When You Doubt the Value of a Lighthearted Book in a Tough World, Remember This

Well, we're coming to the end of this gorgeous month of Reading Recess. 

I don't know about you, but it has been SO GOOD for me to slow down, to focus on reading, and to remember why we read.

To set up good, nurturing structure around the reading habit (in the mornings! in a nook!), but also to remember why we have permission to do this amazing thing: falling into novels and reading, reading, reading.

We have that permission, because we're the makers of this art as well. We have to keep experiencing novels as readers, to remember, again and again, everything that they can do.

Because books can be the loveliest of vacations, the sweetest escapes.

Because books connect people: they link hearts with hearts, and remind us that we're not alone.

And sometimes, they do both of these things at once.

In my reading history, there is one moment that stands out above all others.

One moment when a light-hearted, even "silly," book gave an amazing gift to me, my parents, and someone else we didn't know.

In the midst of fear, heartache, tension, physical pain, and hope, there was a story. 

I've talked about it before on the blog, when the memory was especially fresh. (I can't beat that version of the story, so I'm just gonna reprint it below.)

But seriously: for amazing moments with a novel, nothing in my life beats this:

We were in my mom's hospital room.

Waiting with her as they tweaked her pain medication, waiting for her to recover just enough from the surgery to go home. We were looking out at the amazing view from the seventeenth floor. Letting her rest, grabbing coffee from the lobby, keeping each other company.

And then: we were reading out loud. 

My family has always read out loud to one another: it's something my parents did for us when we were kids, and none of us got around to outgrowing it.

So my mom packed a lighthearted novel for her hospital stay, and Dad and I read it out loud.

And something funny happened.

Instead of being overwhelmingly conscious of I.V. cords and hospital gowns, the smells of antiseptic, the sounds of the equipment in the room (I never knew hospital beds were so loud)—

Instead of all our worries about the surgery itself, and the outcome, and what the rest of recovery would be like, and if any other treatment was needed—

We all teleported. 

To 1930s England. To chauffeurs in uniform, to having tea and lemonade on the lawn, to entertaining the vicar.

To frivolous women and pompous young men and imperious great-aunts. To thwarted love and silly mix-ups and endangered inheritances.

It was one of those comedy-of-manners kinds of books, trivial and subtle and funny. 

The only thing I had to focus on was reading the very next sentence. Everything else faded away. Mom listened and rested. Dad and I wrapped ourselves up in the story. 

And at one point I looked up to see my mom's roommate standing there, listening to me read.

She was holding onto her I.V. pole, with a feeding tube snaking into her nose, but she was with us in the 1930s, standing there in England, just for a little while. 

(She told us—in a beautiful accent that none of us could quite place—that she and her husband had been listening to us for a while, that it was lovely to overhear someone reading, instead of the noise of the TV. "There's a TV in here?" I said later, surprised. We had never even noticed.)

In other words—I tell this emphatically to the doubting voice in my head—in other words, books are still important.

Even when your family gets all shaken around and can't figure out what normal is for a while.

Even in a land of diagnoses and tests and results and lab reports and waiting, waiting, waiting.

After all, anything that can make two women forget—even for an instant—that they are in a lot of pain; anything that can move a group of people over a continent and back about eight decades; heck, anything that can keep me from realizing I'm in a hospital—

Well. That's a very powerful force.

Whether the story reminds you of green lawns and sparkling lemonade, or whether it's populated with aristocratic assassins and monocled crime fighters [like the one I'm writing!]:

Stories are important.

And maybe there is no such thing as too silly, when even the silly stories can remind us who we are.

---

In reading news: I finished Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat! SO much fun. And so I've started my final novel for this four-in-four challenge.

It is in the favorite-of-mine genre of British mystery. Thought I'd save the easiest for last! Somehow, I can never, ever read enough British mysteries.

This one's a recommendation from my mom (who is totally healed and healthy now, by the way!). It's called Bellfield Hall, Or, The Deductions of Miss Dido Kent, written by Anna Dean. 

Wahoo!! I'm super excited to dive in!! 

How's your reading going? Can you spend the last week of July splashing around in some fun-for-you (or dare I suggest it, even silly) novel??

Maybe in a lovely nest or nook? Maybe while eating something nourishing and delicious?

(Or a crisp gin and tonic: also fine with me. Heck, have two. It's been a tough summer.)

Wherever you are, whatever's going on: Save some time for yourself and a splendid book. 

Re-anchor yourself in the worlds of what you're reading. Switch your perspective for a while. Nourish yourself with words.

It's vital.

Happy reading to you, my friends!

Rewind and Refresh: Are Your Writing Goals Still Good? (It's New Year's Eve in April!)

Helloooooo, April, and hello, Monday! 

I don't know about you, but I'm itching for a fresh start. My writing work, my mindset, my desk—everything just feels cluttered after the last few months.

I want to spruce everything up! And I want a cleared-off runway to approach the work ahead.

In other words, I'm craving a Spring Cleaning Festival. In my writing life. 

So that's what we'll be up to on the blog this April! A thorough, wonderful deep-cleaning of all things writerly.

Does that sound good? You with me? 

More than anything, I want a spring cleaning of my goals. 

I did a lot of dreaming in December, and a lot of planning in January. But—as you know by now—the first three months of the year did not go according to plan.

And I'm haunted by all those goals.

The ghosts of goals! None of us need to have them floating around our writing desks!

So it's time to re-evaluate.

How about you? What are your goals? What's been at the top of your list for a while? What have you been aiming at, working toward?

How's it going? 

Pay close attention to how you feel as you think through your goals. 

If you still get that positive fizz of energy when you review your goals, that kind of electricity, the thrill of a good challenge—then you're probably on the right track. 

Hooray! Keep on keeping on.

Now I want to talk to everyone else. To everyone who feels a bit sick, or guilty, or panicked, or massively overwhelmed when looking through their goals.

Yeah: You.

If some of your goals require major sacrifices of your health, your closest relationships, your emotional wellbeing, or any square inch of your sanity, then they need a closer look.

When we start off the year, with those twelve beautiful months blinking lovingly up at us, it's so easy to believe that anything can happen!

Reach! Stretch! This is the year! Go for it!

And while it's still the year to go for it, it also turns out that ... anything really can happen.

Which sometimes means that we fall behind where we wanted to be.

Sometimes, the work we planned takes a heck of a lot longer than we expected. Sometimes, there are huge new skills to learn that we didn't take into account. 

Getting off track happens. And the path to fixing it does not lie through a desert of criticism, or perfectionism run amok, or any other sort of self-bludgeoning.

It also doesn't mean trying to make the impossible happen—while totally burning yourself out.

(Burnout is not worth it. Ever. I promise.)

So if your goals—for 2016, for the spring, for the start of the year—are way, way out of reach right now, it's time for a clean-up.

Give yourself a moment to forgive the past. Maybe you made some sketchy decisions about how to spend your time. Maybe you're not sure that you made the right call.

Or maybe you did everything you could, and your goals still danced out of reach.

However it went down, give yourself a hug, and let go of what you thought should have happened.

Then make yourself some tea, and let's think this through. Because you have two really great options.

1. Renegotiate your goals.

I've found that if I just shrug and say, "I guess I'll do less," it still feels like failure in my head. You know? 

If you made your goal with intention, then honor this revision with a similar amount of purpose. Give yourself a Goal Renegotiating Ceremony.

It's like New Year's Eve, part two! Grab whatever planning supplies you like, and then consider all those goals.

But this time, think like a really clever, kind-hearted boss: Any goal you set asks for commitment from your whole team, so have them in mind as you do this.

What's different? Your timetable might have shifted. You might have new commitments to deal with.

Your resources (physical energy/stamina, or access to information, or even your excitement about a project) might be totally different. Your heart might be pulling you in a new direction. 

So, given all of that, what needs to change? Are some goals no longer relevant? Have your priorities shifted?

Is there new information, a new process, or something else that you need to take into consideration? Something to make room for?

You might be able to take your original goals and cut them in half, in quarters. Or you might want to go a different direction entirely. 

Change your deadline. Change your process. Let go of any extra weight.

You see how this is going, right?

Re-set your goals.

As far as the old goals go: You're off the hook.

That was just your first plan, and look how far it got you! Now that you're further in, now that you have more information, now that you have a better feel for the landscape, it's time for a better plan. 

... If this feels hard for you, if you feel like you're admitting failure, then I want to encourage you to remember something. (Something I have to remind myself of, all. the. time.)

Goals are meant to be tools. They are tools for your work, for your life. That's all they are. 

As tools, they shape your writing life in good ways. They give you the push that you need to do your best, to stretch that extra bit to reach what you need to reach.

Goals are meant to be on your team.

My tendency is to make them much more mandatory. Do you do this? I can tell I've crossed the line, because I start feeling this unbearable pressure. I get all bleak about myself, my abilities, my future. 

Trust me on this: When you start not wanting to face your work at all, those goals have crossed the line.

They've stopped behaving like tools, and they turned into evil little gods, requiring sacrifices that aren't theirs to demand.

If that has happened with your goals, fire them. They've gotten waaaaaay above themselves. Kick them out, because they're not helping. And refuse to listen to them.

Keep the goals that serve your work. The ones that bring out the best in you. 

2. Embrace a life of systems, not goals.

Your other spring-cleaning option for goals is to do a total reset. To abandon the goal-setting paradigm entirely. 

(And honestly, this is my camp right now!)

A couple of weeks ago, I was re-listening to Joanna Penn's interview of Tim Grahl, and they said something that stopped me in my tracks. I was making dinner, and I just stood there in the middle of the kitchen holding a sweet potato, saying "Yes! Yes!! That's IT!"

And if your life lately feels—kinda like mine—like it's turned into a graveyard of abandoned goals, then this is THE thing for you to do. Ready? 

In the interview, Joanna Penn mentioned that Tim Grahl had recently posted something on Twitter: "Think system instead of goal." They tease that out a little further in the interview, but to me, it made immediate sense.

See, after all the family-crisis-meets-illness in February and March, I keep waiting to bounce back... only I haven't. I haven't recovered my energy at all, and my stamina is zero.

I'm looking into all this with my doctor, but the upshot is: I can't just pretend I'm an Energizer Bunny hopping along with my writing notebook and plans. That looked great in January, but I'm a different person than I was in January.

And if I try to hold myself to that—multiple projects! lightning-quick drafts! sending things to beta readers on this date, publishing a side project on that date—I will burn myself out.

I've done it before. It's not pretty. The recovery time is long and deeply unexciting.

I don't think goals are gonna help at the moment.

But a quality system? Systems can work.

All I mean by a system is: any kind of behavior or scheduled activity that you put into place that keeps you moving forward.

It can be really tiny. A small daily habit. Or it can be more major: several hours of work on a certain project, every day. Or every week.

In the interview, Tim Grahl talked about his highly-structured day, with a protected amount of time for his creative work.

He shows up for it when he says he will. But it isn't a goal of what must get done by when.

See the difference? 

Personally, I'm letting go of goals for a while. Till my health stabilizes, I can't just plan on having a certain amount of energy. I can't catch up.

But I can make time for a system that keeps me near my work. (As well as systems to take care of myself!) 

I can build a few quality habits, keep moving, and keep my novel's heart beating, day after day.

If you're tossing out all your goals today like me, then just take some time to think about what really matters to you. What you need to move toward on a consistent basis. What you want your life to look like. What makes you the best kind of writer.

And then set aside time to do those things. Or develop a ritual, or determine a consistent action you can take. (And yes, the Write Chain Challenge is a PERFECT example of this!) 

Make it yummy for yourself. Something good. 

Oh, and yes, I've learned this the hard way: Setting up two dozen systems isn't actually simplifying anything. (Whoops.) So start small.

Give yourself the gift of a system-based writing life, and take pleasure in forward movement. 

---

There! Spring Cleaning Phase One is complete! Oooh, our goals and systems look so shiny and sparkly now.

I hope you're feeling freshened up and ready to step into spring! I'm curious—which path did you take? Were your goals all in fine order (yay!), or did you renegotiate? Or replace 'em all with a few well-chosen systems? Let me know in the comments! 

Remember This When All Of Your Writing Plans Blow Up

I am a recovering control freak. (HUGE surprise, right? I know, I know.)

I still have a major fondness for one-hundred-item lists. For plans that map out the next three years with precision. 

I love the idea of my personal universe clicking along, on well-oiled gears, everything spinning just as it should.

I love that. It's so tidy.

And when I'm on a planning tear, it feels so, so possible. Give me a calendar and a notepad and a pen, and you will see me work up some serious control-freak euphoria.

There's only one thing more dependable than my desire to plan: The way those plans almost always explode. Or dissolve. Or vanish. 

They tank, they go south, they self-destruct. Swept overboard by crises, illness, injuries.

(What's that? Oh yes. I'm still fending off a four-week sinus-infection-meets-bronchitis supervirus from hell. It has slowed down my writing progress a tiny bit. ... It is also gross.)

Plans blow up, and then I'm reminded—oh, yet again—that I am actually operating in a world that I don't control. 

Whoops.

So I take a little time to recover, to soften my grip on the calendar and the pen and the hundred-item list. I give myself some chocolate, find a cozy blanket, and then remind myself of this quote. 

This fantastic, writing-life-altering quote: 

Teach yourself to work in uncertainty. — Bernard Malamud

That's the kind of quote that used to reduce this control freak to a quivering wreck. Because that is not what I wanted Mr. Malamud to say. 

I wanted him to say: "Never fear, writer! You actually are a little god! You can make everything go your way if you just PLAN HARD. Don't give up!! Fight! Grip it all too tight! Insist on your own version of reality in the face of everything else! Mwahahahaha!!"

He did not say that.

Teach yourself to work in uncertainty.

Kind of makes it sound like the certain thing in the writing life is actually—its uncertainty. 

I'm finally waking up to the fact that the thing I can absolutely predict is that there will be chaos, there will be some event that checks my plans, there will be evil-minded germs.

And the writing itself can jump the tracks: Outlines suddenly sound like gibberish. Favorite characters start acting like morons. Dialogue devolves into silly clichéd exchanges. 

An appetite for reading goes dry. A disciplined working routine fizzles. Plans fail.

There is always uncertainty. We can count on it. 

It took me a while to see how hopeful and wonderful Malamud's quote is. Because yes, there is always uncertainty.

But there are also two other constants in that quote. Two other things to be counted on:

There is always the work. That work we're called to, like someone tied a string to our hearts, and tied the other end to stories. 

That work. 

And then, there is always the writer. 

She might be beaten up, she might have suffered loss, she might look like she's just clambered out of a shipwreck.

She might have just drunk all the tea in the house and be sitting amidst a pile of used tissues. (Who, me?) 

She might not be able to save her writing with plans and schedules. She might not be able to see clear to the end of the endeavor like she wants to. 

But that's okay. That's the thing. That's the really, really good news:

There is always uncertainty. There is always the work. And there is always you, my dear lionheart.

And when we train ourselves to work, despite the uncertainty, then we actually become invincible. 

We don't have to understand exactly how we're going to get this draft done on time. We don't have to be able to diagnose all the ills of our upcoming months in advance. 

Spoiler alert: 2016 is NOT going to go according to plan.

Seriously. There is some major stuff heading toward our lives.

Some of these plans for our writing—so neat! so clever! so possible!—will absolutely be swallowed by the perfect storm of crazy that is coming. 

I'm guaranteeing it. 

That used to make me tense and white-knuckled. That used to make me run around, screaming. 

Guess how I thought I'd fix everything? By planning harder.

Granted: A bit of good strategizing will help. Of course it will. 

But it is so easy to get trapped in a cycle of overthinking and overplanning: Let's get all the variables accounted for! Let's find three ways to defeat each obstacle! Let's make a list of forty things I have to do every single day to stay on schedule!!

But the best, best, best thing to do in the face of uncertainty is the work. 

The ACTUAL work. 

Not planning the work. Not analyzing notes. Not listing new ways to research.

But the real, true, sweet storytelling work itself. 

Craft the next sentence. Write the very next paragraph. Sketch out the next chapter. 

Actual words for the actual story.

Even though you're not sure! Even though everything's shivering and unstable! Write. Even then.

Over the last three years, life has dealt me a serious amount of bizarre and frustrating and crazy circumstances.

Planning has its allure, but it has never, ever saved the day like writing has. 

It gets easier with practice. It comes more naturally. It's a skill we can grow.

So let's practice that together, okay, lionheart? 

Whatever form of uncertainty is facing you right now—whether big life circumstances, or just the normal plain uncertainty of how the heck are you going to finish that novel?!—whatever that is, consider it for a moment.

And then take a really deep breath.

Right now. Yes, really. 

A super deep breath. And then let it all out. Then do it two more times. (Something about three deep breaths. It's a thing. I love it.)

And then do a little writing. It doesn't have to be much. 

Grab an index card and write the very next sentence of your story. A line of dialogue that's spot-on for your protagonist. A smidge of description for your favorite bit of setting.

Write down something, anything, that reconnects you to the heart of the tale you're telling.

Not to the planning. To the work.

Writing is the best medicine, the best antidote, and the best safeguard in the face of uncertainty.

Use it well. And use it often.

(Don't you feel just a little bit better now?)

The Counterintuitive Way to Protect Your Writing (from Everything that Gets In the Way!)

I can't believe that it was a year ago that I re-launched this blog as a place for lionhearted writers to gather and talk about courage, self-management, and an incredibly healthy writing life. 

A year of courageous writing! Let's all dig in to a big bowl of confetti!

So to celebrate this month, I'm coming back to one of my favorite things: quotes about writing.

If you've been around here for a while, you've probably noticed that I'm addicted to quotations.

I've done a series on helpful writing quotes, and I did another post on some of the best quotes for the "shadowy side" of the writing life. (Which I still loooooove. They are good quotes, y'all.) 

And this month, I'm coming back to them again.

Our writing lives are shaped by voices, after all. 

By the words of our teachers, our readers, our characters, our own selves, and all the books and writers that have gone before us. 

So many voices. So many words. 

And the awesome thing is, we get to choose which ones we'll hold on to. Which ones we'll believe in, and learn from. 

I love that. 

Here's the quote that's on my mind today: 

I love this quote. This reminder. 

Because this is where I've been lately, my friends.

Over the last month, I've watched my grandma's health decline to nothing. I visited her, read to her, and even sang to her (not very well) because singing was something that still got through.

I saw her the night before she died, and we all sang Happy Birthday and ate cake to celebrate her ninety-second year, even though she couldn't respond. 

I sat with my mom the next morning as we got the news that my grandma had died. I witnessed the flurry of preparation for a visitation, a funeral. I helped proofread her obituary. 

We welcomed my sister and her husband and their four incredible kids into our home; I talked with friends and family for five hours at a visitation.

There was a funeral, a burial, a luncheon. We brought home flowers from the church, and I woke the next morning to the scent of roses.

I stared at the obituary photo of my grandma (bright-eyed, smiling, content) to erase the memory of how she looked the night before she died—when she already seemed like a ghost.

Along the way, I totally neglected a head cold, which responded by turning into some massive sinus-infection-meets-bronchitis thing.

(I sound very elegant while typing all this, coughing like this and sniffling, sitting here in my pajamas and my robe amidst a pile of tissues. Real talk, y'all.) 

And oh yeah, I didn't do any writing. Not a scrap.  

My novel has curled into a tiny little ball. Its notes look like they were written by someone else. The current draft—my epic structural rewrite—is cool to the touch, sitting there at just 7500 words. 

Here on the blog, I had prepped the Love Your Writing Life series in advance, because we knew Grandma wasn't doing well. I checked in with the posts as they published and read them again, doing the prompts that I could manage to get to.

But for the most part, I felt very, very missing-in-action with writing. 

Which is why I love today's writing quote.

Because I can say: That is TOTALLY OKAY.

I had big plans for my writing in February. But it turned into something else.

It was a month for family. I was a granddaughter, a daughter, an aunt, a cousin, a niece, a sister, and a friend. I sang and prayed and held hands and matched faces to names that I'd heard of for decades. 

It was a month for relationships. It was time to be the human, more than the writer. 

And if this sounds very unremarkable to you, I have to explain: in the first several years of being a full-time writer, I divided my life into Writing and Everything that tries to interfere with writing. 

That's the dichotomy that I rode for years, and can I just say: Pitting the rest of your life against your writing gets exhausting.

It turned everything into a fight. It made me bitter. It made me a resentful crazy person. 

Please don't do that.

I threw out that paradigm a while ago, and now I try to live by something else.

I want to be a really good human. Someone who pays attention to the world around her. Who catches the nuances. Who loves people first, and then remembers what they say and writes it all down.

Yes, still a writer.  A writer to the core. Believe me, I was staring at pictures of my grandma, pictures taken ninety years ago in Puerto Rico, imagining stories for the faces and the places that they showed. 

I was absolutely noticing everything at the visitation, the funeral. What, after all, do people say to you, when you've lost someone? 

I soaked up the stories that were shared. The sweet moments. As well as the surreal sense of going through the motions.

I was a family member, first and foremost. 

Here's the thing, my friends. Splitting life into Writing and Not Writing makes it hard to live well.

So I've decided to choose a better focus. Now I protect both sides of the equation (the writer, the human) by trying to live an attentive life.

Because the heart of being a really excellent human and a really excellent writer is the same: To pay attention. To love big. To notice things. To show up.

When I live like that, I get to be the kind of person—daughter, aunt, granddaughter—I most want to be. 

And, when I get back to my writing desk, I find that I have stories to tell.

I'm more calm about getting my writing in, and my writing gets richer at the same time. How's that for a more pleasant way to live? 

So this week, my mission is to get well.

To sleep a whole bunch. Eat a lot of chicken noodle soup. Use those clever essential oils, and take plenty of vitamin C and zinc. I'm gonna banish the snot and the cough.

I've also cleared off my desk. I sat and stared lovingly at the outline I have for my novel on the wall. (Oh look! Characters! I have characters! Hello, you little beauties. Next week, we will dance and dance and dance some more.)

And then I showed up in this space to write some words, and to send love to all you lionhearts, and to say:

We are writers, but we are humans first.

That's how it's supposed to be. Let's not get the two confused.

Let's be present every single day, shall we? Let's pay attention to whatever life hands us.

Let's write by being alive, first. By being attentive, first. 

And then, let's trust that when it's time to sit at our desks again, our stories will be so much richer, because we've been such real and wonderful people...

Even when we weren't writing.

Six Ways to Keep Working When You're Sick

I've read a number of interviews with successful authors, who say that they keep RIGHT ON WORKING when they're sick. Apparently the thinking is: What, I have the flu? Pfft. There's this NOVEL I need to write. Let's DRAFT. And off they go.

Man. I applaud that. But that is not my experience when I'm sick.

As timing would have it, I'm sick at the moment. Some kind of stomach bug thingie that I'm not especially enjoying. (And I can't tell you how funny I think it is that this hit right after my #30DaysNoWhining challenge started on Monday!)

So. I'm not whining. (I promise!) I'm just making sure my lunch stays in place and my cookies don't get tossed. So far, so good.

But it got me thinking about writing when sick. (Which, can we all say, is SO MUCH EASIER than traveling when sick. How many terrible stories are there about getting sick on the road. Yiiiiikes.)

I'm not all tough when it comes to working while being sick. Really. I wish I was rah-rah-rah about it, but I'm pretty much a softie.

That said, I still have a few questions for myself when those germs show up. I'll push through for a bit, but then I start asking myself: How can I step back from this hardworking pace, and yet still feed my work? How can I take a break--and, you know, get HEALTHY--but then re-enter my writing work in a good way?

My immune system is not completely super, so I've had a lot of chances to explore these questions. And at this point, when I don't feel so good, I have a good list of habits to help my work along while I rest. 

#1: Put your daydreams to work. 

Being sick has two qualities that are pretty great for writers: 1) most people will leave you alone when you get the word out, and 2) your brain is floating around in a dreamy state.

This is like a perfect recipe for daydreaming.

I think of intentional daydreaming like making a smoothie: put a few good ingredients together in a blender, and flip it on.

So when you're sick and you're crawling back to bed, mentally grab about three things from your work-in-progress. Maybe: a setting you want to explore, or a relationship between characters, a scene or a plot point that you're stuck on, a beginning or ending that you want to rework.

Stick some paper by your bed, and then crawl under the covers and doze. Let your mind wander about. Take naps and wake up and sleep again. And every time you're awake, take your brain for a little walk around those story questions you have.

Honestly, you might surprise yourself with what you dream up. Keep feeding your subconscious during the day, and jot down notes as ideas float by. You can deepen so many parts of your work this way... and it's practically effortless!

#2: Mindmap your way to better ideas.

More focused than daydreaming, but still along those same lines: Being sick can be a great time to explore your ideas in a more concentrated way. 

I've heard again and again that if you want to do better brainstorming work, you need to put yourself physically in a different space. And if you're leaving your desk for your bed, swapping a screen for paper and pen--well, you're halfway there! 

If you're feeling up to it, prop some pillows behind yourself, grab a big pad of paper, and create a mind map of a project or two.

Thanks to the dreaminess of being sick, you have a chance to have a looser process, to let more air into your work, and to just think differently as you brainstorm.

Take that chance to pursue some new ideas and let your mind ramble around in new territory. (I'm only just getting interested in mind mapping... here's a quick explanation if you're new to the concept.)

#3: Create a mini writing retreat.

What's something you want to learn about in your writing, but you don't ever seem to have a chance? Grab that writing book you've been meaning to get to, or explore the writing website you found but haven't yet read.

Fill your feverish little noggin with writing articles and podcasts.

And hey--if you're sick RIGHT NOW, and this writing retreat thing appeals to you, there's an online writing conference happening, the Self-Publishing Success Summit, which is free for a limited time. I've caught a few interviews and am definitely enjoying it! Perfect timing for sick little me! (I don't know when it stops being free, so run check it out!)

#4: Fall into an excellent novel.

This is a great time to dive deep into a book. Declare a reading holiday! 

Pick up a novel that's like the one you're trying to write, and as you soak in the words, push yourself to think like a writer.

Pay attention to where the plot tightens up, to how the character relationships unfold, to whether you want to keep reading (in spite of being sick!), or where the tension slacks off and you'd rather nap.

Jot down page numbers for where the description is spot on, or that perfect way they opened Chapter 14. Make a few notes, so that when you're back at your desk, you can analyze that good writing.

(If you can't keep your eyes open: let a quality audio book send you to sleep. Fill your dreams with superb sentences.)

#5: Have yourself a movie festival.

Find a few movies about authors, or writing, or really--anything to do with books. (When I seriously can't work for one reason or another, it's still nice to give the writing life a big old hug. It helps remind me why I love this work... and that never hurts!) 

You could also dive into a handful of that kind of movie that reviewers call "visual feasts." (Or any other kind of feast, really!) Rewatch some quirky films that delight or inspire you. 

Have yourself an inspiration picnic, right there amid the tissues and cough drops. Get your imagination all revved up. Nourish the places that might have gone a little dry, while you were being so productive before. 

#6 Exercise your grace muscle by letting yourself off the hook.

Look. If you're really really sick, just put the work to one side. Let yourself sleep like crazy. Heal.

Because ultimately--and you know this if you've been around here a while--I'm all about taking good care of yourself as a person first, and as a writer second.

And honestly, illness is a good time for me to re-orient on this principle. 

Because when things are going super well, I can start believing this lie that says, if I check every box on schedule, I can have a perfect writing life.

And then when I get sick, I am tempted to believe that everything is ruined.

Well, frankly, it doesn't work like that. And I'm slowly learning that really good things can STILL happen, even when our plans wreck and our perfect little schedules hit a snag.

So give yourself a ton of grace. And maybe some balloons and flowers. Snuggle into bed. Your work will still be there when you get up. You'll find your way back into it. 

And no fellow lionheart will get all furious with you if you just take the time to get well. Okay? 

Okay then. 

On that note, I'm off to bed. And until I'm on my feet again, I'll be doing a bit of #3, #2, and #5.

What sounds good to you? What will you be up to?