by Jenny Hansen

My husband and his knee inspired this post when what we thought would be a knee replacement turned out to be eight weeks of physical therapy (PT) to get him back in balance. My bloggy-self always perks up at the mention of words like "balance" and "maximum potential," so I peppered the Hubs with some questions.

It turns out that walking great and writing well have several things in common.

Their Goal For Him

They wanted to strengthen the weaker muscles in his leg to balance with the stronger muscles and keep his kneecap aligned. His pain was from his kneecap (patella) literally being pulled toward one side of his knee.

That's not the intriguing part. The cool part was that what they did to achieve this balance sounds a heck of a lot like what we do as writers.

3 Components That Keep Your Body in Balance

These are your big three things that keep your body in balance. (Plus, it explained to me why, when I had vertigo, they used my eyes to retrain my ear.)

• Your inner ear
• Your vision
• Your musculoskeletal control

Their example:

When you hold your arm out in front of you, there's more happening than you just looking at your arm. You remain upright through the balance of your inner ear (which is the only aspect of this that is really out of your control). You sense your arm through nerve impulses transmitted from the core strength of your muscles which attach to your bones. The three together allow you to keep that arm held out straight and still for much longer than you might think you could.

Try it. . .the act of staring at your hand makes a huge difference in the amount of effort you need to expend for this exercise. If you don't stare it, your arm gets heavier faster. The difference was somewhat astonishing.

If ANY of these three components are out of whack, the arm (or the leg, or even your entire body) will no longer be able to stay upright. Focusing all three components on the task is what makes it work.

How do we relate this to writing?

Let’s change the order around a bit and dig a little deeper.

Part 1 – Your Inner Ear

Think of your inner ear as your writing voice. Voice is the cadence that is essentially you. It’s what makes your work stand out as unique.

The best description I've ever heard of "voice"

Imagine you are sitting in a café, telling your friend a story. The way you tell a story is quintessentially you. You don’t stop to think about how the story sounds when you’re talking to your friend, you just tell it. The visual and verbal cues you get back are what help you time the rhythm of your story and play certain parts of it up or down.

The best part, and the hardest part, about writing is that we do it alone. There is no one across the café table, or computer screen, to tell you what’s “just right” and what is falling flat. We learn to recognize what works on our own (through Craft) or we find a great critique group.

Part 2 – Musculoskeletal Control

Techie Definition: Musculoskeletal control is essential in our balance and vital to our ability to walk normally. The mechanics of human ambulation, or walking on two legs, is quite unique in nature. It has been described as consisting of a cycle of "controlled falls," which highlights the complexity of distinguishing between a fall or stumble and normal, controlled walking.

This definition immediately made me think of a blog Kristen Lamb wrote on the importance of learning to fall.

For the writer, “musculoskeletal control” is Craft.

The more you exercise your writing muscles, the more balanced and resilient they become. It took me ages to recognize (and accept) that it doesn’t matter whether you can lift a five pound weight or a fifty pound weight, what matters is that you can do it a lot and do it smoothly. Patience is not my virtue, so I'm always wondering why I can't curl 25 pounds like a badass, instead of being impressed with how smoothly I can curl 5 pounds.

In writer-speak: a good writer with the courage to approach the page every day is going to be published long before a great writer that approaches the page sporadically.

Just like targeted physical therapy can turn a weak knee into a strong one, regular writing practice can turn a good writer into a wonderful, well-disciplined one.

Writing Craft must be practiced and honed with regular writing.

All the greats say this – Anne Lamott, Natalie Goldberg, Julia Cameron – and it has always been the thing that made me groan the loudest.

Who has the time? I can’t! I don’t wanna!  My inner Lazy Ass has said all that and more on various occasions.

The reality behind these complaints was: I’m scared. What if I fail? Won’t that make my writing so important I will want to die if I fail? (Feel free to insert your own special fear here.)

We all have these fears, just like we all have that dastardly inner critic. The fact is, no one said it would be easy. Writers are a tough breed and my money will always be on us. We just hitch up our version of titanium panties and settle down to get our work done.

Some great Craft posts:

• “A Deeper, Richer Understanding of Craft” Part 2 by Larry Brooks (THEN read Part 1)
• New and Improved Writer’s Toolbox by Laura Drake

Part 3 -- Your Vision

Your visual strength is what you rely on after you’ve gotten the words on the page. "Your vision" translates into editing.

I know wonderful writers who have lyrical prose and the ability to create fantastic worlds with engaging characters. Yet they are still fighting to be published. Why?

Most of these writer friends tell me it’s actually because their editing or proofing is not strong enough yet. Practice makes perfect and we’ll all get there if we keep at it and build a powerful writing team to provide help when we need it.

There is a reason why Oscars are given for film editing – it is the art of separating out the unnecessary footage to keep the viewers hooked. It works the same with books.

There is a famous quote by Elmore Leonard that frustrates the hell out of most new writers: “I try to leave out the parts that people skip.” The structure of a story is a lot harder than it looks because we have to learn what parts people will skip and why.

Some fantastic posts I’ve found on editing:

• The Three Simple Stages of Self-Editing by Jody Hedlund
• How I Edit by Nathan Bransford
• The 5 Stages of Editing Grief by Julie Glover, which made me laugh.

Final Thoughts

Wherever you are on your writing journey, DON’T STOP. The best is always yet to come because we keep improving the more we do it. What you hear with your inner ear and see with your writer’s eyes will eventually be translated by the “musculoskeletal” strength of your Craft.

True Story

I heard Linda Howard speak at a writer’s conference in San Diego some years back and I’ve never forgotten her words. They meant so much to "baby writer me."

“Everybody dreams,” she said. “But writers are special because they write down their dreams. As writers, we can do anything and be anyone. You can be astronauts or spies or time travelers. Writers can go to amazing places and build imaginary worlds for others to visit.

“But the sad fact is that no matter how hard you try, the music and the magic of your dreams will never be equaled by the words you put on a page.

“Do it anyway.”

Every writer in that room started crying because it IS so hard to translate the grand scope of our imaginations into words on the page. The words never seem quite big enough or important enough to express the magic that lives inside our minds.

My hope is that, even on those days when you feel that all is lost, when you wonder why you ever believed that YOUR words were important, you keep at it.

Do it because you have to. Do it because you need to. Do it because the act of sharing those words is more than most people will ever attempt.

And finally, do it because no one else will have the inner ear to hear the words exactly as you do, the strength to birth them onto the page, or the vision to translate those words into the perfect story that floats from your heart to ours.

Do it anyway. You won't be truly happy unless you try.

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About Jenny

By day, Jenny Hansen provides brand storytelling, LinkedIn coaching, and copywriting for accountants and financial services firms. By night, she writes humor, memoir, women’s fiction, and short stories. After 20+ years as a corporate trainer, she’s delighted to sit down while she works.

Find Jenny here at Writers In the Storm, or online on Facebook or Instagram.

Featured photo purchased from Depositphotos. Branded in Canva.