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Women are givers. Women writers are some of the most giving people I know.

We tend to have stronger relationships because of it–with babies, grown children, friends, and extended family.

But unless you learn how to balance all this giving with replenishment, you’ll find it nearly impossible to write.

Gift from the Sea

It has been a particularly busy family time the last six weeks, with little sleep and even less time to write. I wouldn’t go back and change any of it either–very rewarding times. But there comes a time when you realize you’re close to being drained. Pay attention to those times, or you’ll pay for it later (in your health, in your lack of writing, and in lack of patience with those around you).

This morning I was reading a bit in one of my favorite little books, Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s book, Gift from the Sea. I re-read it at least once a year. Here are a few snippets that might speak to you giving women:

• What a circus act we women perform every day of our lives. It leads …to fragmentation. It does not bring grace; it destroys the soul.
• Eternally, woman spills herself away in driblets to the thirsty, seldom being allowed the time, the quiet, the peace, to let the pitcher fill up to the brim.
• Only when one is connected to one’s own core is one connected to others, I am beginning to discover. And, for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be refound through solitude.
• One must lose one’s life to find it. Woman can best refind herself by losing herself in some kind of creative activity of her own.

Is That You?

If you find yourself feeling fragmented and agitated today, find a way to steal away from everyone for even ten minutes of total solitude (and if possible, silence). Breathe deeply. Bring the energy spilled on everyone else back inside for a few minutes. Re-focus. Relax.

If you have a couple hours, get a copy of Gift from the Sea and read straight through it. You’ll love it!

And if you have a couple extra minutes, leave a comment and tell us your favorite way to find solitude–whether for a day or just a few minutes. We all need suggestions for this!

My work seems to have different phases.  Last week was full of wild creativity!  I browsed pages and  pages of magazines with scissors in hand, blasted through bins of children’s books, and treasure hunted for color combinations in just about anything that came into view. If you could have seen into my brain you would have been scared. hahaha!

This week the tide has turned. My days will be spent without any other human beings in sight and only a sleeping puppy or two at my feet. It will be this way until my ideas are sketched, inked in, scanned, and colored. For me it means many quiet solitary days. Someone singing on the radio or a person talking on the television might scatter my thoughts like a syiff wind blowing a newly finished puzzle off a card table into a million pieces!

I don’t mind quiet days. In fact, when life gets crazy hectic I often retreat to this quiet place.  It’s a source of strength to sit with my little cartoons that smile up at me.  Call that crazy if you’d like … but its my little part of the world.

Rejection is part of the writing life. Writers have always struggled not to take rejection personally. Unless you’re super human, it deals a blow to one’s self-esteem.

“To be a writer is to be rejected. I’m not kidding,” says Rachel Ballon, Ph.D., author of The Writer’s Portable Therapist. “Those writers who stop writing the first time they’re rejected can’t call themselves writers because rejection is part and parcel of the writing game. It isn’t what happens to you IF you’re rejected, it’s what you do or don’t do WHEN you’re rejected.”

You Can Recover

I get concerned when my writer friends and students get so beaten down by a rejection. (And with our struggling economy lately, rejections are happening more frequently.) Rejections do hurt, and the disappointment can be huge. All the “don’t take it personally” lectures don’t help much then. You need more, especially in the initial stages when the rejection is new and raw.

“Expect rejection and disappointments with the knowledge that you’ll recover from them,” says Ballon. “Be just as prepared for rejection as you’re prepared for an earthquake in California or a hurricane in Florida.”

Plan Ahead

I never thought of that before: prepare for rejection. It makes sense though!

Most of my family members live in Florida now, and when a tropical storm is building to hurricane status, they go into motion like a well oiled machine. Buy batteries and food staples. Nail plywood over windows. Make sure generator works. Stock up on drinkable water. They don’t just sit back and hope the hurricane veers off and misses them. They know that the likelihood of being hit by a hurricane is low, but definitely possible. Being prepared has saved their lives and property more than once. And their plans for recovery and clean-up go into effect as soon as the storm passes.

The likelihood of writers being rejected is about 100%–much worse odds than destruction from an earthquake or hurricane. But how many of us have a plan for recovering from that particular professional “disaster”? Not many, I’m guessing. But we should have. We know it’s coming from time to time. And I wonder if we wouldn’t respond better if we planned for it.

Strategy

How do you plan for the day-perhaps after months of hopeful waiting or interested nibbles-when your story or novel or proposal is rejected? How can you prepare for it? Well, what makes you feel better when you’ve been rejected by someone in your personal life?

• A hot bath and a good novel?
• A phone call to your best friend?
• A candy bar or Starbucks coffee?
• Hanging out with people who do love you?
• Going for a hard sweaty run or bike ride?
• Journaling?
• Curling up with a “feel good” movie or chick flick?

Chances are, those same things will help you through a manuscript rejection. They can be the solace for your bruised soul.

Plan Ahead-Work Your Plan

I think I’m going to make a list on a card called “Rejection Recovery Strategies” and tack it to my bulletin board. And the next time a book or prop

According to the National Science Foundation, the average person has about 12,000 thoughts per day, or 4.4 million thoughts per year.

I wager that writers are well above the average because we read more and writing causes us to think more than the average.

Who’s In Charge?

I had known for a long time that our thoughts affect our emotions, and that toxic “stinking thinking” could derail our writing dreams and health faster than almost anything. You are the only one who can decide whether to reject or accept a thought, which thoughts to dwell on, and which thoughts will become actions.

But sometimes–a lot of the time–I felt powerless to actually do anything about it on a consistent basis. Sometimes I simply felt unfocused and overwhelmed.

Need a Brain Detox?

I’ve been reading a “scientific brain studies” book for non-science types like me called Who Switched Off My Brain? by Dr. Caroline Leaf Ph.D. which has fascinated me. With scientific studies to back it up, it shows that thoughts are measurable and actually occupy mental “real estate.” Thoughts are active; they grow and change, influencing every decision we make and physical reaction we have.

“Every time you have a thought, it is actively changing your brain and your body–for better or for worse.” The author talks about the “Dirty Dozen”–which can be as harmful as poison in our minds and our bodies.

Killing Our Creativity

Among this dozen deadly areas of toxic thinking are toxic emotions, toxic words, toxic seriousness, toxic health, and toxic schedules.

If you want to delve into the 350+ scientific references and pages of end notes in the back of the book, you can look up the studies. But basically it targets the twelve toxic areas of our lives that produce 80% of the physical, emotional and mental health issues today. And trust me. Those issues have a great deal to do with you achieving your goals and dreams.

There Is Hope!

According to Dr. Leaf, scientists no longer believe that the brain is hardwired from birth with a fixed destiny to wear out with age, a fate predetermined by our genes. Instead there is scientific proof now for what the Bible has always taught: you can renew your minds and heal. Your brain really can change!

Old brain patterns can be altered, and new patterns can be implemented. In the coming days, I’ll share some more about the author’s ”Brain Sweep” five-step strategy for detoxing your thoughts associated with the “dirty dozen.”

But right now I’m going to read about the symptoms of a toxic schedule. I have a suspicion…

Nature

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If you’re a plumber hired to unclog my drain, but I catch you sitting and looking out the window, I can, in all fairness, say you’re not working. If you’re my cleaning lady, but I catch you rocking in a chair staring into space, I can say justly that you’re not working.

What about writers? Not so easy to tell!

Thinking vs. Writing

According to Wallace Stevens, “It is not always easy to tell the difference between thinking and looking out the window.” It’s also not always easy to tell the difference between thinking and going for a walk, between thinking and washing dishes, between thinking and daydreaming, and between thinking and grazing in the fridge.

Why is this true? Lots of thinking precedes writing. For fiction writers, thinking about characters, getting to know them, listening to their voices-all this happens in the head while “thinking.” Plot twists and turns give birth while “thinking”-and woe unto the writer who skips thinking and writes the first thing that comes into her head.

Although all this pre-thinking is critical, that isn’t all the thinking you’ll have to do. Even while working on revisions, you’ll find yourself thinking and staring out the window, thinking and walking, thinking and grazing. You understand that “I’m thinking” means ”so please don’t interrupt.” Chances are, your family won’t. Instead they will walk into the room where you’re “thinking-writing” and say, “Oh good, you’re not doing anything. Can you hold the ladder for me?”

Thinking in Disguise

That’s why I prefer to do my thinking in private if I can. Otherwise it just seems to invite interruptions, often at a critical moment when I’ve just about figured out my theme or where the climax scene needs to go.

If I’m home alone, that’s no problem. If it’s in the evening, though, or on a weekend, I weed flowers or fold a load of laundry or wash dishes when I need to think something through. (Nobody bothers you when doing chores-they might get roped into helping.)

Reap the Rewards

Contrary to the life of a plumber or housekeeper, a lot of the writer’s real work happens when she’s looking out the window. Sometimes my clearest thoughts, my best insights for how to fix things, come when I’m not thinking about the piece of writing at all.

Give yourself enough of this “mindless” time, and you’ll be amazed what bubbles up to your conscious mind. Despite the heckling you may receive, during this thinking time you’re a writer at work. And the pay-off will be huge.

Think of writing this way: every time you pick up your pen or begin typing away at your computer, you are preparing to dive.You’re not pulling on snorkel gear, or hauling a heavy oxygen tank over your shoulders, or stepping into a pressure-sealed suit, but you’re still preparing to dive.And like every other diver, you have to learn how to flip backwards off the side of the boat into the water and

Writing in the earliest stages of a project--and the process of thinking about these drafts as they come into the world--demands that I do it alone, out of sight, far from the company of other people. This aloofness--this physical and psychic distance--is a necessary part of the process so that I can hear my own voice without interruptions or the intrusion of other voices. When I'm alone,

I had known there was a furor over the billboards for an upcoming movie called Captivity, starring Elisha Cuthbert, who was so bad in 24.

And I had seen a billboard, so I thought knew what the articles were talking about.

But I didn't see this: "In late March, owing to what Mr. Solomon insists was a printing mix-up, outdoor billboard ads for "Captivity" banned by the Motion Picture Association of America went up all over Los Angeles anyway. They showed the film's star, Elisha Cuthbert, with a black-gloved hand over her mouth and the word CAPTURE. Next to it, as her mascara-stained eyes look tearfully out a cage, is the word CONFINEMENT. In the next panel, titled TORTURE, tubes are coming out of her nose, draining blood. The last frame shows the actress hanging dead, lying on her back with one breast prominently displayed. The word in this panel: TERMINATION."

Ad Age has a disturbing article about so-called "Torture Porn" - films made on the cheap that end up reaping millions.

The guy who gave us Saw has a new film in the work. "Mr. Koules' newest project's title? "Tortured," about a young child who's abducted, tortured and killed. His parents do much the same to his abductor."

I loved 28 Weeks Later and Pulp Fiction. So I'm not against violence in films. But if the point is just to gross someone out, esp. in something that links sex and violence, well, that scares me. I don't think we should feed people that. I'm not sure where the line is. I just know that it's being crossed.

Read more here.





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