Responding To That Insidious Lie People Still Tell About Fiction

So, HERE'S some good news. The more I throw myself into reading these novels, the more I want to keep reading. 

It's that lovely truth: You can re-develop a taste for good things. It happens to me when I start drinking more water, eating more veggies, exercising steadily, or, for the past couple of weeks, falling headlong into one marvelous story after another. 

So, if like me, you've been away from fiction for a while, I hope this is encouraging!

The more I practice giving myself permission, and the more that I start my day with reading, the easier it gets to keep going. 

Yum.

I'm a good two-thirds the way through Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, by Gregory Maguire. Oh, I love a good fairytale retelling!

There's always that delight of seeing how your expectations are handled—which events feel familiar, which ones are stood on their heads, or fleshed out in completely unusual ways... Mmmm.

It also reminds me of my struggles with the first novel that I seriously tried to write. For five years, I beat my head against an ever-expanding saga that I invented around the story of—brace yourself—The Princess and the Pea. 

More specifically, it reminds me of how hard it was to talk about the fact that I was writing a fairytale retelling.

All those conversations with the skeptical people who asked, "So what are you writing about?"

And I would perform whatever linguistic contortions I could to avoid saying, "Uh, there's a princess and a curse and an impossible test and the threat of madness and a huge journey and interactive memories and definitely a love interest and a fair amount of violence? Can we talk about something else?" 

I'm having better luck now, talking about my current work-in-progress. In part because I've learned my lesson, and I'm making sure that I love what I'm writing about. 

But also, I believe even more in the power of fiction. 

Any kind of fiction.

So "even though" I'm writing about an eleven-year-old girl going on an incredible, fantastical adventure in another world, with a crazy cast of characters and daunting challenges and mysterious spiders and possibly telepathic lizards and brain washing and aristocratic assassins...

I'm much more certain of its importance.

This book matters. I'm sure of it.

But some people don't really get how valuable fiction is.

Have you noticed this? Have you run into these people before?

The ones who will state—loudly and with a kind of bravado—"Oh, I don't READ FICTION."

Not in the contrite, confessional, okay I'm burnt out and what do I do about that kind of way. Or even the, I just can't seem to get to it lately way. Or the ones who say, I haven't found an author that really grips me yet. 

I get all that. That's totally fine with me.

I'm talking about the people who are essentially saying, "I don't need such fantasies to survive, thank you very much." 

It's smug. There's this belittling tone. As if they could say, "You poor children and your silly stories." 

In other words: Fiction is worthless.

When confronted with this attitude, I used to scramble for a response, feeling vaguely ashamed of myself, trying to find the scraps of my dignity.

As if I'd just invited someone to watch my homemade puppet show, only to receive a scathing response.

Or as if I'd just made a public announcement that I was, in fact, an idiot. 

Now I see it very differently.

And I've settled on a new reply.

So the last time someone told me, with a very superior grin, "Oh, I don't READ fiction. I've NEVER read a novel," I just took a deep breath, looked at him with all the pity I could muster, and said,

"I am so, so sorry to hear that."

As if he just announced that he'd had an amputation.

Because that's how I feel about it.

People who cheerfully choose to avoid all novels are literally cutting themselves off from a certain kind of understanding. Of a way to see other people, a way to connect.

Novels get to a place that movies and most non-fiction can't quite reach. Because there's an intimacy in fiction, an immediateness.

You see the characters' minds plainly, you hear their motivations, you're right up close to their struggles.

I think that what this man wanted me to say was: "Oh, wow, so you're not as frivolous as the rest of us, we who fill our heads with dumb lies. Good job, you superior person, you!"

Instead, I saw someone who was brittle and maybe even a bit scared.

Someone who didn't want to risk all the emotions and connections that happen when we put ourselves into the flow of stories, into novels. 

Someone who has no idea what he's missing. Or who he might be, if he let a stellar novel get under his skin.

I've mentioned a few times that I've been reading Brené Brown's amazing work. If you're familiar with her at all, you know how much she talks about the power of empathy.

Empathy—the statement that you are not alone. 

She's totally opened my eyes to how we need connection to other people. How we need to treat ourselves with compassion. How we need courage to live a Wholehearted life.

Guess what.

When we read novels, we get a sense of how other people share our struggles.

Have you had that incredibly powerful feeling, when you're reading a novel, and the main character experiences something similar to what you've gone through?

Whether it's an event, or a subtle feeling, or even a line of dialogue that you've said before: There's that shock of recognition, right?

Like you've suddenly caught your face's reflection in an unexpected mirror.

You are not alone.

Whew! That is powerful.

Novels have a unique ability to get in close to us, to wait until our guard is down, and then to say those life-giving words:

You're not alone. Someone else has been there. This writer gets it.

And then—there's a chance for a conversation. Maybe with the writer. Maybe with other people who have read it.

Suddenly there's connection, there's courage, and there's hope.

Maybe something that was shameful is now brought into the light where it can heal. And maybe there's some good self-compassion, as you realize that you're not the only one struggling. As you accept who you are and where you've been.

Dang it, I get all excited just thinking about this!! 

And as a writer, this is incredibly motivating to me.

I want to be honest in the story I'm writing.

I don't want to shrink from telling the truth about what it feels like: to risk big, to worry about your family, to face danger. To hope for change, to face day after day when you don't know what will happen, to heal broken relationships.

Besides. I owe fiction a debt. 

As an incredibly lonely kid, I saw people like me in books, even when I couldn't find them at my church or my school.

That sustained me during some really hard years. It helped me trust that there were other kids who felt like me, who understood me, who had been where I was.

Who survived. 

Like I said, that's powerful.

It makes me wonder, what is fiction about, anyway, if not connection? 

And are any of us actually above the need to be connected to one another? Above the need to belong?

Spoiler alert: Nope. Brené Brown is a very smart woman, and she says that the data says that we all need these things.

No one is exempt from this stuff. From these needs.

Which is why I'm convinced that to intentionally snub fiction is a sad, sad thing. An emotional amputation.

Let's not make the mistake of undervaluing the incredible novels that we read and write.

Instead, let's celebrate how they connect us, challenge us, and empathize with us. 

And if you're spending your time writing such things, good for you. It is a vital gift to other people. 

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Don't let the smug fiction-abstainers get you down.

Keep going.

Who knows who you might be giving courage to with your words? 

---

What about you? Have you seen yourself in fiction before? Have you had that shock of recognition, that sense of being understood? 

And have you run into people that don't seem to understand the value of fiction? What do you say to them?

Unleashing Bravery Into Your Writing Life

Bravery never came easily for me.

Being a kid and being a teenager just felt like a long series of different kinds of fear. Know what I mean?

Scared of what my teachers thought of me, scared of classroom bullies, scared of failing.

Which is why "trying to be brave" has always been part of my vocabulary. 

Growing up, heading off to college, choosing writing as an emphasis, reading my poems and short essays in front of an audience—

Trying to be brave. Every step of the way. 

It is hard work, trying to cultivate gumption!

But oh, you already know this. Because you're a writer.

And writing takes guts.

No surprise, then, that the last lionhearted trait to discuss in this series is this one: Bravery. 

A lionhearted writer works with courage. 

I want a writing practice that's infused with courage. At every stage, every level.

Because letting all the fears run the writing show? Means that there isn't a writing show. 

When fear has the final say, we lose everything. Ev-ery-thing!!

Our material, our willingness to protect our writing time, our belief that our words have any importance. 

Fear zaps our conviction that we can learn how to do this thing. Our belief we will get better at it. Our determination to come back to it again (and again! and again!!).

To create a writing life, to grow at writing, it takes courage.

Buckets of it.

So there are two things I want to do right now, to stir up our bravery.

First, let's revel in a few quality quotes about what courage looks like. 

And second, let's talk through one huge way to steadily gain courage, every day. (It's a good one!)

Sound good? 

Here you go, a mini quote fest on courage!

PROBABLY Winston thought of that while revising one of his amazing books. Probably. Just a guess. ;)

I love this. (Can't beat Brené Brown for good courage talk!) 

We all need to be reminded: the presence of fear doesn't negate our bravery, our courage. 

Even with a quivering heart, we can still dare greatly—in our writing, our thinking, our creativity, our stories.

The awesomest little cocktail of bravery ever. One of my favorite approaches for staying the course.

Yes! This too. One of the best forms of courage for a writing life.

Let's always say that, okay? I will try again tomorrow.

Mmmm.

Finally, this one. C.S. Lewis (one of my absolute favorite writers!) had this to say about courage in The Screwtape Letters:

Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. 

I completely, completely love this. 

You take a virtue, a characteristic, a trait. How about the lionhearted trait of kindness, from last Thursday?

All right. Kindness looks like kindness, right? 

In its smallest, simplest form, it's pretty straightforward. Easy. No big deal. 

But what happens when things heat up? When you run into problems that make it hard to be kind? 

It takes a lot more determination to act on that level of kindness, right? 

And then, when the obstacles increase, when the stakes are higher—what does kindness look like when it's hard, really really hard, to be kind?

Well, according to Lewis (who was pretty smart): at that fiercest point of testing, at the point of highest reality, the ability to be kind is the same exact thing as courage itself.

Because if we're not brave enough to be kind when it really matters, when it's really hard, then we're not really kind, right?

Make sense? 

The point, the point that I love, is this: if we want to get better at courage, it means we dive in deeper to these other characteristics. 

If we want to be brave with our kindness, we practice being kind, even when it stings, even when it hurts.

We find that edge where it gets hard, where it's easier to give up—and that's where we focus our effort and our strength.

And THAT is how to grow our courage.

So how do we bring a lot more bravery into our writing lives?

By growing at each of these lionhearted writing characteristics. 

And the more we do that, the more we'll see courage, all along the growing edge.

When our trust in ourselves is put to the test, the ability to keep on trusting is gonna look identical to courage. 

And when our patience has been tested and tested, and it's looking more than a little frayed, the decision to not flip out, to carry on, to keep pressing forward—that's going be exactly the same thing as courage.

Firing up ambition when it's so much easier to just stop challenging ourselves? That's courage.

Choosing contentment in the midst of a comparisonitis culture = some pretty radical courage. 

Picking the wisest path, loving the ugliest parts of the writing life, leaning in to the wildness of what we do, and gripping kindness in both hands even when it's darned hard: 

It's courage. All of it. 

Lionhearted courage is a composite. It's made up of all of these traits. And as we grow in each of these qualities, as we get stronger in each one, as we practice them all, come what may—

We become amazingly brave, incredibly courageous writers.

THAT is the essential lionheart. 

That is what we are heading toward together.

Does it sound a little daunting? (I mean... it kinda does, right? Exhilarating, sure. But also a little daunting.)

The good news is that this can be done bit by bit. 

Stretch yourself now and then.

Pick a quality or two and lean toward them harder today. You're flexing your courage muscle!

For me, today, I am practicing trusting myself, and I'm choosing patience instead of flipping out. Even though it's hard (SO HARD today!). Even though I can feel the strain.

... But I keep working at it, and right there in that moment, there is courage.

So what qualities are you practicing today?

Keep ramping them up, keep growing at them, and—oh! There it is.

There. Right there.

Look at how brave you are.

Today's A Really Good Day For A Writing Life Revolution

OH, I'm excited.

This is one of my favorite lionhearted characteristics.

I know, I know. They're all my favorite.

But this is a trait that will shake everything up, turn your life upside down, and generally turn you into a totally different writer. AND PERSON.

Or at least, that's what it did for me. 

Here it is:

A lionhearted writer is kind to herself. She gives herself grace. 

Does it sound revolutionary? Maybe not.

But it is. Ohhhhh, it is.

I have seen this play out in my own writing life again and again. When I'm kind to myself as a writer, versus when I'm not. 

Let me tell you: there is a mega-difference between kind Lucy and not-so-kind Lucy.

Kind Lucy is the more resilient, enduring, brave, spirited, wild, and patient writer. 

Not-so-kind Lucy isn't.

She flails around and burns out and is stingy with herself and everyone else. If she does get work done, it doesn't ring true to her real voice. (Also, she's all bruised and ragged and self-hating by the time the piece is done.)

Kindness wins.

Every single time. 

If you feel resistant to this idea, I understand.

Kindness can feel like the long way around. Because sometimes kindness means taking a vacation, or releasing a piece that doesn't work, or nurturing your creativity with a long walk alone.

Or taking two months off to just read novels, nonstop. (Yup. I've done it.)

Kindness can seem counterproductive, but don't let it fool you.

When you take good care of the writer, make no mistake: you're also taking excellent care of the writing.

We need to let go of the idea that being harsh with ourselves is somehow productive. That being intolerant with our "mistakes" (aka LEARNING) is going to help us learn faster.

That being inflexible means everything's gonna work out better. Because no, it won't. And that inflexibility only means you won't be able to deal with the fallout. I promise. (Like I said, I've been there.)

Friends, we need to let go of the idea that self-abuse makes for a strong, enduring writer. 

It just doesn't. Not in my experience. 

When I adopt harsh writing practices, I also go blind to my true voice, my best material. And all my characters start acting harsh too (which is deeply unfun to read later, by the way). 

And when we edit, we edit the work. We don't tear apart the person who created the work.

One of the zillion things I loved in the genius structure manual The Story Grid was this quote from Shawn Coyne: "You as the writer are not the problem; the problem is the problem." 

That quote has been so valuable for me, time and time again. (And I may or may not have cried a little the first time I read it.)

It is the essence of kindness. There is the writer, and there is the problem, and the two are not the same.

We have to make that shift, all of us. We have to be able to disconnect who we are—our worth and our value—from the quality of our work-in-progress.

We have to be kind as we're editing and revising and critiquing. Not that we let bad writing stand when we know how to fix it—of course not!

But we also recognize the crappy draft as the crappy draft. It's just doing its job. And the writer who made the crappy draft was also doing her job.

In other words: kindness means having a proper focus. The problem is the problem. No more, no less than that. 

So with that cleared up, we can then bring our laser-like attention to the actual problem. And get on with, you know, actually fixing it.

Bonus: We'll have the energy and stamina to do that, precisely because we haven't been brutalizing and savaging ourselves in the meantime. 

YAY for all that, right?

This is how kindness makes us resilient.

Which is why it's a key ingredient to a sustainable writing practice. To building a healthy and happy writer.

It doesn't mean sacrificing ambition or excellence. It doesn't mean we have a slack idea of what quality writing is.

It just means we don't confuse the problem with the writer. 

Kindness, in this sense, boosts our creativity, our ability to innovate, and our energy to keep moving.

When we are persistently and rightly kind to ourselves, we're free.

We can abandon the wrong ideas and the shabby writing, because we don't need to cling to them to prove ourselves. We can shed writing ideas that no longer fit us and writing strategies that we've outgrown.

We can be flexible, and, weirdly enough, we can afford to take risks.

Because in the eyes of kindness, failure doesn't mean we are a failure. It means "Keep going! We're learning!"

So is it basically a superpower? Yes. Yes it is.

One more reason why kindness is essential comes from this fantastic and spot-on quote from Betsy Lerner in The Forest for the Trees:

There is no stage of the writing process that doesn't challenge every aspect of a writer's personality.

That is something I have found to be completely, absolutely, and always true.

What keeps us going through those challenges, if not kindness along with strategy? And kindness along with persistence? And kindness along with purpose and vision and hope? 

So my friends. This is what we do, after all. This writing. 

And to do it well, to do it so that we last, to do it so that it doesn't chew us up and generally kill us, we absolutely must learn to be kind to ourselves.

Starting right now.

What stage of the writing process is especially tough on you right now?

Where do you need to add a dose of kindness to your writing life? And what might that look like? 

Focus On This When Your Writing Life Feels Cramped, Musty, and Stale

Like I said in the introduction to this series, I nearly named this blog "Pursuing the Merry & Wild Writing Life." 

Merriment and wildness: Two things that I want TONS of in my writing life. For sure.

Last Thursday we talked about loving all of the writing process—especially the difficult, the challenging, the dreaded, and the ugly. That's gonna up the merriment factor for all of us!

So today, let's talk about the wildness.

One of my grandmothers had a much older half-sister, who was (apparently) very dramatic and theatrical.

Later in life, she also wrote a novel. Historical fiction.

According to one of her letters, she claimed that she researched it by going into the past and talking with people from that time period.

Whoa.

So maybe I'm distantly related to a pioneer of time travel.

Or, maybe she just tumbled so far and hard and fast through her imagination that she felt like she'd gone through time.

Wild.

And that kind of wild is what's on my mind lately, haunting me.

(Time travel would be cool too. But I think the boundless imagination thing is more within reach.)

Today all I want to do is sit here on my chair, and look out to you, and both drink our coffee, and talk about plunging deep, deep, deep into our stories.

Because that is what I am craving, my friends. 

Not steps, or plans, or lists.

Just getting absolutely lost inside my book. A free-fall into my story.

... How has your May been so far?

Over here it's been good, but crazy, especially in the "life and family circumstances" arena.

I'm not working with large patches of solitude anymore. No carefully structured work routines at the moment. 

Instead I'm retraining myself in the scrappier methods of writing.

Catching minutes with my butterfly net of words. Slipping off and sneaking in time. Turning my heart and brain toward my characters whenever possible.

I can't help thinking of this passage from Heather Sellers' Chapter After Chapter:

The book writers I know all live, eat, breathe, and sleep the book. Or . . . they're trying to get back to the place where they live, eat, breathe, and sleep the book. This complete absorption in the project is desirable, to be courted.

You're darn right, it's desirable!

I am thoroughly homesick for my story.

I've been outside of it for too long. Arranging life details, doing grown-up things. All of that is good and necessary and fine.

But I need to get back to that place. Where I'm absent-minded for the rest of the day, because one part of my brain is juggling the elements of the story, whispering to itself in the voices of my cast of characters.

I need to plunge back into my draft. Deep. So far in that I can't see the shore.

And when I'm out there in the riotous midst of the story, I need to remember how not to panic. Not to worry about what I don't know. Not trying to be efficient, of all things.

Instead, I want to wake up to the wildness. 

To let this story be real, and huge, and wonderful. My own story singing all around me in surround sound.

Know what I mean?

It's too easy, when life has been busy, to approach writing like it's just another task. Like any other desk job.

A way of pushing papers around, balancing columns of words, tallying paragraphs.

But we lionhearted writers can't settle for that.

We need to drive ourselves into the beating heart of the story, and write from there.

What does that look like for you? 

I'm ready to do something, anything, everything crazy.

Let's build ourselves a moat. Or fling ourselves into immersion camp. 

Let's go off on a little writing adventure, or maybe on a couple dozen! Or dive headlong into a pile of exciting writing prompts, and scribble at an exhilarating pace.

Heck, let's time travel and swap out realities, like my grandmother's sister. 

What can we do, to get back to the place where we live, breathe, eat, and sleep the book?

I don't see a clear path for doing this, except that one. 

You know the one.

The straightest straight line between myself and my work.

The road that connects you—with your amazing heart, your head full of words (even when it feels like it isn't!)—to your story.

Find that path.

And run down it, as fast and hard as your story-legs can pelt.

Let's throw ourselves into the wildness of the writing life.

Let's create worlds, twist plots, and set our character's hearts alight.

We are the music makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams. — Arthur Lionheart, I mean, O'Shaughnessy

How To Love the Worst Parts of the Writing Process: Your Six-Step Plan!

We're halfway through our Anatomy of a Lionheart series! I'm loving this review of all the traits that go into making us amazingly courageous and happy writers.

The kind of writers that can stay the course. 

But also the kind of writers who actually love what they do.

Which is why today it's time to come out and say it: 

The lionhearted writer brings love into the process.

Parts of the writing life are totally easy to love, right?

Some bits are just intoxicating.

Books, words, stories. 

Sentences so good they make your scalp tingle.

Mmmm. Yeah.

And then you adore your own stories, which feels incredible.

You fall in love with your characters. You love moments in the story that make you want to cheer because, somehow, you nailed them.

Am I right? (Yup, I just heard a "Heck yes!")

So it's pretty easy for me to say that a lionhearted writer has love somewhere in her. Love for this whole writing world.

You know what is one of the most powerful places for us to apply that love?

To the actual creative process itself.

You heard right. The nitty gritty. The day in/day out. 

... If you're like me, you might have this slight reaction to that statement. "Oh. Love the creative process. Right. That."

Because, um, the creative process can be a bit ... difficult.

There's a flash of inspiration, or there isn't.

Sometimes you have an idea that lights you on fire and all you do is burn it onto the page.

And sometimes you feel like you're just nosing at something cold and dead and maybe there's something better to be doing with your time?

Exhilarating days, days that are just fine, and days that feel like you're at the dentist with anxiety through the roof and a slow numbing sensation.

There are the highs in the midst of the work, and then there are the long tedious slogs. 

Right? 

So what happens to us when we learn to love every bit of the process? 

For starters, we stop avoiding the hard parts. (Which means everything moves more quickly, smoothly, and coherently. YAY.)

Also, we can see the strengths and the good parts of our work more clearly (whew!), which gives us the courage to deal with whatever needs repairing.

So, guess what. I want a writing life I can love completely.

I want to love every day of it. 

Even when it's "Okay, Let's Figure Out Technology" day.

Or, "Chopping Up My Manuscript with Actual Scissors So I Can Try and See What's Happening in These Dang Scenes" day.

Or, "Taking Apart the Villain's Motivation to Figure Out What's Wrong With It" day.

In other words, there are some moments in the writing process or the creative life that it's challenging to love.

Maybe impossible.

... Or, I would have said "impossible," except that something strange happened to me recently.

I've just learned to enjoy something that I originally despised.

WHAaaaaat??! Trust me, it's big.

And, me being me, I figured out exactly what kind of process happened as I went from hatred to enjoyment. 

Because, if I learned to like this one despicable thing, then ... what else could I learn to appreciate?

Maybe every single part of the creative process that currently stumps my affections?

Yeah. That's exactly what I had in mind.

If you want the full context to my hate-to-love story: I was recently assigned a series of difficult physical exercises to do every single morning right when I get up. Doctor's orders.

We were figuring out just why my health had gotten so screwed up this spring. And one of the things he prescribed is a ridiculous amount of movement.

I'm much more of a "let's wake up gently and think thoughts quietly" kind of person, so the idea of working up a sweat and a pounding heart immediately after getting up is not my thing.

The first morning of the exercises, about six weeks ago:

Instant hate.

And, bonus, I almost threw up.

This morning? I felt a wry affection for it, an "aw, you're not so terrible, are you?" kind of tolerant appreciation.

That's a pretty big change.

So what happened? And, the more exciting question: how could we try this in our writing lives?

Before we jump in, take a sec to think: What is it in your writing process, your creative work, that you're having a lot of trouble loving right now?

Get it firmly in your mind, and then let's just see what happens.

Here's where to start:

1) Recognize what is good about it. 

If something has zero worth at all, then, um, don't try to spend time loving it. Right? Just rule those things out.

So, whatever it is you're doing, there must be some good reason for it. 

And if we can mentally appreciate why something is important to do, then we at least have our feet on the right track.

With my exercises, I knew I was dodging medication by doing this. I still despised it, but at least I was motivated to keep going.

So, what's the creative task that you don't like? That moment in your work that makes you feel a bit sick or miserable?

And what's valuable about it?

What does it help you do, what next step does it position you for, what does it make easier, what does it help you avoid? 

Name the good thing (and as specifically as possible!), and you'll be one step closer to affection.

2) Practice technical gratitude.

If you know what this stage in the process is doing, what good it is, then you can be technically grateful for it. 

As you dive into that task, as you see it approaching on your to-do list: practice mentally acknowledging that gratitude. 

I don't mean that you're ready to hug it yet. Or even that you feel grateful for it. 

Just that you can nod at gratitude and say, yes, okay, I suppose I'm thankful for this, if I really think hard about it.

Okay?

For my new wake-up exercises, these were the mornings when I was glaring at the wall, puffing and sweating, and saying to myself, At least this is going to help get my body back to normal. 

Or, doing this lets me have enough energy in the day to function. 

Or even, It's almost over. At least they're fairly quick.

What does this look like for your dreaded step in the process?

Even if you don't feel grateful for it, how can you be at least mentally grateful for it?

3) Notice what you actually do like about it.

Once you've let yourself practice that kind of cognitive gratitude for a while, it's time to push a little deeper. 

At this point, is there anything that you might—even grudgingly at first—like about doing this thing? 

Even a teeny tiny super-hard-to-see little bit of it?

This realization hit me after I'd been doing those morning exercises for a while. One day I noticed that my endurance was increasing—and that felt kinda cool.

Another day, the first sequence was a lot easier than it used to be. Which was nice. And empowering.

A few of the moves even felt—dare I say it out loud?—a little fun.

SUPER weird. I tried not to notice.

Is there anything in this part of the process for you that's just a little bit enjoyable?

Try to scrape together a list, even if it's a list of one item.

But whatever part of the task is likable, focus hard on that. 

4) Support the dreaded task with a lot more enjoyment.

You know this already. It's a lionheart standard! But whatever challenging thing you're working on, do this: 

Pour a ton of other things you love right on top of it.

Use the best paper, break out the pens that make you swoon, and fancy up your work space. 

Listen to music that you adore or find deeply inspiring. 

It was a major day for me when I finally made a playlist exclusively for those morning exercises! I could move faster and better: it stopped feeling so brutal. And it doubled my motivation each time I pressed play.

It's never easy to work on something we dislike. So, recruit your surroundings. 

Let your environment be your cheerleading squad: make everything as enjoyable as possible, each time you approach that task.

5) Practice relish.

After practicing those steps for a while, things might begin to shift in your mind and heart. 

Hopefully you're noticing a few blips of felt gratitude for this tough thing you're doing. Hopefully you're able to see a bit more of its good effect. 

Which means it's time to just go for it: Lean into everything you enjoy about this task. 

Take those slightly-positive feelings and intentionally crank them up.

Mega-celebrate every small thing that you're liking about this task you're doing.

Try smiling when you do it, even when you don't feel like it. (Because you're unleashing great stuff in your brain when you smile, and this is exactly the kind of work when you'd like some extra greatness in your brain, right?)

Just keep pouring on the positivity ... until you start to find yourself not dreading it when it's time to dive in.

6) Repeat.

In spite of the huge strides I've made, I'm not at the point where I can just coast with these morning exercises. I still need to focus on what's good about them, and feel gratitude, and crank up the tunes. 

Some things might always be a bit easier to hate than to love. 

So, for the sake of your writerly well-being, keep this cycle up. 

Keep affirming your gratitude, surrounding the task with more positivity, and amping up your enjoyment.

Hold that dread at bay. Stagger it with goodness.

That's honestly what's happening with my crazy morning exercises. In a month and a half, I've gone from pure hatred to actually feeling a zing of excitement about them.

So weird, right?

And that good effect just keeps on giving: It's actually turned into a wonderful ritual to start my day.

Imagine that: Transforming your dreaded task into a powerhouse of energy and empowerment for your work. 

... Or at least, into something you can manage to do without ruining your day.

Worth trying, right?

Personally, I'm excited to start applying these steps to the writing stuff I've been avoiding...

Such as, um, research! And fixing the tinier plot holes that I've somehow let stay. And doing a much better job with setting. And... oh, there's probably a whole list.

But how amazing would it be, to keep working on the less lovable parts of the process. To turn them into our allies—tasks that inspire our gratitude and fire up our energy? 

DANG. Talk about a game changer.

So what will you be learning to love?

Sculpt a Beautiful Writing Journey (While Still Hitting Your Goals!) With This Awesome Resource

One of the ways my ambition shows up is in always looking for better ways to manage myself: my ideas, my workspace, my time.

You've heard this from me before: I'm convinced that the better bosses we are (kind, loyal, compassionate, and aiming for excellence), the better our work will be, and the happier our writing lives.

Which is why I'd say that a lionhearted writer is always looking for wisdom.

Right?

We're in this for the long haul. We want our writing to be good for us and for our readers. And navigating all that takes a bunch of wisdom. 

Part of this means: appreciating the wisdom we already have. (Especially if we haven't been paying attention to it!) 

But sometimes we need to look to the people who know and live this kind of stuff. 

... Which is why I'm always gobbling down books and resources on how to be a better boss for myself! 

The latest book I've read to improve my work life is The Desire Map, by Danielle LaPorte. (Shout out to the lionhearted Maria Rathje, for recommending this to me, back when we were talking about goals!)

This book took apart my whole approach to goal-making, showed me all the parts of thinking that go into a goal— 

and then put everything back together the right way.

It's really cool. You'll love it.

So—just in case you're not automatically sold on this, why is it necessary? Aren't goals by themselves good enough?

Well, it's easy enough to come up with a bunch of good, solid goals based around what matters to us, right? To fill in the blanks with what we know we should be reaching for next. 

... But have you ever felt like you're on a kind of goal treadmill? Coming up with automatic goals, that feel almost prepackaged? 

Or have you ever worked really hard for something you knew you wanted, but the whole process of getting there was totally miserable? 

Or maybe you got the thing you wanted and—and nothing. It wasn't as great as you'd hoped, or it wasn't what you thought, or you just felt off about it?

Yeah. Me too. 

Enter The Desire Map.

Here's the premise. When we make goals, what we REALLY want to aim at is a state of being, or a way that we want to feel.

But in our usual goal-making process, those feelings aren't considered. So they're only partially represented in our goals.

Or, worse, they're not represented at all.

Which is how we end up with goals that don't make us so happy when we reach them. Or goals that somehow destroy us on the way to getting them. 

Ugh.

Let's not do that anymore.

So, in The Desire Map, Danielle LaPorte takes you through the process of creating, as she calls them, "goals with soul." 

She helps you figure out what those states of being—she calls them core desired feelings—are for you.

And then—knowing what you really want to aim for, how you really want to feel during the process of reaching for your goals, how you really want to live—that's when you come up with a handful of intentions for the next year.

Like, four. (Not so many that you get overburdened.)

Four intentions that solidly reflect your core desired feelings.

And then you develop a process of going after those intentions, which honors your core desired feelings as well.

Fantastic, right??

So, what does this have to do with our writing lives?

EV-ERY-THING.

When you apply this to your writing goals and your writing life, your core desired feelings have a total, across-the-board impact.

Once you know what they are, you can bring them into the discussion of how you approach writing, the projects you spend your time on, and how you consider publication.

They can shape what your author brand is like, what you do with social media or blogging, and on, and on, and on.

Like I said before, it's too easy to fall into a goal that seems to be right, without considering deeper motivations.

Take publication. 

It's so easy to think, I must PUBLISH this year or else burst into a thousand pieces. (That's me, by the way, during my last batch of New Year's Resolutions.)

There's nothing wrong with having publication as a goal! 

But this book showed me that it's incredibly helpful to figure out what it is I want to feel about being published.

And when those feelings are what you're actually aiming at, the entire process of getting published reflects those feelings as well.

Which means?

Which means that you feel awesome while stretching for a goal that will really make you feel amazing.

WIN-WIN.

After going through the Desire Map process, you might find out that you want to publish because: you want to feel accomplished, or self-respect, or creativity. 

Or maybe you want to publish to share truth, or love, or beauty, or laughter.

And when you realize what feelings are driving that desire to publish, you bring them into all the rest of your writing life:

How you start your day. How you manage your time. What books and voices influence you.

What you do with your breaks and your weekends. How you talk about your work. How you research.

All of it. All of it!

As Danielle LaPorte writes,

When you get clear on how you want to feel, the pursuit itself will become more satisfying.

And isn't that exactly what we all want with our writing processes?

Side note: Just knowing this about yourself is massively helpful in all other areas of your life as well.

It's becoming my habit whenever I'm having a tough day to use these core desired feelings as a kind of emotional reset.

All it takes is a quick second to ask yourself: Hey, wait: how is it that I REALLY want to feel? 

Then you can take a few quick actions to generate some of your core desired feelings, and: instant mood upgrade.

Did I mention that this is helpful? SUPER helpful.

So if you've felt a disconnection between what you're writing and how you're writing it, or between what you're aiming for and how you're feeling about all that—

Then The Desire Map is the must-read that goes at the top of your reading pile.

For serious. 

Another quick quote from Danielle LaPorte for good measure: 

The journey matters as much as the result.

SO TRUE, right??

An amazing writing journey is the game changer of game changers: Every writing day is as important as the writing goals you're aiming for.

So pick up The Desire Map and give it a whirl.

Be the wisest boss of your writing life that you can possibly be.

Learn to steer by what it is that you deep down really want—instead of importing goals that seem to be right, but which might let you down.

If you want to dive in with this way of thinking right now, check out this Danielle LaPorte interview for a quick-start version (and then get your hands on the book itself asap!).

Whatever you do, give a little thought to how you actually want to feel when you accomplish your goals. How you actually want to be in your writing life.

Not what you should want, but what you actually do want.

Illuminate what it is that you're really after, and then go get it: both in your intentions and how you get your intentions.

Sounds amazing, right? 

Right.

Two Ways to Disaster-Proof Your Writing Life (and Your Writing Heart)

My last two years have been a rocky but determined progression toward contentment in my writing life.

Contentment? 

Why is contentment such a powerful trait to have in our lionhearted arsenal?

It sounds so simple-minded. So basic.

But it's absolutely vital. 

Contentment is the characteristic that takes care of us when our writing life feels threatened.

It means being okay, happy, satisfied. (Even while we're striving to get better.)

For me, it includes a fierce belief that I am learning exactly what I need to be learning right now.

And that I'm fine, right where I am. 

If this sounds a bit familiar, it's because contentment operates a lot like peacefulness and patience. They work to protect us from anger and frustration in our writing process—freeing us up to focus on the problem, instead of flipping out.

SUPER helpful, right?

Contentment protects us too. It keeps us from being derailed by other people's successes, or by our own failures.

To put it another way: If your writing life is a huge cruise ship (um, YES), then peace and patience are all the systems and designs that keep the crew and passengers all okay. They manage the day-to-day actions onboard and keep everything working smoothly.

Contentment is what keeps the whole ship from capsizing. It protects you from waves, storms, icebergs, and zombie shark attacks.

(You know. All the usual threats.)

The last thing our writing lives need is to fall prey to a zombie shark attack. (I mean... ew.)

So let's take a few minutes to boost our contentment levels, shall we?

There are two things that can really keep your contentment strong:

1) Don't compare yourself to alllllllll the other writers and creatives out there.

2) Don't let writing be your everything.

Sound good? Let's do this.

You are where you should be (and so is everyone else).

There are dozens of great quotes about this. We read them and think, heck yes, that is how to think about all this*.

But let's say it again anyway:

Comparing ourselves to other people doesn't work. 

It doesn't do any good to look at the wunderkinds we hear about (oh, you know I love you, Internet!) and then to do the seriously unhelpful math.

You know the math, right?

"Oh, when that person published her amazing, award-winning novel, I was still freaking out about not knowing enough, instead of actually writing." 

Or, "when this famous person was my age, he already had four books out, and they were so intelligent and smart! Meanwhile I've forgotten all the stuff I knew and my grammar has gone seriously downhill."

This math of comparison—my age vs. her age; my speed vs. his speed; my use of years vs. her use of years; I did this much, he did that much—

This math does not help. 

This can't be what we do in our spare time anymore, my friends!

Putting ourselves back to back with other writers, other creatives, and deciding that we come up short. Let's not.

Comparing ourselves to other people eats away at our hope and our courage, like acid eating away at stone.

I can practically feel myself disintegrating.

Listen up: The shape of someone else's path (to writing, to publication, through life), actually has nothing to do with my own path.

It isn't actually a guide for where I should be. 

When we compare ourselves with other people, we're saying that we all had the same stuff to deal with.

But that person's story material, skill status, obstacles faced, and other life circumstances are so complex and so different from our own complex and specific situations, that it's just impossible to compare them.

Oh—and it's mean. It is severely mean to do this to ourselves.

So let's not do it.

No more comparing.

I am the strongest and best writer I can be when I let everyone else's writing lives and successes belong to them.

Their victories in the writing life can inspire me, but other than that, they have no bearing and can pass no judgment on my own writing life.

Taking this stance in your writing requires a lot of pluck. 

It is darned courageous to say: I see what you're doing, and good for you, but I'm going to just be different over here.

It takes guts, but it's also incredibly freeing.

You're allowed to work at a different pace, a different schedule.

Write your own projects, forms, genres. Do it your own way. To your own timing. 

Yes, it can be hard to keep our grip on this mindset, but it's 100% crucial to our writing lives.

See, we want to believe that we all have unique voices, that we all bring something original to the writing world, right?

So how can we demand that how we get there looks like everyone else's path?

I'd like to give you permission, here and now, to have your writing life be what it is. Whatever shape it takes.

We are each so unique. We have different hearts, voices, stories, ideas. That's brilliant and dazzling and every inch what it should be.

So how could our writing journeys look alike, when we're each so different?

I'd like to see this crazy totally-my-own path as a good sign, rather than something else. 

Can we do that? A mass reinterpretation? 

So you're not doing something on the same schedule or at the same rate or to the same degree as someone else.

WHEW! Good news, right? You'll have something different to give your readers, then. Something original.

See what I mean? Yes, this might take some practice. Okay, a lot of practice. But it's worth retraining our minds.

Focus on the truth: Your writing path is teaching you all the stuff you need to put into those stories you're telling. It's a good path (even when it's really hard).

Let's stick with it.

(And if using affirmations works well for you, this could be a great place to use it too!)

You are so much more than a writer.

We all know this with our brains. But it's so tempting to forget it with our hearts: 

We can't let writing be our everything.

Don't get me wrong: I love this work we do. Stories amaze me and always will. 

But this can never be the thing that you and I live for above all others. Because if it is, then we'll be totally flattened by any difficulty, any "failure," any long blocked period.

If writing is the thing that matters most to us, then we'll have some really dark days ahead. 

So let's be intentional about leaning into something else. Diversify. Pursue other arts now and then that delight you.

Be a human being first and foremost, and love what you see and what you do and all the good people around you. Enjoy every bit of living that you can.

And write, of course! Write with a full heart.

But don't let writing hold your whole heart.

If you're looking for a stellar writing quote about this, I've totally got one. Oh wait, it's actually about the Olympics, from a movie that I adored as a kid: Cool Runnings. (Hands up, everyone who loves this with me!)

Hahaha! Okay. But seriously.

Instead of gold medal, let's think publication, or bestseller status, or whatever form of writerly success you're thirsting for: 

"A gold medal is a wonderful thing. But if you're not enough without it, you'll never be enough with it."

(Here's the quote in action, if you want the full effect.)

Truth, right??

Whenever I need to work on this, it helps me oh so much to crank up the level of gratitude I feel—for every tiny piece of my life.

Enjoy everything. Deeply. On purpose. 

Relish every single thing.

It takes the pressure off of writing: it keeps my work from being the single thing that will deliver all the magic and excitement and meaning and joy to my life.

It reminds me that my life is enough, even when my writing doesn't work so well.

So writing is free to be wonderful, and it's free to have difficulties, and my life is still intact.

This is hugely important, my friends!

This is the difference between having a healthy writing life and having one that will destroy you.

(Believe me—I had some rough days before I got this straight.)

You're so much more than just a writer.

And the writing life path that you're on is exquisitely tailored to shape your unique stories and your one-and-only voice.

And the more we let that sink in, the more content we'll be, come what may. 

... Zombie sharks, we are so ready for you.

---

*If you'd like a mega-dose of a You are totally fine right where you are message, check out this amazing article by Jamie Varon.

This is the kind of message I need to scrawl on my walls and tattoo on my arms. It is true and good, and you might need to read it forty times a day with chocolate when you're working on being cool with where you are in life.

(Just a heads up, there's some strong language in there, so if you're around sensitive eyes, look out for that.)

Your Secret Weapon (And Why You Need One) For When You'd Really Like to Throw a Fit

If you haven't noticed already, there are approximately a billion skills that go into writing well. And a few more skills to shape that good writing into a specific form (like our old friend, the novel).

Here's what I keep figuring out about that whole process. It doesn't advance your learning if you're shrieking at yourself for not being faster.

Know what I mean?

This is why patience is central to being a lionhearted writer. It's why aiming for peace is a huge part of enhancing your courage. 

And that's why patience and peace belong in our Anatomy of a Lionheart series.

Okay, but here's the first problem with that. Peace—as in, holding your peace, keeping the peace—sounds meek. And super old-fashioned.

How can staying peaceful, of all things, have any role in our impressive writing feats?

For starters, I'm going to define peaceful as being okay with what we can't control, because we're totally rocking the things that we can. Make sense?

Obviously there are exceptions to this, and of course we shouldn't be "okay" with truly ugly and unbearable circumstances. I'm just saying, for general, run-of-the-mill frustrations, lionhearted writing means choosing peace. Patience.

In other words, this is about not thrashing. 

If this still sounds lame and unappealing, I totally get it. I used to think that aiming for a peaceful or a patient approach was kind of wimpy.

Like you're putting all your ambitions on a shelf, and you're just floating along, not caring. And I cared!

So I didn't think a peaceful mindset was worth aiming for... 

Until I met this guy at the post office.

Without intending to, he taught me a ton about how truly powerful peace and patience can be. 

So—the post office. There was a line. Each transaction was taking a while. One person working the desk. 

I was next in line, but it was taking for-ev-er to be called up. None of us in the line were thrilled to be waiting for so long, but we were all dealing with it... 

Except the guy right behind me. He was livid.

He was the whole furious rage package. Angry snarling expression, overly loud voice, throbbing veins. Venting his anger to all of us. Ready to fight the entire freaking postal system because he had to wait for twenty minutes.

There was something about watching that up close that taught me, vividly, that anger—or, impatience to the breaking point—makes you rigid. In every single way.

It shuts down your ability to think creatively. To give other people the benefit of the doubt. To be generous.

You lose your mental agility (which is precisely what you need if you're facing something you don't like).

And the entirety of your life shrinks down to this one fight: You vs. the Thing.

(In this case, a twenty-minute wait at a PO.)

Also? It makes everything very unfun for you and unpleasant for everyone else.

It's bad enough to encounter this in a post office. 

(And yes, I did let him go in front of me, because otherwise I thought he and maybe several more of us would have a heart attack.)

But what happens when we do this in our writing lives??

Because I have totally done this in my writing life.

I have had so many huge exaggerated flip-outs, which felt justified to me at the time.

The process is taking forever! This isn't going how I wanted it to go! 

The novel isn't working, the research isn't working, the dialogue isn't working, the ideas aren't working... and frankly, the whole lifestyle is crap. 

Stomp, stomp, stomp. Fume, fume, fume.

Huge angry scribbles in a journal. Venting to anyone near me.

The works.

Believe me, I know that kind of anger. Wanting to burn down everything that I'd built, every single word, and start over.

Time and time again.

And it's exhausting.

It narrows you. Makes you stingy. Shuts down your idea-making. 

It darkens your overall creativity (which is a huge part of what we're relying on, so that's not a good thing to lose either).

And it will definitely make it harder or impossible to get back to your desk and do the thing that you wanted to do:

Write an amazing story.

Patience and peace, old-fashioned though they sound, belong in our work.

Because they outdistance the angry-guy-at-the-post-office response, every single time. 

Bonus: Less wear and tear on you.

Also a bonus: Happier writing life.

Cultivating an ability for patience and peace actually keeps your head clear.

If you're calm, you can see opportunities glimmering there in the distance. And you have the energy and the creative chutzpah to invent your way out of your predicament.

All right: let's be practical. Where is it hardest for you right now to wait it out? 

Where are you feeling like the angry post office guy, ready to make some noise and flip tables and bellow? 

It's weird, but when I tell myself (sometimes out loud), "I'm going to choose patience here," I can feel myself start to shift.

Sometimes, of course, I don't feel anything. But I try to model patience for myself anyway.

I take a few deep breaths. (That helps with the peace part.) I try to think past the roaring frustration that wants to loom up in me.

And if I can't muster it, I'll fake patience if I have to. 

So: whatever the tough thing is that you're facing, can we try this?

For me, it's the renovation draft of my work-in-progress. At the end of last year, I tore my novel apart and applied awesome structure advice, and then rebuilt the outline.

I have a story that I love now. And I was going to finish writing the new draft by the end of February. 

It's, um, May now. And I've gotten the first quarter of the draft almost done.

There were legitimately difficult circumstances in February, so it isn't a lapse of focus or purpose. It's just that life happened, and so—this is where I'm at.

And I can twitch and get angry about it, and believe me, I'm tempted to.

But I can just feel what that does in my head (makes it tiny and uncreative) and my heart (it shrinks and snarls) and my body (tense and stubborn).

Not great things.

Not "oooh, let's make the yummiest story ever!" kinds of things.

So even though it's a wildly different plan than my first one, I'm gonna draft this story in May.

I'm picking intentions over goals. Letting go of rigid plans. 

And most of all, I'm leaning into this with a conscious decision to be patient—with myself, with changing circumstances, with new routines.

I'm choosing to bring peace to my desk.

It's not easy—that's why this is a lionhearted skill, after all!

It takes courage to keep your calm. To practice a peaceful attitude, even about the stuff that you're actively working to change.

To balance your ambition (because heck yes, we're keeping our ambition!) with a steady, grounded patience.

That's tough and it's brave and it's one of those put-your-grown-up-pants-on kind of skills.

And it's totally the best thing for the story and for the otherwise-frazzled writer.

So that's my challenge.

What's yours?

Where are you picking patience and peace over the total flip-out?

(Guy at the post office, I really did sympathize with you. But I'm not going to imitate you. And neither is the rest of the lionhearted crew.)

Here's to leaning toward peace. And here's to practicing patience. 

Dare to Transform Your Writing Life with This One Strategy

When I officially launched this blog last March, one of the toughest decisions to make was the title for the blog.

If you've started a blog, or website, or similar project, you get this, right? Sum up all your hopes and dreams for the project in one teeny phrase. 

I knew some of what I was looking for: I wanted it to be happy. I wanted to talk about the kind of writing life I had just started to explore—what I most wanted to grow into.

I tried everything. For a long while, this blog was almost subtitled, "Pursuing the Merry & Wild Writing Life."

I loved the idea of an unusually joyful approach to writing. Merry, for sure!

And I also liked not fitting so neatly into a box, not being so darned meek and quiet about our writer selves. Being fierce in our creativity. More than a little wild.

Merry & Wild. Close. But not quite there.

When I hit on the term lionheart, I knew my blog had met its destiny.

Because when I say lionheart, I don't just mean "courageous person" (although of course that's part of it). The word has absorbed a host of other senses, elements, and ideas.

And so when I say I aim to be a Lionhearted Writer, it's shorthand for all the traits I'm aiming at.

The entire bag of tricks that make up my exact ideal way to be a writer.

... And since I'm obsessed with definitions, I thought maybe it's time to lay that definition out completely.

For the month of May, we're going to explore everything that goes into being that kind of writer. 

It's the anatomy of a lionheart! 

And just so we're clear: When I say lionheart, I of course mean you, me, and the hundreds of other writers who are reading this post. There are a lot of us.

Get ready for some roaring.

---

So! Lionhearted writers! Let's do this! Let's break it down!

Where to start? With something really quiet, small, and incredibly powerful.

The lionhearted writer trusts herself.

What?! Trust?

Yes. 

It seems like a little thing, but the more I think about it—oh, is it valuable!

Let's back up: Recently my younger sister and I were talking about Brené Brown, and how she's the coolest ever, and how we're both diving into the material she's created, and how much we loooooooove it.

My sister recommended her talk on trust, which I hadn't seen yet. And when I did, I was blown away.*

I loved the talk. (And as soon as you have twenty-four minutes available for awesomeness, you should go listen to it!) She defines trust, the elements that go into it, how it's built, how it's destroyed. 

But the thing that made my eyes open twice as wide, and start talking back excitedly to my computer screen, and then tell everyone else about it—was right at the end.

When she talked about applying all those trust-building skills to yourself. 

Are we trustworthy to ourselves? Do we honor our boundaries and do what we say we will? Do we take good care of our more vulnerable secrets, do we treat ourselves with generosity? 

I started applying that to myself, of course, with general life stuff. But then I asked another big question:

Do I trust myself as a writer?

For the first eight years or so of writing full time, I was the poster child for NOT trusting myself.

I essentially treated my creativity, my writing impulses, and my time, with utmost distrust and suspicion.

I worked in a panic. (Just to be clear, this is a very unpleasant way to work. Please don't do this.)

Of course I didn't trust myself! I didn't even want to. I was too new at this, too ignorant, so (I thought) how could I have anything in myself worth trusting? 

I had too much to learn, and not enough time for it. And I never wanted to give myself time to learn. Ever.

I had no faith in my instincts about how I needed to work. Instead, I was terrified that I wasn't challenging myself enough, so I pushed super hard—then burned out.

Scraped myself back together and pushed to burnout again. 

Um. It wasn't a healthy cycle.

All I had to show for it—after years—was a bunch of bruises, a total lack of faith in myself, and a lot of that time (which I was so scared about wasting) gone.

Now I think that if I had taken the time to actually listen to what I deep-down knew I needed, trusted it, and acted on it, I'd have a whole different story! 

Here is what I know: It is scary hard to trust yourself.

Especially when you're new at this... but I'm guessing it's going to be hard for a while longer than that. (Heck, right now, I probably trust myself 65% of the time. HUGE for me, but definitely not to 100 yet!)

It is hard to get really quiet and still and ask yourself: Okay. What do I need next? It's even harder to believe that the answer is a good one!

And it's hard to not just freak out all the time.

But no matter how uncertain it feels, I promise that it is worth building trust with yourself.

And I don't mean the screaming, freaking out, panicking part of you. (That part needs a hug and then a whole bunch of chocolate chip cookies and then a fuzzy blanket. But its screamed suggestions probably don't need to be followed.)

The truth that I've been stepping into lately, is that I understand a heck of a lot about how I need to work, what I need to be saying, and how I need to say it. 

The same thing is true of you. (Even if you're brand new to this!)

There's a part of you that does understand how you work. And even might hold some clues about how you work best. 

If you really pay attention to it, you can start to understand from that clever part of you: where your best material lies, and what you most need to learn. 

That part of you.

Find it. And then clear space, time, noise, and listen. 

I'm serious. Get a notebook, take some deep breaths, and just ask that deeper, wiser, word-loving part of you: What do I most need in my writing life right now? 

New resources, or time to play? A creative date where you go and wander and don't have to talk to anyone?

A different project? A crazy-fun class? A group? Or alone time?

Just listen in. Listen deep and listen long.

Find those gut instincts, and then trust them.

Show up for that part of yourself. It's something we all need—including me, for sure—to do more often.

... Oooh, what if once a week, we took fifteen minutes for this. Listening, writing down notes, just checking in.

And then, we acted on the good stuff that bubbled up about the direction of our writing.

Wouldn't that transform your approach to your work? What you work on? How you approach social media, marketing, all of that?

Again, I'm not talking about the million lists that all of our busy brains could frantically generate.

We're seeking that deeper, intuitive understanding.

If you're more extrovert style, I love and respect you: do this in your marvelous extrovert way. Maybe you'll want to grab a close friend who gets this kind of writing/creative lifestyle, and talk it through.

But however this looks for you, find a way to give your instincts a lot more trust. Let them make the call. Steer by them for a while.

That could be the key to a transformational amount of amazingness.

---

* Yep, I only just realized that Brené Brown's talk is called The Anatomy of Trust, though somewhere in my head that must've stuck. ... Which is probably why "The Anatomy of a Lionheart" struck me as a great series title!

Haha! Thanks, Brené Brown!!

Four Steps to a Radically Happier Writing Life (Spring Cleaning for the Writer's Mind)

We've turned April into the month of Spring Cleaning the Writing Life! Because it's too easy to get swamped by clutter... and I'm not just talking papers and old pens. Check Monday's post for a guide to spring cleaning your goals, and when you're ready, read on!

Today's challenge might not be what anyone thinks when they consider Spring Cleaning... But it's way more important than the dusting and vacuuming we'll be doing later. 

You don't need a lot of supplies for this one. But it just might have the biggest effect on your whole writing practice.

Whew! Deep breath.

Today, let's take a look at what we're telling ourselves. 

Yep. We're gonna clean out all the negative, doubting voices in our heads.

What's happening in your mind lately?

What are the voices that show up when you sit down to write, when you take aim at a new challenge, or when you're lying awake at two a.m.? 

Take a few minutes and jot down what they say to you. As exactly as you can remember.

I know. It doesn't feel awesome to do this. But trust me, you need to haul those invisible little spooks into the cold light of a computer screen. Or onto the beautiful plain of a piece of paper.

Write them down. Because a lot of their BS becomes clear when we're actually looking at the words.

Look at how they're talking to you. (And feel free to get mad about it.) See how they go for our effectiveness, our quality. They pull out small, isolated moments of our pasts, and project a whole bleak future out of them.

This has come up for me a lot lately.

I've realized: it's so easy to just let those voices stick around. 

To think: Sure, I don't like them, but they're there, and that's life, whaddya gonna do about it? 

I've changed my mind.

I've decided that, being okay with negativity in our heads is exactly like being okay with asbestos in our apartment building, or with radon gas in our basement.

You can't just live with it: that stuff's gonna kill you.

And there's nothing especially heroic about breathing that in, day after day after day.

So I'm not going to let them stick. (And neither are you!) And there is something concrete that we can do about it.

(Oh, here I go, getting fired up now...)

How do we do that? Well, it involves an idea that I used to be extremely skeptical about.

So before we get to the good stuff, let's do a quick little mental experiment. 

Imagine that there's a person sitting there on your desk. A real, breathing human being. And what this person does is talk to you during your writing day. Out loud. Face to face. 

And let's say it's a terrible person.

All they do is talk to you about the times you've failed in your writing life. The ideas and projects that haven't worked out. Times when luck went against you. Pieces of your writing that were horribly misunderstood. Missteps. Topics that didn't work out well. 

Based on all that, they forecast your future. They predict how this piece of writing is going to go. They tell you all about the prospects of your dear little work-in-progress.

Okay. 

Seriously, now. 

How the heck could you get any good writing done?

Even if this person takes breaks, and only sounds off, say, once an hour: you would be so alert to every negative indicator. Every bad possibility.

So that everything else in your writing and your life will just confirm the person's bleak outlook.

Even though it's obvious, let's just spell it out: You're not going to get any thing great done. Even if you manage to persevere under that onslaught, it's going to be very, very hard going.

It will be next to impossible to believe in yourself. To attempt any new challenge. And even the normal trials of a good writing life will feel too impossible.

Ick. 

So let's rewind.

Now let's say the person on your desk is me. 

I'm sitting on the edge of your writing desk. And all through your writing day, whenever you take a break, or at chance moments during your work, I just pepper you with examples of when you were amazing.

(And I have SO MANY examples.)

So you sit there, writing, surrounded by all the moments when you got it just right. Memories of when you sat down with confidence and wrote.

I chatter on about the pieces that delighted other readers. The natural way you have with words. The wonderful things your teachers or friends or family have said about you. All your victories.

I remind you of your persistence, your courage, your unique insights, your incredible ideas, and how we need that in the world.

Well... geez.

You would do your writing in a significantly different way. Right?

When you're surrounded by the positives, you would rise to meet challenges. You'd step into hard tasks knowing that you have what it takes to figure it out because, hello, you DO.

Even when a piece "fails," you'd have the gumption to figure out what went wrong, and how, and why. You'd learn from it, and come out of that as a better writer.

See what I'm getting at? In both examples, it's the same writer. Same you.

But the voice is different. 

It matters where our brain is hanging out. What we're hearing in our heads profoundly affects what we do.

And we are better, more resilient writers, when the voices in our heads are on our team.

Which brings us to the new-to-me concept of affirmations.

Affirmations are a way of undoing the damage that the negativity does. Affirmations are that good voice sitting there on your desk, talking to you all day long.

If the horrible, negative doubts are poison, affirmations are the antidote. 

... If you're feeling like this all just got WAY more touchy-feely than you really wanted for a Thursday, I understand. I was incredibly skeptical of affirmations for a long time, but I've been rereading The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. And it is, oh my goodness, SO HELPFUL. 

Cameron is pretty dang strict about applying affirmations to your writing life, and—obviously—she won me over.

Here's how it goes:

1. Take one of the ugly mean phrases that you wrote down. 

2. Create an affirmation that deals with the same idea, but goes in a positive direction, or declares a positive outcome.

So, "You'll never publish anything" turns into I have the skills to publish this project. Or even I am a published author.

"No one's going to read this" turns into I have devoted readers. Or I have an audience that is excited to read my books.

See how it goes? (You can find more examples of affirmations here and here, to get the gist. Like I said, I'm still a beginner at this!)

3. Say your affirmation out loud a few times. 

Or write it down five times. Or ten times! 

Or heck, you can write it and say it!

4. Notice how you feel.

This is what got me. This is what sold me on it.

I felt so silly while I was saying these affirmations out loud. It just seemed so goofy, and it wasn't even close to true yet.

(Here's what I noticed about that supposed silliness, by the way: I could let negative voices stick around, forecasting a terrible future that they couldn't guarantee. But when I even considered replacing those voices with a positive affirmation of the future, that seemed too silly to try. Funny, right?)

So I was saying things like, "I am a brilliant and prolific novelist" (straight from Cameron's book), or "I create wonderful art even in difficult circumstances." 

Even though I wasn't sure I believed what I was saying entirely, it still had an effect. I sat up a little taller. I surveyed my day's tasks with more confidence.

And then I was grinning in spite of myself. 

My work for the day felt a lot less heavy. I felt more aware of all my gifts, and all my resources. And generally, a lot less daunted.

THAT is what we need, right? 

So take a little time today, and DO THIS, even if you feel so skeptical. Even if it is the silliest thing ever.

TRY it. Take one strand of negativity and replace it with an affirmation. And then, keep going down your list! Julia Cameron encourages her readers to do this at the beginning of each writing day—it's the ideal kickoff!

So clean out those voices. Replace them with better ones. 

And just see what happens.

---

If you want a bit more of a discussion about affirmations, this is a great article.  

Wahoo! We did it. Clearer heads, happier voices, and more TRUTH making room in our minds.

I LOVE IT. 

Check back on Monday for a more traditional week of spring cleaning... and til then, have fun making happier spaces in your brain!