Writers in the Storm

by Ellen Buikema

Does where you work affect your writing? As you’ve seen from my earlier posts, it really affects mine. I believe it is related to energy.

Everything is made of energy which vibrates to different frequencies. Ask a quantum physicist. She will tell you that atoms, the building blocks of the universe, are made up of energy vortexes that spin and vibrate to their own frequency signature.

Let’s narrow this down to something closer to home, that we can actually control.

Have you ever walked into a home and felt comfortable right away? Or, couldn’t wait to get out because something was driving you crazy? These feelings, which we sense to different degrees, are related to the energy of the location as well as the individuals occupying the space.

Why do I need good energy flow? I am a very sensitive person and the feel of a room makes a big difference for me. If I am at ease I write very well. Otherwise, I have a difficult time concentrating. I’ll give you a personal example of feeling negative energy in a room.

Many years ago, while traveling in Southern California, we visited the Mission San Juan Capistrano. The grounds and main structures are beautiful, but I a felt extremely uneasy about entering the church. It was a gut clenching, heart squeezing thing.

I talked myself into joining the line of people filing inside and the feelings of dread continued but didn’t intensify. Parents pushing a small child followed us into the church. When the little one wailed, I thought to myself, I’m right there with you kiddo. Visualizing a protective, reflective bubble helped me block off what felt like a large amount of negative energy. I was glad to exit the building.

After our journey I did a bit of research and discovered the gross brutality associated with many of these California missions. Nowadays, when I travel, I check out the history of these places in advance.

Now that we are in a peaceful home, I am itching to arrange my work area to encourage the creative flow so I can spend more time in the creative zone. Enter Feng Shui.

Quick overview of Feng Shui

The first time I heard of this system of spatial arrangement for beneficial energy flow was in the Historical fiction novel Tai-Pan, by James Clavell. The book includes a long discussion of Feng Shui regarding the location of the home, which was discovered to be on the “Dragon’s neck.” The Feng Shui practitioner gives recommendations to the book’s characters to help correct this tragic placement as “That’d be horrifical, for the dragon that sleeps in the earth would no longer be able to sleep peacefully.”

Apparently bad things happen to those living on the dragon’s neck.

A fun quote spoofed from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings: "Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger." I’ve seen on Social Media as:  “Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.”

In other words: Never wake a sleeping dragon.

Back to Feng Shui…

I found two feng shui maps (baguas), otherwise known as the 8 areas. The areas on the maps correspond to important areas of one’s life for health, wealth, and happiness. The five essential elements are wood, water, metal, fire, and earth.

Directions aren’t my strongest skill anyway, but with all the moving around we’ve done I feel directionally challenged. I’m leaning toward the Western Bagua Map because it does not incorporate direction. It doesn’t matter which method you choose.

If you are considering exploring Feng Shui for your home or office, I encourage you to choose whichever resonates best with you. There is always more than one way to work with energy.

Other important considerations

Color

Color is important for creativity. It may not be practical to paint the walls, so desired colors can be included in the writing cave by using photos, pillows, wall hangings, flowers, or any bric-a-brac that appeals to you.

There are also colors associated with the elements of Feng Shui:

Wood: Green, Brown
Fire: Red, Strong Yellow, Orange, Purple, Pink
Earth: Light Yellow, Sandy/Earthy, Light Brown
Metal: White, Gray
Water: Blue, Black

The colors for creativity are white and gray. The color of most of the walls in our current living situation is white-ish, so I am good to go. Light yellow and sandy brown, both earth colors, also work well. I wrote in an orange room in a previous house. I felt very good in this room, but am writing with more ease in a room of off-white walls, which is encouraging.

Shapes

Shapes for creativity should be rounded. The table I used in the last house was oval, here it is triangular with rounded edges.

Décor

Decor pieces of sliver, earthenware, rocks, and crystals are all helpful to promote good energy flow. Earthy pictures without fire or water elements are also beneficial for creativity. Steer clear of photos dominant with the colors found in flames. Mountains, forests, and sandy beaches are all good.

Writing Desk

For your writing desk the recommendation is to use a command position such that you have a visible control over your surroundings. Optimally, this calls for having a clear sight of the doorway from your chair, a solid wall behind, and a window with a nice view. If you can’t see the door from your chair, try using a mirror on the wall to reflect the door. If there is no window, use an earthy photo and be sure that you have a light source as close to natural light as possible.

The room I am using now has some skylights so I have plenty of natural light. I don’t have access to a window with a nice view, instead I have a few favorite pieces on the desk and a big fluffy dog to keep me company.

Reorganizing my workspace with Feng Shui is my New Year’s push to have a productive writing schedule in the coming months.

Now, I am curious. Do you use any special items nearby while writing to help stimulate the creative juices? Do you believe that places can carry energy, positive or negative? Has anyone tried Feng Shui in their homes?

About Ellen

Author, speaker, and former teacher, Ellen L. Buikema has written non-fiction for parents and a series of chapter books for children with stories encouraging the development of empathy—sprinkling humor wherever possible. Her Work In Progress, The Hobo Code, is YA historical fiction.

Find her at http://ellenbuikema.com or on Amazon.

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Resources

• Tai Pan Book Review : The Founding of Hong Kong as described by J. Clavell
• Feng Shui Tips to Inspire a Writer’s Creative Flow
• Color as Expression of 5 Feng Shui Elements
• How to Feng Shui Your 'Children and Creativity' Area

It's Christmas Day! Many of you are awash in gift wrap, opening up your pants' top button after a big meal, or cozying up on the couch where you plan to dive into a great novel.

Even if Christmas isn't your style, you've likely had some celebration this time of year ... and struggled to get the writing done. But that's okay! You'll get back to it soon.

In the meantime, whatever holiday you're celebrating this season, we are taking this moment to wish you all the best from the Writers in the Storm team.

Ellen

My wish for you this holiday season is a bright light to shine the way to your next big ideas. May the muse bless you with boundless creativity and may you be energized by the love and support of the people in your life.

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John

My wish for the readers this holiday season is to have the vision of a hunter in an outhouse at night, the courage of a paratrooper jumping over a cactus patch, the tenacity of an octopus escaping an aquarium (again), and the success of baby taking its first step.

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Julie

May you feel proud of how far you've come in your writing journey, whether baby steps or big leaps; gratitude for both your successes and failures, which have molded and made you the strong writer you are; and the love and support of good friends and family. Oh, and may you get that last piece of pie! You deserve it.

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Jenny

I wish you a wonderful holiday filled with people you love. And I wish you peace. Peace has been in short supply for many of us over the last year. For some, that might mean more time unplugging. For others, more reading and free time. More time to exercise and take care of you, perhaps? I hope you get whatever helps you feel renewed as we move into the new year!

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Kris

Wishing you and yours a wonderful holiday season full of joy, hope, and the spirit of giving — enough to last the year through.

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Do you have a Christmas wish you'd like to share? We really really hope it comes true!

Tasha Seegmiller

I started playing around with writing in 2010. I joined a critique group about a year later, and with a few exceptions for LIFE, we have met every two weeks to exchange pages. In that time, three of us signed with agents (myself included), one of us self-published three books.

The two who also have agents have published two stand-alone MG novels with a YA to come out 2021, and the other has published a YA historical fantasy trilogy with a stand-alone also coming out 2021 (yes, I secretly hope they have the same release date…). I still linger in the status of agented.

If you have been on social media at all in the last few weeks, you’ve likely seen either “the decade is coming to an end, how will you finish?!?” or “share the great things you did this last decade!” conversations. While they can be fun and inspiring, if you aren’t quite where you wanted to be, it can be frustrating. Demoralizing. Self-doubt inducing. Somehow, I don’t think this is a just me situation.

So, as you are looking beyond the holiday season, however you celebrate, I would like to encourage you to block out some time away from loved ones, some time when you can sit, on your own, and do a couple things:

1.    Go find a piece of writing as close to the beginning of the decade as possible.

Read it.

How far did you get before you could see things you could make better? Why do you think you see that now when you might have thought it was pretty good before?

My friend, it’s because your understanding of writing has gotten better, deeper. You understand nuances of the craft you didn’t know then. Just like we often have to put marks on the wall to show our children they are growing, we need to let ourselves see where we were before to see how far we’ve come.

2.    Jot down the projects and pieces you have worked on throughout this decade.

I don’t care if it won a contest, got you your agent, if that piece initiated a relationship with a publishing house, or if it won awards. Everything you have written counts.

On a piece of paper, write what you learned while writing that piece. Did you think you were a YA author and started writing and realized the voice felt wrong (this was me)? Did you learn how to write a new POV, how to draw out the emotional potential of a scene or chapter or book? Did you learn about pacing and how to make the reader lean in? Did you learn a new form of organization? If you learned it, write it down.

3.    Imagine chatting with someone who is just starting their writing journey.

Pretend they just asked you how it all works. Can you outline what CP and POV and beta readers are? Do you know about query letters and synopses and what R&R means? (if you don’t, I’m giving you some hints.) Did you know what this was a decade ago? Who are you following and interacting with on social media that you didn’t know a decade ago? What advice would you give to this person about how to start, what to expect?

Did you realize you knew as much as you did?

4.    Identify things you don’t know or don’t practice like you’d like to.

One of the funny things about the writing world is there are people who can’t wait to have an agent, an editor, a deadline. And there are authors with all those who sometimes yearn for the days they weren’t writing with deadlines. The grass is greener and all that.

If you are not as dedicated to your craft as you’d like to be, what might you do to make those changes? If you are dedicated to your craft, are you still having fun with the creation?

If not, why? This isn’t to say you will go from a person who staggers out of bed at 7:00 to a member of #5amwriters overnight (seriously, you’ll make it three days. Don’t try this). And this isn’t to say that you dismiss contractual obligations because that book just got hard (they are ALL going to get hard).

But it is a good time to ask yourself how this whole thing would look, in an ideal world, for you. A couple of 20-30 minutes sessions of writing? Two dedicated hours? A “dessert” thing you dabble in when you have met your obligations for the day?

Now, here’s where it gets really tricky…

5.    What is the ONE thing you can do to start toward that goal.

Prior to WWII, the word priority wasn’t plural. Ever. You didn’t have a priority list, you had a priority. You didn’t have your top priorities, you had a priority.

Flip to a new document or a new piece of paper and write down where you’d like to be. Then work backwards. If you have lots of projects you’ve started but never finished, you may have the goal of finishing. But you aren’t going to do that in a day or a week or likely even a month.

What do you need to do in order to finish? What has prevented you from finishing before? What modification can you make to allow yourself time and space to get a little closer to that goal? What do you need to do during January 2020 to help you do this? What do you need to do January 1–4 to help you do this? What do you need to do today to help you do this? What can you do right now to help you do this?

And so on. You go smaller and smaller until you see the one thing that will help you start toward your goal. It might be watching a show AFTER you’ve met your writing goal. It might be gradually guiding yourself toward being a morning person (15 minutes earlier, 3-4 days at a time, please). It might be that you stay at work 30 minutes later, or go to work 30 minutes earlier.

As someone who lives in the real world, I know this isn’t going to ideally happen every single day. It just won’t. So as you are striving toward your goal, you have to give yourself some grace and remember you are striving, working on, practicing. And when a setback happens, see if it was preventable, and if not, que sera and try again tomorrow.

You have done amazing things. You will go on to do amazing things. Remember to set goals you have control over (this basically means don’t say sign with, publish with, have books made into ... you don’t control that), go backward until you find the one thing, and then keep at the practice.

What did you realize you have learned this last decade? Do you know what you are thinking about for your big goal in the upcoming year? What is the one thing you can do to baby step toward that goal?

About Tasha

Tasha Seegmiller believes in the magic of love and hope, which she weaves into every story she creates. She is the president of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association and studying in the MFA in Writing Program at Pacific University, and teaches composition courses at Southern Utah University. Tasha married a guy she’s known since she was seven and is the mom of three teens and co-owner of a cotton candy company. She is represented by Annelise Robey of Jane Rotrosen Agency.