Your ARE a talented Writer!

I would bet that someone, at some point in the past, maybe when you were quite young, once pronounced you “talented.” This was probably after you’d created something spontaneously in a spirit of enthusiasm, inspiration, or joy.This declaration of talent likely felt good at the time but also would have introduced a feeling of self-consciousness—plus an awareness that such declarations were bestowed by others rather than oneself.A declaration of talent can be the initial encouragement that gets us to commit to a creative path, but it can also keep us hungry for outer acknowledgement. Some writers spend much of their time chasing opportunities to experience that other-bestowed good feeling again and again, seeming to need reassurance that they are still talented.I've been wondering if the idea of "talent" is problematic. When the word is interpreted as natural aptitude or skill, it can be relatively neutral. But when it’s used to separate creators into categories of high and low status, it can create unnecessary trouble.Interestingly, the word originally referred to an ancient unit of weight and currency, so it’s long been associated with “value.” A talente or talentan was a physical thing, and it has retained its meaning as something one “possesses.” The word eventually became commonly associated with natural endowments connected to athletics, creativity, and intelligence. This added notion of naturalness implied something new: not only was talent something to have and to be, it also pointed to an inherent or innate value that could be developed.Whoever suggested you had some talent for writing, and whenever that happened, you were the one who made the choice to develop it. This is all any of us can do.“Am I talented? or “Do I have talent?” are the wrong questions to ask. If you’re reading this newsletter, you have it, because you already have a natural inclination to create. If you need to hear from others that you’re talented, that could be more about needing approval and permission. The only question you need to ask is: How do I develop what I do have?Belief in your own talent is sometimes a good thing, because it’s hard to stick to writing unless you believe in yourself and your work. But believing in the work is much more important than believing in yourself. (I'm embarrassed to admit how many rabbit holes I ran down in search of ways to “believe in myself”—whole industries are devoted to this!)The more you believe in the work itself, and the more you show up and actually do it, the more you will develop into the person who can deliver the work, and this is the best way to reach the state of believing in yourself. And it’s the only way you can express your talent.Talent emerges as you write, as you practice, and as you make things, and then more things.Many of us start out writing with joy and enthusiasm when we’re young, perhaps encouraged by someone who recognizes some innate talent. Most of us take long detours through adolescence and beyond. Then later, as adults— and after we’ve picked up the underlying social message that “anyone can write”— we might find our way back to writing and be surprised by how hard it really is (to finish things, revise, publish, etc.).So we start questioning ourselves and our talent. We go in search of other people and other experiences to reassure ourselves that our natural impulses aren’t in vain (and there are whole industries set up for this, too). This searching journey isn’t all in vain—we meet kindred spirits, set up networks, and hone the craft. In the process we develop a writer’s life, and in the midst of that life, we think less about having talent or being talented, because we are focused developing it and expressing it.Your talent is innate, and it’s rooted in your own joy, inspiration, and enthusiasm. Outside influences may trigger these states, but ultimately only you can sustain them.To be talented and to have talent is dependent on the choice to develop talent.Go forth and develop your talent!

I would bet that someone, at some point in the past, maybe when you were quite young, once pronounced you “talented.” This was probably after you’d created something spontaneously in a spirit of enthusiasm, inspiration, or joy.

This declaration of talent likely felt good at the time but also would have introduced a feeling of self-consciousness—plus an awareness that such declarations were bestowed by others rather than oneself.

A declaration of talent can be the initial encouragement that gets us to commit to a creative path, but it can also keep us hungry for outer acknowledgement. Some writers spend much of their time chasing opportunities to experience that other-bestowed good feeling again and again, seeming to need reassurance that they are still talented.

I’ve been wondering if the idea of “talent” is problematic. When the word is interpreted as natural aptitude or skill, it can be relatively neutral. But when it’s used to separate creators into categories of high and low status, it can create unnecessary trouble.

Interestingly, the word originally referred to an ancient unit of weight and currency, so it’s long been associated with “value.” A talente or talentan was a physical thing, and it has retained its meaning as something one “possesses.” The word eventually became commonly associated with natural endowments connected to athletics, creativity, and intelligence. This added notion of naturalness implied something new: not only was talent something to have and to be, it also pointed to an inherent or innate value that could be developed.

Whoever suggested you had some talent for writing, and whenever that happened, you were the one who made the choice to develop it. This is all any of us can do.

“Am I talented? or “Do I have talent?” are the wrong questions to ask. If you’re reading this newsletter, you have it, because you already have a natural inclination to create. If you need to hear from others that you’re talented, that could be more about needing approval and permission. The only question you need to ask is: How do I develop what I do have?

Belief in your own talent is sometimes a good thing, because it’s hard to stick to writing unless you believe in yourself and your work. But believing in the work is much more important than believing in yourself. (I’m embarrassed to admit how many rabbit holes I ran down in search of ways to “believe in myself”—whole industries are devoted to this!)

The more you believe in the work itself, and the more you show up and actually do it, the more you will develop into the person who can deliver the work, and this is the best way to reach the state of believing in yourself. And it’s the only way you can express your talent.

Talent emerges as you write, as you practice, and as you make things, and then more things.

Many of us start out writing with joy and enthusiasm when we’re young, perhaps encouraged by someone who recognizes some innate talent. Most of us take long detours through adolescence and beyond. Then later, as adults— and after we’ve picked up the underlying social message that “anyone can write”— we might find our way back to writing and be surprised by how hard it really is (to finish things, revise, publish, etc.).

So we start questioning ourselves and our talent. We go in search of other people and other experiences to reassure ourselves that our natural impulses aren’t in vain (and there are whole industries set up for this, too). This searching journey isn’t all in vain—we meet kindred spirits, set up networks, and hone the craft. In the process we develop a writer’s life, and in the midst of that life, we think less about having talent or being talented, because we are focused developing it and expressing it.

Your talent is innate, and it’s rooted in your own joy, inspiration, and enthusiasm. Outside influences may trigger these states, but ultimately only you can sustain them.

To be talented and to have talent is dependent on the choice to develop talent.

Go forth and develop your talent!

Choice, Change, and Conflict

In the midst of all the changes in the world, we are invited to make some new choices—collectively and individually. Unexpected changes bring us face to face with unexpected choices—to let go of certain assumptions and plans, to reframe cultural beliefs and “norms,” to examine what really matters, and why.

Making choices and making changes are inherently anxiety provoking, and rarely occur without some degree of conflict. In the world at large we’re witnessing a lot of conflict, but many of us are dealing with it at a personal level too. We are each in our ways dealing with anxiety, worry, pain, and fear related to experiences or observations of inner and outer conflict. These are natural human responses to anticipating change and choice.

I think about choice, change, and conflict a lot because they are so much a part of the writing life and telling stories, even in small or subtle ways. Just think: without that bit of inner conflict that arises when we want to write a book but haven’t done it yet, we wouldn’t choose to change our habits to get up early or stay up late to fit our writing in. And if we didn’t throw conflict in our characters’ paths by forcing them to make choices that lead to personal evolution through change, our stories wouldn’t get very far.

As messy as conflict can be, I respect its energy to pressure us to choose and thereby provoke change. And I also respect—or better yet, trust—our human ability to adapt to changing circumstances as well as our ability choose and forge new paths. It’s not easy to change. Not for us or for our story characters. We resist it as much as we long for it. We fear what we may lose, and we don’t trust we can successfully create what we long for, so we often stay stuck.

In the book I’m writing, I tell writers that their story situations “…must be compelling enough to overcome the inertia of being human. The truth is, we’d all rather not change because change is uncomfortable, inconvenient, anxiety-provoking, and often leads to real or imagined loss or even death, as well as changes to beliefs and personal world order. Of course, deep down, we do want to change. We, and our characters, just need the right set of circumstances and enough motivation to do it.”

We seem to be living through such circumstances now, but it’s still hard to know exactly what to do. As our identities and belief systems are being challenged, we are called to examine our mental and moral natures, which are capable of change, but require will, determination, and trust in a vision for a new way of being. I don’t have any answers for rallying that will, focusing that determination, or expanding that trust, except to embrace the clumsy, vulnerable messiness that the choice to change entails—and to have the courage to face the inner and outer conflicts.

Another passage in the book, which is about story characters but also applies to ourselves, seems to fit here: “Change is inherently conflictual whether it occurs on the inside or outside, but without it, we would not grow. We are wired to change. We are wired to evolve. We are wired to heal. And life—in the real version or the story version—provides us with invitation after invitation to rise to those challenges.” Collectively and individually, let’s accept these invitations…and rise.

Story and the Pursuit of Transcendence

Why do we write? Why do we read? I ask these two questions often—in my courses, retreats, and even the book I’m working on right now.

With reading, answers come down to understanding ourselves and the world, as well as knowing more and feeling more, including feeling less alone. With writing, we seek to communicate, connect, and make meaning out of the seemingly random events that make up life experience.

This leads me to wonder if, through reading and writing, we are in some way attempting to transcend the problems of life and the angst of existence. If so, why? Maybe the better question is why not? It seems that to not try would be to curtail our own growth, as individuals and as a collective.

The pursuit of transcendence does not mean it’s ever achieved, mind you. In fact, every effort reveals it’s quite impossible, at least in a sustained way while we’re living and breathing. But reading and writing stories seem to be part of this pursuit.

Story recognizes the problems that living in the world brings and it deals with the human desire to transcend our inner and outer conflicts. But it knows, because the psyche knows, that such transcendence is only possible through immersion–through deep absorption of all that is, and a reconciliation with and acceptance of that “all.” This is what we use story for, to greater and lesser degrees, and it’s how story uses us.

The psyche is story. Life is story. The world is story. It’s the way we perceive, understand, and integrate the meaning that allows us to change. To evolve. When we engage with story, we are subconsciously opening ourselves up to this evolutionary possibility, again to greater or lesser degrees. And art, all great art, reveals a glimpse of this potential. We are more–and the world is more–than we perceive in any given moment. Story helps us expand our perception. Stories of ourselves and each other, and of the world around us—through an immersive experience—render us more expanded. It is psychic evolution and it impacts the world in powerful ways.

Did you realize, when you took up writing, that you had joined a revolution of psychic evolution? I’m pretty sure you sensed it, even if you wouldn’t necessarily put it into these words. Because at some level you believed that writing, as a process, vocation, or career, would improve your own life and your Self in some way. Regardless of upheavals, set backs, and complications, your urge to write is like a flower turning toward the sun. It rests on a belief that you are moving toward a greater life force rather than away from it. That’s what humans do. With the life we’re given we reach for that which is life-giving.

Unless something has gone awry—and plenty has, does, and will. But stories can help us find our way back to the original urge to live in the name of life. Not one story but zillions. Because there are as many ways to live as there are people living. Of course, stories themselves can become corrupt and dangerous too. They reflect who we are and how we’re evolving. But most stories, and most writers, turn their words toward the light. And that sustains us.

When Inspiration Stalls

A client wrote to me not long ago to stay that her inspiration had stalled. It was both a statement and a lament. Writers tend to be preoccupied with the notion of inspiration–its presence or absence, its ease or struggle.

Inspiration is a lot like the weather—a blessing when it’s good and an inconvenience or disappointment when it’s not. It’s unpredictable, sometimes seasonal, or can catch us unawares, either positively or negatively.

Our minds trick us into thinking inspiration is, at least potentially, an achievable permanent state. Deep down we know it’s not. It can be as fleeting as a rainbow, or as glorious and transient as a sunset. We want such beauty and grace to be permanent and we struggle to accept that it can’t be. Yet still our work must get done. We must write in all kinds of internal and external weather.

When clouds roll in and sunshine is absent it’s good to remember that somewhere, high above the clouds, if you just rose high enough, you’d encounter blues skies and sunshine again. Even when it’s night where you are somewhere on the planet it is day. It can be comforting to know that what we want is always there, even if we can’t be in its presence at a particular moment.

When inspiration finds us at our desks, what joy! An unexpected and very welcome guest. But when it’s off shining on others elsewhere, we must trust ourselves to remain devoted to our craft, to be willing to show up rain or shine.

To inspire is to breathe, to take in breath. So to be inspired is to be breathed into, presumably by some other force. This is a gift when it comes. But we do come with apparatus to breathe on our own, without thinking, and while sleeping, so we can show up to do our work anyway. One breath at a time.

When inspiration stalls, remind yourself it will rev up again. Part of it’s magic lies in not knowing when or where it will find us.

Don’t wait on inspiration. If you work regularly and with devotion, inspiration will find you. Like happiness, inspiration is a by product of meaningful action. Keep working. Keep showing up. And when inspiration strikes, let it wash over you like a summer’s day or the awe that accompanies the sight of a rainbow or sunset. Inspiration’s power and joy arises from its fleeting and intermittent nature. In the meantime, breathe thoroughly and deeply on your own. The more you do, the more likely you’ll be breathed into now and again.

Time, the Moon, and Mary Oliver

As I watch the first month of the new year end, I am considering my relationship to time. Most days, it isn’t a good one. To my mind, each day begins so full of potential and then, by day’s end, that potential seems to have frittered away. So this morning, I meditated on time, the moon, and Mary Oliver.

When I lead writing workshops I always begin with an exercise called Here and Now, a present moment-focused, grounding warm up that lasts for 10 minutes and functions like a writing meditation. I turn to this practice personally as well, and this is part of what I wrote this morning:

The rising grey light of morning. Earlier, while it was still mostly dark, a sliver of moon in an indigo sky. That clear, pure, white light, symbolic of cycles, of time, but more accurately of nature. Our relationship to time rises out of nature, but on the way gets separated from it. Poetry can bring the connection back. Poets like Mary Oliver capture these moments of nature caught in time and reflect them back to us. (“This grasshopper, I mean–the one who has flung herself out of the grass…” ~ Mary Oliver). We lost this precious poet this year, but we will continue to be nourished by the words she took the TIME to create and write down. (“I’m going to die one day. I know it’s coming for me, too. I’ll be a mountain, I’ll be a stone on the beach. I’ll be nourishment.” ~ Mary Oliver)

We are all in relationship to time everyday. It is a precious resource—only 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, 52 weeks in a year. These human-made measurements of time, and how we interpret them, can sometimes wreak havoc in the mind.

Yet nature gives us cycles and rhythms, bound by repetition and movement. Unless you’re at the equator, each day the sun rises and sets a little bit differently throughout the year. Time is never exactly the same on any given day, and neither is our experience of it.

Many writers struggle with finding time to write, or making the best use of their writing time, or they chase deadlines, or craft ideal yet difficult-to-stick-to schedules. Yet I think many of us are drawn to writing because of the timeless nature of it, because of the way we can lose ourselves in the process and forget about time. Writers are also arbiters of time—we compress and expand it through words designed to create experiences in the minds of readers. We help others transcend and travel through time, at least in the imagination.

What is your relationship to time? When do you feel you have too much of it? Not enough? When do you forget about time? When are you preoccupied with it?

My mind tells me there is never enough of it, and this same mind encourages me to cram too much into it. We all have access to the same 24 hours in a day, but how often are we attending to the quality of that experience, to the nature of that relationship? It is up to us whether we relate to time as friend or foe.

Creators tend to focus on the fleeting nature of time, because we understand, conceptually and physically, that creation occurs within a crucible of time, and life is only so long. So time anxiety is understandable, perhaps even warranted, but we cannot let it cripple us. We must become friendly with the limitations time imposes on us.

We can choose instead to relate with joy and wonder at this opportunity to live and create with time, to cultivate a healthy relationship with it, to be inspired by the many insightful words that poets of the present and the past have left for us, including the one-of-a-kind Mary Oliver, who said:

“I decided very early that I wanted to write. But I didn’t think of it as a career. I didn’t even think of it as a profession… It was the most exciting thing, the most powerful thing, the most wonderful thing to do with my life.”

Is it time to make writing the most wonderful thing in your life?

What Do You Owe Your Readers?

In a word: Everything.

Reading might be the single most intimate act you will experience with a stranger.

When you open a book, you let a complete stranger into your most private space: your mind. Once there, this wordsmith sets up camp and creates words that conjure feelings, actions, and meaning. It’s a privilege to be invited into your mind, and this writer better have something useful, funny, evocative, intelligent, illuminating, or entertaining to say. Or voilà! You can snap the book closed and move on to something else. We’ve all done it. And we’ve also all leaned in when something has grabbed our attention and we felt that sense of “give me more of that.”

Writers start out as readers. They are captivated by the magic of words, but then they choose to take another step. They say, “I want to make the magic too.” It’s an innocent enough desire, and one most writers spend a long time trying to fulfill. It’s honest-to-goodness hard work, and most of it isn’t magical. In fact, we can get so caught up in the effort of honing our craft that we sometimes forget the ultimate reason for it: to court the love and loyalty of readers.

But how do we do that?

Well, first, we lovingly respect our future readers. We take them seriously. They have busy lives, lots of interests, and longings of their own. Because of these facts of existence, you, as a writer, owe your reader at least three things:

1) Tell a Good Story.

Tell a story that is compelling enough to make readers pause in their busy lives. We all appreciate good entertainment, relevant guidance, or breakthrough inspiration. Who hasn’t stayed up all night with a good book? Rather than being angry with that author we’ve been grateful for their powerful seduction, caught up as we were in their magic. Do whatever you have to do to learn how to wield this magic.

2) Don’t Please Everyone.

Readers have many tastes and interests and I guarantee that if you’re true to your “thing,” and hone it passionately (and follow point one), you will find your readers. Trust what drives you, work diligently at your craft, go deeper, cross all your Ts and dot all your Is, keep trusting, and don’t give up.

3) Speak the Truth

By all means tell your readers what they want to hear, but also tell them what they need to hear (from you). Take your reader on a wild ride with your thriller, but remind her about the human condition on the way. Get real in your fiction. I like to define fiction as “lies that tell the truth.” We often turn to made-up stories to discover deeper truths about ourselves and the world. And if something is true for you, it will resonate as true for someone else.

As a writer, you’ll never make every reader happy, and you needn’t waste your time trying. You can only do your thing for those readers who like to lean into your thing. But you must do your thing well. So learn more, practice more, get support, learn to take constructive feedback (and don’t take it personally), and take each project to its finish line, which, we have to admit, is into the hands and hearts of readers who want more of that.

And remember: If, by picking up your book, a reader invites you into their mind, and possibly their heart, enter boldly but respectfully, confidently yet generously, wisely and gratefully. Dot your Is and cross your Ts and you may just end up with a lover for life.

The Most Important Ten Minutes of Your Day

Are you writing? It’s hard to start, isn’t it? We make such a fuss about starting, especially on those things most important to us. The things with stakes attached. And who doesn’t attach pretty high stakes to chosen dreams? Such as writing.

The expectations we have of ourselves and our work can make starting difficult, but here’s a little known secret: it’s only the first ten minutes that feel hard.

Have you ever noticed that when you start to exercise, things feel pretty rough? For about ten minutes. Then your heart rate is up and energy is coursing through your muscles. What about going to an event where you really don’t know anyone? The first ten minutes—brutal. Then you’re either in a groove or making an educated exit. That project at work that you don’t want to do but it really needs to get done? Give it about ten minutes. You’ll be able to take one more step toward completion.

It takes about ten minutes to transition from one state of mind to another or from one activity to another. Humans are naturally resistant to change (even while we also crave it). Every change comes with a period of discomfort, even small changes that occur in a day. Since we are physiologically wired to avoid pain (discomfort) we often experience resistance as we approach these thresholds of change. And the greater the stakes we’ve associated with the chosen activity (what if I don’t lose five pounds exercising this way? what if I don’t finish the novel I’ve set out to write?) the greater the potential resistance and the harder it can seem to start. My advice? Give it ten minutes.

Encourage yourself to endure ten minutes of discomfort in honor of your chosen dreams. Promise yourself a reward if that helps (though I sometimes find that to be a mental abstraction that doesn’t quite work for me). The greatest rewards start flowing at the fifteen minute mark anyway. Your muscles flex, the words fly across the page, and you’re doing what you said you’d do, which begins to cultivate self trust and self respect, two character attributes necessary for self-motivated work.

There’s a saying bandied about that goes, “No pain, no gain.” I’m not a big proponent of struggle or suffering, but all creators face inner resistance from time to time, and unless we find ways to move through it, our dreams hang out on the horizon and never really get a chance to come into clear focus. So take ten minutes and wade through that inner resistance. They could end up being the most important ten minutes of your day.

Writing and Creative Depression

Depression may seem like a dark topic during the summer, but I’ve noticed it can arise anytime of year, regardless of the circumstances. Sometimes it’s good to take a peek at the dark stuff when we have a lot of access to the light.

At times, dark moods seem to have a magnetic attraction for writers. We hang out in our own minds a lot and our imaginations can run wild and wreak havoc. When the wildness serves us well, for example, by fueling a compulsion to get a whole story down in one fell swoop, the energy can be exhilarating, but when creative energy gets misused, say, by internally hurling harsh judgments at ourselves for not accomplishing a particular goal, or just generally unleashing a slew of “not good enough” arrows our way, the wild energy can be debilitating or even paralyzing. This can lead to feelings of depression.

A lot has been said and written about depression, and I’m by no means throwing my hat in that ring. Rather, I’m speaking about a kind of recurring or persistent, self-defeating depression that tends to afflict many writers and other creative people. (It’s also different from moods brought on by situational grief, loss, or stress.) It’s the kind of depression that your mind says you have no legitimate right to feel, not really, and yet, there it is. You feel it. You can’t really explain it. (In fact, trying to often makes it worse.)

Such creative depression sneaks up on many writers and, in some cases, leads to weeks, months, or years of writer’s block. My friend and mentor, Eric Maisel tracks this type of depression back to a crisis of meaning, and he writes about it elegantly and insightfully in his book The Van Gogh Blues, which I highly recommend to all creative people.

When we care about something deeply, depression has a tendency to link to it. If we care about love and partnership but haven’t yet met someone to share life with, depression can link to all things related to love and partners. If we care about creative success but haven’t yet achieved it in the ways we’ve been aiming for, depression can cling to everything related to creativity. If we care about health and vitality but find ourselves struggling with physical limitations or pain, whether chronic or temporary, depression can drive us to despair, which augments the initial suffering.

The very word “depression” tells us something is being held down. It’s often our well being and resilience, as well as the deep connection to what we care about. We’re at the mercy of a shadow blocking out the light. But shadows don’t exist without light, and so if we can rediscover the ray of hopeful light that emanated from our first innocent care—and we might find some heartbreak there, the crack that let’s the dark in—we can begin to tap into a healing power. That deep care, what we love, is the source of our light.

Reconnecting to the healing power of what we love and care about may take some hunting in the dark. It might not be pretty. Disappointment, dissatisfaction, regret, and bottomless longing can all be part of a writer’s life, and these states lay fertile soil for depression to take root. (Plus there’s plenty going on in the world to add compost to that soil.)

But under it all lies something compelling that once called us forward: the sweet joy of connecting authentically with another person; the wild abandon experienced in the act of making art; the sense of empowerment felt while dancing, running, or cart-wheeling through life. We may not be able to recreate the exact circumstances as that first innocent care, but we must try to tap into the source of whatever inspired us in the first place and reclaim it as part of who we are now. Because we contain all the selves we have already been and they feed the outer edges of the self we are still in the process of becoming, and that should never be held down.

When creative depression hits, dig deep into the roots of what you care about until you find the light. Summer is a time of blooming, warmth, and light; it leads to autumn’s harvest, which then provides nourishment through winter until spring returns. If depression has snuck its way into the margins of your summer, be kind to yourself, reach out and talk to a friend, or write into the places that feel dark or scary, but if depression persists, don’t hesitate to talk to a doctor or therapist.

Enjoy the rest of your summer!

Staying the Course

Earlier this month I had the good fortune to be a guest on a friend’s sailboat for ten days. Up until then I’d only ever spent a day or half day on a sailboat and hadn’t needed to do much but sit back and enjoy the ride. For this trip, I was one of three hands on deck, and I really had to pull my weight. I learned so much about sailing, and yet it was just the tip of the iceberg (hmmm, maybe I shouldn’t mention icebergs and boats in the same sentence…).

I’m still pretty green when it comes to sailing, but I did take the helm on many occasions, and when we were fully under sail, traveling between seven and eight knots, I learned what it really means to “stay the course.”

Usually when sailing, the captain plots a course according to the nautical charts. This results in a waypoint, the destination you’re aiming for (in our case, nearly deserted bays of small islands or along the Peloponnese coast. Unless you’re motoring only, the wind has to be taken into account, and you might have to tack and jibe–basically moving in a zigzag to catch the wind–in order to get where you want to go. It occurred to me that writing often feels like this too; we generally make our your way toward  writing goals following very indirect lines.

On good sailing (writing) days, when the sails (your mind and hands) fill with wind (inspiration) and you’ve harnessed great power to propel you forward, there can be a wildness to the ride. The boat heels to one side and you need to maintain your balance on a slanted deck. You need a light and strong hand at the helm to maintain a good angle to the wind. But a strong wind pulls the nose of the boat into it and the helm can stiffen and draw you off to one side, so minor course corrections are always being made if you are to make progress toward your waypoint.

Before, when I used to think of staying the course in terms of writing, I imagined maintaining a steady rhythm and routine, keeping my eyes on the goal, and basically plodding along. But after having experienced it literally, I see it as a dynamic, energized process of monitoring and responding to a variety of ever-changing conditions, many of which can steer you astray or tip you into the drink.

The wind, like life, is rarely consistent. We consistently need to make minor (or major) adjustments in our writing process in order to keep moving toward the waypoints we’ve chosen. Struggling with this is normal. Sometimes the wind wins. It’s rarely smooth sailing for very long. Your skills, your passion, and your stamina will see you through the rough seas of process so that you can occasionally experience tranquil bays of progress and accomplishment. But reading the wind, adjusting the sails, and riding unexpected waves will always be required.

Every sailor respects the wind, stands humbly before it, and each writer comes to respect the unpredictable nature of inspiration, word flow, and maintaining life conditions that support the creative journey. But no matter how choppy the waters, how wild or absent the wind, when we take the helm in our writing, all we can do is try our best to maintain an even keel and stay the course as we sail in the direction of our dreams.

By the way, we use so many nautical metaphors and phrases in our everyday language. I found this site that explains some of the origins of terms such as: by and large, batten down the hatches, broad in the beam, hard and fast, get underway, give a wide berth, high and dry, hand over fist, know the ropes, loose cannon, shipshape, shake a leg, taken aback, the bitter end, slush fund, three sheets to the wind, and many more.

Baguettes and Books

Paris has long been a mecca for literary and visual artists. Expat writers such Hemingway and Henry Miller, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein flocked to Paris in the 20’s and inspired future generations to follow in their footsteps. And then there are the famous French names: Victor Hugo, Balzac, Proust, Georges Sand, Colette, Anais Nin, Sarte and de Beauvoir, to name a few. I can’t get started on the painters or the list would never end (but Renoir, Monet, and Matisse are a few of my favorites).

It seems to me that Paris just might be the creativity capital of the world, and this may be why I’m so frequently drawn back to this illustrious city. If you’re ever in need of a shot of inspiration, Paris is always a good idea, as the saying goes.

Paris has been so culturally rich for so many centuries that you can’t help tripping over history while wandering cobbled streets or wide Haussmann-designed boulevards. True to stereotype, people actually are walking around with baguettes under their arms, in tote bags, or in the baskets of their bicycles. They are sipping wine and coffee in cafés, looking unrushed, and enjoying the scene of passersby or engaging in lively conversation with friends. And, in spite of technology, you see books everywhere. Parisians really enjoy their paper and ink books. They read on the metro and buses, at cafés and in parks. Forget high fashion. A book is the essential Parisian accessory. Baguettes and books–in Paris, they are the true sustenance of life.

Abundance, Gratitude, and Writing

Have you ever noticed how abundance can build up momentum in your life so that good things seem to create more good things? Then all of a sudden abundance takes a step back, seems to drain away or run into hiding? In both cases gratitude is the key. When you have a lot to be grateful for, be grateful! And when it appears that you don’t have a lot to be grateful for, still choose to be grateful, whatever the size of the microscope you have to look through to find something. Because gratitude will keep abundance flowing and it will invite it back when it goes AWOL.

Contrary to many beliefs, you don’t have to have a good and easy life to find time for writing, and you don’t need to have lived a so called “bad” life to have something interesting to write about. It’s true that less stress can aid creativity, but it isn’t always the case. Likewise, a personal story full of trauma and drama can be compelling, but that’s not always the case either. We get what we get when it comes to life situations and histories. It’s what we do with it that counts. And that’s where creativity comes in.

Writing occurs within the context of the life we are living—you make time for it or you don’t. And our stories grow out of our personal histories—whether we are conscious of it or not. The gift of life plus an inventory of experiences leads some people to become writers. But that’s not the case for everyone. If it happens to be the case for you, at some point, you will have to reconcile with your life situation and your past.

You will likely struggle against some aspects of your life situation in order to make time to write. And you will likely wrestle with elements from your past on the way to finding something compelling to write about. Rarely will you approach either with gratitude.

But what if you did?

What made you who you are—all that you’ve experienced so far—also contributed to you becoming a writer and living the life you are now living. That’s worth an ounce of gratitude. It doesn’t matter if you’d like to make a few changes (most of us would), but it’s worth noticing that being in a position to want such change is worth being grateful for too. If you’re reading this newsletter you have tools and technology at your disposal that are gratitude worthy. If you have a glass of clean water within arm’s reach, or a hot cup of tea, you have something else to be grateful for.

How often are you grateful for your writing practice? How often do you love it just for the sake of loving it? Can you let yourself do that now?

Gratitude practice is subject to a particular, softly scientific phenomenon: the snowball effect. Writing practice is similarly affected. The more grateful we are the more we have to be grateful for. And the more we write the more there is to write.

I’d like to return to the first paragraph and substitute the words “abundance” and “gratitude” with the word “writing”…

Have you ever noticed how writing can build up momentum in your life so that writing seems to create more writing? Then all of a sudden writing takes a step back, seems to drain away or run into hiding? In both cases writing is the answer. When you have a lot to write about, write! And when it appears that you don’t have a lot to write about, still choose to write, whatever the size of the microscope you have to look through to find something to write about. Because writing will keep writing flowing and it will invite it back when it goes AWOL.

Chaos and Order

By the end of January most of us are either hitting a stride when it comes to moving toward goals or else we’ve abandoned them completely. The latter can leave some of us disillusioned and disoriented, and simply trying to keep our heads above water as the river of life carries us relentlessly forward. Often, we give in to the external momentum of demands and distractions (especially after a month of trials and failures) and our once hope-filled creative goals get washed away.

Perhaps you’re cruising right along with your goals and don’t need a pep talk yet, but for those who do, I want to explore the powers of chaos and order.

Life for most of us seems to swing pendulum-like between chaos and order. And creative people tend to hang on the chaos side of the pendulum.

We usually think of chaos in terms of mess, unruliness, lack of control, disorder and confusion. But chaos is also potential, mystery, inspiration, the unknown, the unformed—it’s the source of creativity.

So it makes sense that creatives lean toward chaos, but creative people especially need to find balance between these poles. We know this intuitively, and when we set goals in the New Year, we’re making a valiant attempt to order the perceived chaos in our lives.

It’s the creative person’s intention to harness the energy of chaos, to dance with it until something can be made of it, and that making requires establishing some kind of order in the process.

Order by itself is usually dry and dull, but it’s necessary for getting anything done (and more is required if you’re also after efficiency). Order is the yang to chaos’s yin. And yet, too much order and we feel tyrannized; too much chaos and we’re adrift in meaningless mayhem. We actually need both.

As writers, the order we aim for most of the time is in service to making space in which the chaos of the creative process can enter. For example, choosing the same time of day to write and the same location to write in sets up the kind of structure that the muse, that harbinger of inspiration, can depend on. Faulkner said, “I write when the spirit moves me, and the spirit moves me everyday.” Because he showed up everyday.

A willingness to set up an orderly schedule for your writing allows you to be wild and loose in the writing itself. If you’re wild and loose in the scheduling process, when you finally sit down, you can end up feeling tremendous pressure to “get something done.” That’s in part because you don’t know when the next writing session will be. But if you know you have an hour today and another hour tomorrow and another the day after that, you can begin to relax enough to enjoy the process of meeting chaos on the page rather than in your daily life. Order serves and contains chaos for the creative person.

Order is also required to finish projects, revise them, and send them out into the world. We stumble terribly when we let chaos into these processes. That’s when the river sweeps us up again. So let’s take Thoreau’s advice here: “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.”

Putting foundations under creativity can be challenging for writers. So when the New Year comes around we, along with many others, seize the chance invite more order into our seemingly chaotic lives.

Of course, goal setting has always been easy; it’s the follow through that’s hard, because change is hard. Change requires that we first assess the chaos in our own lives (particularly the chaos that is masquerading as order—how many people say they write everyday but actually have multiple tabs open in their browser at the same time?).

When you’re ready to make a change by setting a goal, first try to assess the level of chaos underlying the areas that need attention. Ask yourself why that area of your life is chaotic, and then ask yourself to come up with one way you could bring some order to that area.

For example, if you overeat, make a schedule with set meals and snack times and don’t deviate from the schedule for one week. At the end of the week, ask yourself how you feel. If you want to write but never sit down to it with any regularity, decide on a time of day and a length of time and block it out in your calendar as you would a trip to the dentist or lunch with a friend, and then stick to your appointment for one week. Pay attention to how you feel after a week’s worth of this kind of productivity.

For most creative people, establishing order doesn’t feel good, but the results from living and creating within a structure (of time allotment or word count) end up feeling energizing. That kind of energy can inspire a creative person to value order in a new way, one which allows them to experience the real rewards of turning chaotic energy into creative work.

Chaos will always be whispering from the murky depths, and we want it to, since those whispers provide the good ideas, and we want to stay open to them. But if you want to experience the rewarding results of your creativity in 2018, then build yourself a raft of orderly routines so you can flow with the river without going under.

Invitation: Devote one week to meticulously recording the time you spend writing. Note down which locations you choose and how you feel before, during, and after writing. At the end of the week, assess your levels of chaos and order. Create a plan for the following week that includes a greater effort at order. Stick to the plan! Record how you feel after.

Jugglers or Jesters?

As writers we get used to juggling a lot. Not many of us can get by on writing alone. And, of course, we need to live an engaged life in order to have anything decent to write about. But there are days when it feels like ‘too much.’ I sometimes wonder if I’m fooling myself, jesting instead of juggling.

A good writer friend of mine said to me recently: “It’s hard to do anything at all and *also* write a novel.” I tend to agree, and yet this is what we find ourselves doing. So how do we stay limber? How do we keep our expectations about productivity grounded in reality?

Remembering the big picture helps me sometimes. I may not get much done in a day, but over the course of a year, or three, things begin to add up. Talking candidly with other writers helps too. We all struggle with similar highs and lows. And the one I find most difficult: standing back to admire my own juggling once in a while, and appreciating my efforts. Remember. Share. Appreciate. I guess that applies to a lot in life.

Write For Your Future Self

When I was coaching a client last month, I brought up the notion of “the future self” as a way to provide a different sort of motivation for writing. Our future self is the one waiting for us next month or next year or 10 years from now. It’s who we will eventually be, in time.

We know that too much thinking about the past and future can wreak havoc with our experience of the present moment, since we often regret things from the past that we can’t change or we long for something in the future that we wish would hurry up and get here. But you can have a healthy relationship with the past and future, too. The path is through gratitude.

The notion of the future self involves first thinking of some point in the future, whether six months from now, one year, or five or ten years. Then think of something you’d like to finish–a writing project you’re in the midst of, or a state of mind you’d like to experience, or maybe even a different physical place you’d like to find yourself in. Imagine the moment in the future exactly as you’d like it to be, really picture it. But rather than forming an image the ideal moment you’d like to attain, as you might do in a visioning or manifesting exercise, instead embody the moment with gratitude for yourself; thank yourself for something you did in the past to get yourself to this point. Let your future self say, “Thank you past self for doing X to allow me to be here.”

If you’re familiar with reverse goal setting, in which you picture your chosen goal and work backwards from the finished goal through all the steps required to reach that goal, this is a little like that, except it’s a bit more right-brained than left-brained. And it serves to enhance the relationship you have with your creative self.

When reverse planning for goals, you picture the goal you want to achieve and work backwards through the steps that will get you from here to there. For example, if your goal is to complete your novel manuscript, picture that moment. It’s all done, printed out, and you’re holding the manuscript in your hands. What happens right before that moment? It probably goes through a proofread. Before that, a copy edit and a developmental edit. Before that, the rough draft needs to be complete. To finish the rough draft you need to follow a writing schedule to get those words written. You might create an outline or do some research before this. You might brainstorm novel ideas to decide what to write about. Working in reverse, you have a different perspective of all that’s required to reach your goal, and with this perspective you can break down a large project into manageable chunks and create a realistic schedule to get it done (the trouble always comes with sticking to the schedule, but that’s another story…).

When thinking about your future self, you approach this reverse planning process a little differently.

Let’s say you’ve given yourself six months to write the rough draft of your novel. Picture your future self six months from now holding a completed first draft in your hands. Step into that future self and thank your past self for writing 1,000 words a day for five days a week to get you there. Really imagine yourself swelling with gratitude for your past self. You know it wasn’t easy for her every day. You know she lost her faith in the project many times along the way, but she persevered, and because of that you’re holding a completed manuscript in your hands, and that feels amazing. You can now take your next step toward your dream.

You could even do something helpful for your very near future self. My client says she sets out her dental floss by the sink in the morning so that it’s there when she brushes her teeth in the evening. She’s made this small task slightly easier for her future self, and it’s a small gesture of self-kindness.

Such small gestures of self-kindness can lead us toward our chosen goals just as well, and probably better, than the self-flagellating ones. You can practice building this relationship with your future self by being that self right now.

Think of something you appreciate about your life today. Did you get an article published in a local magazine? Thank your past self writing that article and sending out a query. If you’re part of a great writing group, thank yourself for having the courage to go to the first meeting. Now extend this beyond your writing life. If you’re happily married and starting a family, thank yourself for saying “I do” once upon a time. If you love your job in a faraway city, thank yourself for taking the risk of moving away to give the opportunity a try.

The key is to really take some time nurturing this feeling of gratitude and self-appreciation. Our minds tend to hone in on all that’s “not right” with our situations and so we tend to diminish the impressive things we’ve done. We might think, “It’s not the perfect marriage, or job, or article, so why dwell on it?” But each of those choices was a creative act that led to new manifestations—something from nothing—and that deserves to be appreciated.

So take a moment to stay to yourself, “Past me, thank you for trying X, because it got me to Y.” And when you sit down to write today, dedicate the effort to your future self. One day she’ll thank you for it.

Beginnings, Middles, and Ends

Many of you know I’m in the midst of traveling abroad for much of this year. When I travel, I like to think of the journey as a story. Each journey (or task, event, or project) has a beginning, middle, and end. Using this kind of story lens help me to interpret and understand my experiences.

In the beginning, there is excitement, anticipation, and the pleasure and wonder of novelty, but there can also be confusion, disorientation, and challenge while learning to navigate in a new world.

Middles are full of fresh knowledge, building confidence, exploration and connection-making. Things feels more settled, known but still new-ish, and one naturally takes for granted that life will carry on like this indefinitely. This is the sweet boon that arises from having risked embarking on a new beginning in the first place.

But an ending is eventually around one corner. Then comes a time of appreciation, assessment, and letting go. Gratitude is coupled with loss, happy experiences are tucked away as memories, obstacles met and overcome are seen as having enriched our wisdom, but the reminder that all of life is temporary and ever-changing is upon us once again.

It’s natural to want to resist endings, but it’s wiser to embrace them because they give context to the whole.  And within each ending is another beginning. Seneca is credited as saying, “Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

While I’m still, technically, at the beginning of my overall journey, I’m aware that I’m entering the ending phase of my time in Brittany, my first location. The weeks that seemed to stretch out before me when I first arrived have been swallowed by the swiftly passing days. It will soon be time to move on, time to let a new beginning draw me forward. (And one day that, too, will come to an end.)

We are constantly in a flow of beginnings, middles, and endings. At any given time we hold several versions of each. Can you identify where you are in some of your experiences? Are you at the beginning of a holiday or a home renovation project? Are you in the middle of writing a novel or raising your kids? Are you at the end of a love affair or a job contract?

It’s worth being as attentive to these phases in life as we are when writing or reading stories, because each part informs the whole, and we can’t fully understand one part without experiencing them all.

In life, the lines of beginning, middles, and endings do tend to overlap and blur, because we are living many stories simultaneously, but even an occasional awareness of these rhythms can deepen our perception for story-making in life as well as on the page.

Inviting Inspiration

As creators, we pay a lot of lip service to inspiration, but what does it really mean to be inspired? And how do we go about getting into that state? Lately, I’ve been thinking about the nature of creativity and inspiration and the connection between the two.

Creativity arises out a relationship you have with yourself—a willingness to listen to what moves you and respond to that with expressive action. What moves you, and those responses, changes daily, and inspiration is the bridge between the two.

How does inspiration appear to us in daily lives? Sometimes in very simple ways.

At the onset of Spring, with new blooms scenting the air, you may rush out to buy bedding plants to fill a planter box. Sharing a particularly delicious meal with friends may drive you to open that cookbook you got last Christmas and try a new recipe. Finishing a satisfying short story may prompt you to pick up your pen and try writing your own.

Inspiration is the bridge between a moment that moves you and a moment of taking expressive action. And because of that, inspiration can be invited in at any time.

It’s helpful if we cultivate qualities of presence, attention, and appreciation, because they are what open us to being moved on a daily basis. (When we’re not cultivating these qualities, it may take a bigger event, like a shock or a surprise, to wake us up to the moment.) These qualities improve conditions for inspiration’s arrival.

The next thing we must take responsibility for is choice. How we choose to react or respond to a moment determines whether inspiration is invited in or not. We can close up to the shock or surprise, or we can let it honestly affect us. We can simply pass by the rose in bloom calling us to its fleeting scent, or we can open to it and breathe it in. The word itself is your guide: inspiration, to breathe in and be filled.

You can stop there if you like. You can be filled up as if by a wonderful meal and walk around satiated until the energy dissipates. Or, on the metaphoric out-breath, you can create something. It could be as simple as a feeling of gratitude, or it might be a cake, or it might be the beginning of a poem that will speak to the ages.

The qualities necessary at this stage are: trust, action, and repeated process. These elements are essential to creation. But this is also the most challenging stage. It’s the hardest to follow through on, because inspiration doesn’t come with any guarantees. A moment that moves us arises from a higher, deeper, or larger place than we commonly inhabit. It calls us forward, fuels us with an urge to act, but so often the results of those actions fall short of our inspired vision. We come face to face with the smallness of our own creature selves and this is uncomfortable to say the least. I think it’s one of the reasons so many of us cut off from being moved at all.

If we get this far and don’t want to shut down, we need to claim three more qualities: resilience with a dash of tenacity, acceptance blended with forgiveness, and the resolve to start all over again. We need to keep the door of choice open, that gateway between each moment of being moved and each opportunity to respond.

Moving through the cycles regularly will bring a greater sense of rawness to those moving moments, but your odds of creation will also improve. Inspiration is the bridge, but it is we who choose to make the crossing.

Dickens, Dreams, and Drafts

I was recently in London and spent a few nights in Bloomsbury not far from a house Charles Dickens lived in from 1837 to 1839. It was here where he completed The Pickwick Papers and wrote the complete manuscripts for Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickelby. His subsequent success allowed him to move on to grander homes in London, but this is the only one still standing and it’s now a museum. The photo here is of Dickens’ desk.

I marvel at Dickens’ creative productivity, his popularity and financial success achieved during his lifetime, and his variety of story subject matter (he was writing about the plight of common and poor people at a time when very few were).

The success or productivity of other writers, past or present, can be a source of inspiration or depression for many aspiring writers. The daunt we might feel when facing our own work or contemplating the achievement of others shouldn’t stop us though. Someone has to write stories. Why not us? We probably can’t expect to be a Dickens, but we can sit down at our desks and apply ourselves to our craft. You won’t know until you try.

Speaking of trying… The trip to England was the first step of a new adventure I’ve embarked on: living abroad for the better part of this year. It has been a long held dream of mine to live in different parts of Europe for short stretches of time and write. This year I have an opportunity to take a leap of faith and turn this dream into reality. I sold my apartment and put everything into storage. And now… Well, to say I feel daunted would be an understatement!

I’m planning to give myself over to the drafts I have in progress and experiment with some new things I want to write. And I’m going to live this story. I’m just at the beginning; I have a few things sketched out for the middle; but I have only the vaguest notion of an ending (no idea really–I’m making up the story as I go along). I’m going to try living this out in the way we often write stories: not knowing if anything will work out but having the faith (and courage) to face the fears (and failures) anyway.

My first stop will be a tiny town in Brittany next to the middle of nowhere. I’m not the first person, nor will I be the last, to fall in love with France. I fell hard almost thirty years ago, so I’m following my heart and starting there.

When we set out to follow our dreams–whether to write, travel or try something new–we can’t predict where these dream-turned-reality paths will take us. We can only find out by following the path one step at a time.

The Uncertainty of Writing

Lately I’ve been dipping into Pema Chodron’s book Comfortable with Uncertainty (Shambhala, 2002). I’m at an uncertain point in my life and needing reminders to breathe deeply, face my fears, and accept that everything is impermanent. I’m reminded that all of this is good advice for the writing life as well. After all, what’s more uncertain than the writer’s life?

When we open up to writing, we, perhaps unwittingly, open up to uncertainty. We cannot predict where the act of writing will take us. Deeper into ourselves? Into new worlds? Into untapped tombs of passion, tenderness, or rage that find a way onto the page?

It takes courage to face the blank page, to explore new areas of our own minds and hearts, and then to put words down without knowing where they’ll lead. It takes courage to face uncertainty. In the process of developing courage, I’ve been exploring these three approaches:

~ Practice accepting that writing, like life, rises from the uncertain places in ourselves as much as the certain ones. We may not know where our writing is leading us, and that’s fine. It’s part of embracing the mystery of being engaged in creativity, of having the courage to breathe and live.

~ Consider handing off some of your uncertainty to your characters. All humans feel uncertain at some point or other, and so readers will be able to identify with the uncertainty of your characters. Vicariously experiencing a character’s uncertainty, and how they handle it, can help us (and readers) gain a new perspective.

~ Place your need for certainty in areas where you have a fair bit of control. If you set aside time to write daily, even if it’s only 10 minutes or 30 minutes, you are in control of this agreement with yourself. There is too much about writing that is beyond a writer’s control. When we have expectations about particular outcomes, or anticipate who might like our work down the road, or carry around other unfulfilled hopes, we end up creating a lot of unnecessary uncertainty because we’re looking for it in places where it doesn’t exist.

Cultivating the courage to deal with uncertainty, in writing and in life, doesn’t make it go away, but it does make us more resilient creators of life and words.

Does My Story Need an Outline?

Outlines—I used to think: “take ‘em or leave ‘em.” Maybe some people need them, but I’ve got a good handle on my story, so I’ll be fine. Maybe I’ll outline the next time. And then I hit the ‘muddles’, either in the middle of drafting or during revisions. It’s a state between bemusement and sheer panic and consists of various quandaries: What am I doing? Where am I going? What have I done? How did I get here? How will I get there? Does any of this matter? What is the point? Help!

Writing a novel can be hard work. Some days I just don’t want to do it. Some days I wish I were staring at a blank page because it would be better than this tangled mess in front of me that I can’t figure out how to fix.

At times like this I’m glad I have an outline. Even a loose one. An outline can’t save a writer from the work of ‘in the trenches’ craft, but it can be a bit of a lifeline when the ‘muddles’ set in.

Won’t an outline limit me?

Once I’ve jumped into drafting, the wildness of the creative process can take over. Rather than my plan to harvest rows of neatly planted seeds I usually find myself dealing with rampant weeds—the weeds of creative inspiration, mind you, but unnecessary overgrowth nonetheless. These on-the-fly ideas often lend the color, depth, and surprise that make the story rise above a formula, but it can also leave me with a messy jumble.

So I return to my hastily sketched outline.

Like a road map guiding me from one destination to another, an outline helps me stay the course when I’m tempted to veer off (or when I already have).

Is an outline set in stone?

No. Is it worth its weight in gold? Yes, if you are intent on completing a project. Is it necessary? Not at all, but it will get you where you’re going with less fear and trepidation (and possibly fewer weeds to pull).

As you waver on the path of process, an outline is there to remind you of your initial intentions and potential for success. It can keep you ‘on track’ when the vagaries of the creative process tempt you to veer off into the netherworlds of an overly enthusiastic or anxiety-provoked imagination. It is a holding pen for the ideas that will fit in your story as well as a barrier to keep out what doesn’t (because so many new things will vie for a place in your story once you’re really on a roll and you will have to ruthlessly interview each candidate before letting them through the gate).

An outline is a map of where you intend to go. If you hit a roadblock on the way and must find a detour, you’ll adapt. If you choose to take in a scenic byway instead of sticking to the interstate, you are free to make changes. With a map in hand, even if you blow a tire and are waylaid in a small tumbleweed town for a few days, you won’t need to fret, because you are still on your way.

Will I miss out on something by sticking to an outline?

No one can predict the traffic or the weather on a cross the country road trip. You can’t foresee that awesome deli in Chicago or the old drive-in you stumble across in Wyoming. An outline isn’t a guarantee against pitfalls nor is it a block to unexpected opportunities.

At heart, an outline captures your creative intention to complete a particular project and becomes a ‘map’ to keep yourself oriented to your intended path. It is the beginning of giving form to your initially formless idea.

How intently you stick to your outline is up to you. And the level of detail in your outline is also up to you.

How do I create an outline that works for me?

The simplest map you can give yourself might be to say, “I’m writing a novel.” But what if you were to add either “this year” or “this month” to that sentence? Already you’ve created a bit more structure for yourself. “I’m writing a novel this year.” These words set up anticipation and expectation. For fun, let’s throw in a stock character: “I’m writing an novel this year about…an elderly man.” We’re drawn in by even just a little more detail. “An elderly man who loses everything and has to rebuild his life and finds love along the way.” It’s till very vague but beginning to take shape. You can feel some momentum start to build. Questions arise: What does he lose and why? How does he rebuild? Who does he fall in love with? If you want, you can keep going, adding details, until you have a scene-by-scene breakdown. Or you can sketch out some key scenes and sequences that align with basic story structure concepts regarding beginning, middle, and end and go from there.

There are a million ways to approach an outline to your story, and you need to find one that feels natural to you, even a little exciting. Ideally, an outline will motivate you to sit down and write. It will give you the confidence that you can begin, navigate through the middle, and find your way to the end of your story.

You may have try a bunch of different approaches to find the one that works for you, but it’s well worth the effort if you are serious about writing—and finishing—a novel (perhaps more than one).

Can an outline help if I’ve already written a full or partial draft?

Absolutely. You can use it to ensure you have all the pieces your story needs, or it can help you get back on track if, halfway through, you’ve found yourself at a dead end. You’ll probably have to do some major renovations on your story. Outlining isn’t for the faint of heart because you’re forced to face what works and doesn’t work in your story and some of us like to hide behind the mystery and magic of the writing process, adhering to a blind faith that the story will ‘sort itself out’ (I used to be one of these writers). Sometimes we get lucky and the story does sort itself out, though we may not understand why or how and thus be powerless to repeat the process, except by relying on blind faith once more.

Outlines—you can take ‘em or leave ‘em. Personally, at this point in my writing life, I’ll take all the help I can get.

Writing Story Characters

Story characters are like you and me. They have foibles and flaws, hopes and dreams, and histories full of sweet memories as well unhealed wounds. As a writer, you may base some of your characters partially on yourself or people you know. You may give one character your own childhood (perhaps growing up on a farm), add to that your cousin’s flaws (maybe an excessive thirst for bourbon) and weave in your mother’s hopes (maybe to win the lottery and finally gain the respect of friends and neighbors).

Soon you’re on the way to developing a character you’d like to follow around for a bit, see what happens to them, watch them struggle and change, succeed and fail, be overcome by a tragic fate, or fulfill some unexpected destiny.

Although we like to mythologize how our characters ‘take over’ and lead us hither and yon, ultimately, as the writer, it will be your job to decide where this character will lead you, what will happen to them, which struggles they will face and how they will change because of those struggles, what exactly will they fail or succeed at, and whether or not they meet a happy end or a tragic one.

Yes, you can let the character take the reins, at least for a while (and on rare occasions for an entire manuscript) but at some point it’s likely you will have to rein in your unbridled creativity and shape a story to suit your character and a character to suit your story.

You’ll need to ask yourself questions such as: Is this character believable, interesting, worthy of curiosity and care? Which situations best reveal this character? What type of change or growth is relevant for this character? How might this character impact readers?

You might wait to answer these questions until you’ve already written a full, character-led draft, or you might find yourself stumbling part way through a draft, unsure of which direction to go, and be forced to stop until you have some answers, or you might begin your story making process by asking these questions right at the outset.

How you approach your character’s development is integral to your story’s design. Well-crafted characters can almost (but not quite) write our stories for us when we understand their deepest motivations and their stages of development throughout the narrative arc.

There is no wrong way to develop your character but it can be most satisfying, and efficient, to develop your character in connection with your story’s structure. Or, if you’re not even sure which story your character should take part in, a deeper exploration of your character’s true nature will begin to inspire the shape of a story.