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.