push forward?

Most people who embark on a writing adventure discover writing is hard, sometimes excruciating, work. It’s work that requires much, including long periods of silence and isolation, or at least mental and focal separation. It’s work that is often accompanied by rejection, frustration, and discouragement.

For some, writing is also deep emotional work that requires holding thoughts and opinions to the light, sifting painful memories, and dredging for courage.

For others it is spiritual work that requires examining beliefs, trusting what isn’t visible, setting aside self for the benefit of others.

For many writers, myself included, it is all of the above and then some.

So, why do you write?

Recently, I joined a group setting out on a difficult emotional journey. At the onset of our exploration, one of the guides asked each of us to consider why we’d chosen to traverse the challenging terrain ahead. She exhorted us to do the work of mining for our compelling why.

She assured us we’d need to draw on our compelling why when the path got rocky, when fatigue set in, when we no longer cared about reaching our destination.

She assigned us the task of discovering our compelling why and then returning to our compelling why each time doubt, discouragement, or even apathy tempted.

I am still navigating that course rife with obstacles. When I grow weary, I slow my pace and pull out a crumpled, tear-stained sheet of notebook paper. The piece of paper where I scrawled my compelling why. And I remember…

As one of the guides on your writing journey, I assure you there are few things more thrilling or exhilarating than climbing the mountain of your writing goal and reaching the pinnacle of your dream.

But the journey is long and the obstacles are real.

So I encourage you, I urge you… Search until you find the beating heart of your reasoning. Find the why that will compel you through the valley of rejection, over the peak of publication, and back through the canyon of hard work.

Let your compelling why propel you forward.

What’s your why?

TIPS:

If you aren’t sure of your compelling why, set aside time to consider the question. Discuss it with those closest to you, offer the question as a prayer, then write your why and keep it accessible.

If you know your why, return to it often. Post it where it’s visible. Share it with others who will remind you why you’ve taken on the task of writing.

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A Touch of Madness

by | Creativity

 

My hands poised on the keyboard tingled with an odd neuropathy as words threatened to explode through my fingertips. I yanked my hands back. My knees hit the bottom of the desktop as I stood, rattling pens in a ceramic mug on the desk. The glare from the computer screen I’d stared at for too long in the dark room had nearly blinded me. Arms outstretched, I stumbled to the wall, felt for the switch, and flipped it. Although soft light flooded the room from the fixture above, darkness remained.

In my mind.

My soul.

Or wherever it was the words had originated.

It would be many years before I discovered that “Plato spoke of the necessity for divine madness in the poet” as well as Madeleine L’Engle’s words about Plato’s exertion in her extraordinary book, Walking on Water: “It is a frightening thing to open oneself to this strange and dark side of the divine; it means letting go our safe self-control, that control which gives us the illusion of safety.”

What I once feared—access to a dark space within myself where it felt like chaos swirled blending what I could only identify as some form of crazy—I’ve learned to welcome. Invite even. It is something I long to conjure on my own when the page is blank and my mind more blank.

But it comes unbidden. Spirit-like. Divine. It imparts words, ideas, and emotion I didn’t know I knew. Or maybe have never known.

My own belief system, like L’Engle’s, leads me to identify this otherness as holy—the indwelling spirit of God who knows all, both dark and light. I am not as often aware of the presence as I would like and though I invite it into my writing, I can pinpoint only a handful of scenes written that I know I did not write myself, though the words seemingly seeped from my own mind, through my fingertips, onto the page.

Perhaps this dark side of the divine, as L’Engle referenced, reveals the other side of light so that the writer might empathize with those who’ve experienced what the writer can only imagine. In darkness, in empathy, the light shines brightest.

So I quiet my mind, fingers on the keys, and I invite. I wait. And I hope. So that I might offer light…

 

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