Writers in the Storm

Christina Delay

As creative people, we often receive advice about the importance of taking breaks, walks, and time away to allow our creativity to simmer and rejuvenate. But I bet most of us have a really hard time actually taking time for ourselves.

I’ve found that understanding the why behind advice or recommendations gives us a much better chance of following through. Because we can then apply that recommendation in a personal way in the manner that means the most to us.

Scientific Evidence

“Neuroscience is finding that when we are idle, in leisure, our brains are most active. The Default Mode Network lights up, which, like airport hubs, connects parts of our brain that don't typically communicate. So a stray thought, a random memory, an image can combine in novel ways to produce novel ideas.”

Brigid Schulte | Author of Overwhelmed: Work, Love, and Play When No One Has the Time

Some quick facts for you:

• Creative people tend to have greater volumes of gray matter in the brain, in regions associated with consciousness and self-awareness.
• Research has shown our brains are more creative when we are in a positive mood.
• Higher levels of dopamine in the brain lead to greater levels of creativity, which is why relaxing activities like showering can increase creativity.
• Relaxing activities provide us with a break and give us a fresh perspective, especially when we are fixated on a certain issue or ineffective solution.
• When we are stressed, our amygdala—the region of the brain responsible for emotions, emotional behavior and motivation—will shut down certain parts of the brain to prepare our bodies for survival.
• Stress and uncertainty lead to conventional choices, causing us to overlook creative solutions and avoid taking risks.

“To unleash creativity, it is important to free ourselves occasionally from rigid structure and routine, and to always be open to experience.”

Scott Kaufman | Author of "Wired to Create: Unravelling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind"

So now that you’ve heard from the scientists, let’s take a look at what some great creative minds have said.

Creative Genius

Many creative minds through history have engaged with different types of stepping away for creative inspiration.

Actor and Director Woody Allen

“I’ll stand there with steaming hot water coming down for thirty minutes, forty-five minutes, just thinking out ideas and working on plot.”

A hot shower can definitely be a type of mini-retreat. Have you ever thought about how many ideas come to you while you’re showering? It’s because you have very little distractions in there. No phone, no email, no books to read. Your mind has the space to engage with the creative parts of your brain and begin to solve the story puzzles you’ve given it.

Nikola Tesla

Tesla stumbled upon the idea of alternating electric currents while on a leisurely stroll and used his walking stick to draw the idea to his friend.

Going for a walk is also a type of mini-retreat. Taking time to disengage from your daily responsibilities allows your brain the space it needs to do the deeper work.

Austrian Composer Wolfgang Mozart

"When I am … completely myself, entirely alone … or during the night when I cannot sleep, it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly."

Granted, I think Mozart dealt with some insomnia; however, he was also disciplined about using the quiet moments he was given. Rather than toss and turn, he used those sleepless nights for idea generation. Rather than overstuffing his schedule, he allowed himself moments of being alone ... being completely himself.

Novelist Stephen King

“Like your bedroom, your writing room should be private, a place where you go to dream.”

Stephen King has admitted to regularly engaging in "constructive daydreaming" to enhance his creativity and free his mind from everyday rational thinking. In addition, he’s created a writing space that is free of distractions and also allows himself time to daydream.

When is the last time you lost yourself in a daydream?

"Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes...Including you."

Anne Lamott, well-known author

I think this is probably one of the hardest things as an adult to do. Because there is this inherent guilt for "sitting there and doing nothing."

However, science and creative minds have proven that we need this idleness, this ‘doing nothing’ to allow our brains the space to do deep work.

A challenge for you

This week, I’d like you to write yourself a permission slip and post it somewhere in your writing space. Give yourself permission to do nothing, and to do it guilt free. I’ve laid out some ways in which you can do this "nothing," or you can come up with your own that works for you.

If you do anything this week, do nothing. Your creativity and your stories, will thank you.

About Christina

Christina Delay is the hostess of Cruising Writers and the brand new Creative Wellness Retreats as well as an award-winning author represented by Deidre Knight of The Knight Agency. She may also have a new supernatural mystery series out with Jules Lynn under a pen name.

When she's not cruising the Caribbean, she's dreaming up new writing retreats to take talented authors on or giving into the demands of imaginary people to tell their stories.

About Cruising Writers

Cruising Writers brings writers together with bestselling authors, an agent, and a world-renowned writing craft instructor writing retreats around the world. Cruise with us to the Bahamas this November with Alexandra Sokoloff of the internationally-renowned Screenwriting Tricks for Fiction Authors, Kerry Anne King – Washington Post and Amazon Charts bestselling author, and Michelle Grajkowski of 3 Seas Literary.

by Fae Rowen

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines perseverance as "continued effort to do or achieve something despite difficulties, failure, or opposition."

I don't usually check definitions, but I knew perseverance meant more than stubborn, even when I was confronted by the word for the first time. By the chair of the Department of Physical Sciences. My first week at college.

After attending his "demonstration lecture" during a College Week visit, I enrolled in the only undergraduate class Dr. Gelbaum taught. Instead of beginning with a review of what we should already know or a syllabus or rules, he opened with, "What is the most important characteristic of a math major?"

In the class of over a hundred students, surprisingly few hands went up.

"Intelligence." Helpful, but no.

"Memorization skill." No.

"Organization." No

"A big coffee pot." Chuckle.

"Lack of fear." Closer.

When he'd called on all the raised hands, he looked at us and sighed. "No more hands? No more guesses?

"I asked you this question because you will never make it as a math major at this institution if you don't have perseverance."

A few gasps. One person got up and walked out of the lecture hall.

I wish I could remember all of the rest of his opening as well as the beginning, but here's what I remember.

“Perseverance makes other people think of you as stubborn, because you fail, then you try again. And again. And again. Not exactly the same thing, but you try to solve the problem in another way, with another tool. You work on the same problem for weeks, looking for a thread of logic that will unlock a solution or find a way to finesse a more elegant, shorter way to the answer.

“When you're in physics or German class, your mind wanders to the rough edges of a solution. When you're playing a game of pick-up basketball or sitting on your board out in the ocean surfing, an approach you haven't tried surfaces and you stop, look for paper and pencil and sketch out a new idea.

“When you fail a homework quiz because you couldn't make headway on just one out of the twenty problems and that was the one problem on the quiz. When you fail a test because there was a new kind of problem on it, one that forced you to analyze and synthesize what you've learned to create a whole new technique and you didn't have time to finish it once you figured out the approach. But you attend quiz sessions, visit your professor during office hours, and burn that proverbial midnight oil until you've figured out something new, something you'd never been able to do before, you are a math major.

“Because you have perseverance. When things get hard, when you don't understand what's going wrong, when you don't know how to make it better, you keep working on it. You find research. You talk to others. You read papers. You start and stop. You throw away a lot of attempts. But you keep following your dream, you keep working on your problem, because it's become the most important thing in your world and, eventually, you will solve that problem and present it to others to enjoy, to learn from, to build into the future.

"End of lecture. Read the first chapter in your textbook. Do all the problems that you can't."

Dr. Gelbaum's first lecture coalesced everything I needed to hear and remember about perseverance. And it gave me a very important word for my adulthood. I persevered and got that math degree, then a master's. I persevered in my career as a mathematician.

And when I decided to write, I persevered when a friend read my first book and offered the name of a writers' group I should join. Every time I receive a chapter back from one of my critique partners, I persevere and edit words that need some finesse, even though they were the best words I could think of at the time. When my editor tells me my character arcs aren't strong enough, I go back and analyze what is missing, then I synthesize a solution.

To be successful, writers need every characteristic mentioned by Dr. Bernard Gelbaum. We have to persevere in the face of all the changes in the publishing industry. We have to persevere just to finish a book that has a chance of being bought by readers who are hungry for our stories. We have to persevere and market our work so readers can find us. All while life swirls around us.

But if we can juggle all that's necessary, if we push through every rejection, every less-than-five-star review, every time we don't think we can make a deadline, that perseverance muscle gets stronger. And we're better for it. We soldier on.

We know that we can do anything. Be anything. And we are. Writers.

How have you soldiered on—in your writing life or in life? What character trait helps you the most to get through the times that make you willing to quit and give up your dreams?

ABOUT FAE:

Fae Rowen discovered the romance genre after years as a science fiction freak. Writing futuristics and medieval paranormals, she jokes that she can live anywhere but the present. As a mathematician, she knows life’s a lot more fun when you get to define your world and its rules.

P.R.I.S.M., Fae's debut book, a young adult science fiction romance story of survival, betrayal, resolve, deceit, and love is now available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Image credits:
"Don't Quit" - DepositPhotos
"Never Give Up" by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Laura Drake

I had no idea what I was going to write about this month. I felt like I'd done it all. Then I read Jenny's post from Brené Brown (If you haven't read it, it's HERE). #7 hit me in the heart. See, I'd forgotten. Vulnerability is my super-power.

I went through a pretty traumatic childhood and then bad decisions on my part left me with thick armor. At one point in my life, I was afraid of good things happening, because I thought the Universe wanted balance, and that meant something bad was coming. Yeah, sad, I know.

My natural buoyancy pulled me out of the sludge. I'm not special; no one gets through life without being battered, besieged and challenged. I mention it only to give context.

This is about being open, laying out what you have to say on the page. I've heard writers who were afraid to write what was in their heart, for fear of what family and friends would think. Hell, what perfect strangers would think! (Because that's what reviews are, right?) I get their fear. I really do.

But think back, to when you first decided to write. What did you choose to write? I don't care if you wrote Paranormal, Rom Com, Sci-fi, or end-of-the-world dystopian--I know one thing. Deep down in the conflict of that work, you were writing what was in your heart. Genre doesn't matter—that's just how our brain chooses to cover our heart's exposure.

I'm here to challenge you to open yourself. Lay yourself bare in your writing. Strip off the mask we all wear. Why?

• Because you want to. Dig deep—you know it's true.
• Because that's the best writing you'll ever do.
• Because that's why readers read—they want to connect, on an emotional level with other humans. Here's proof. What books are on your keeper shelf? I'll bet if you were to look, you could tell me what each book meant to you—what chord it touched in your heart.
• Because readers will love and respect you for it. Our heroes are, after all, those who risked it all, in spite of the dangers and the odds. Right?
• Because it's good for your soul, putting out your truth out there in black and white that will exist after you're gone. But also because, when people tell you your work touched them, it's the hand clasp you needed when you wrote it. We all need those. The world needs those. Desperately.

This is a risk. It's scary. Believe me, I know.

I wrote a book to my sister, my soul-mate, whom I lost at 32 to cancer. There is nothing autobiographical about Days Made of Glass, but the bond between the two sisters is one I shared with Nancy. I had to wait 15 years until I thought I was good enough to write it. I opened my heart and spilled the contents on the page. I couldn't do anything less and do the book, and my sister, justice.

And guess what? That book is the highest rated of any I ever wrote. I had readers contact me, and tell me what it meant to them.

Isn't that why we write?

Go. Be brave. Be vulnerable. I promise you it'll be worth it.

Have you risked being vulnerable in your writing?

Have I convinced you to try?

---

Shared blood defines a family, but spilled blood can too.

Harlie Cooper raised her sister, Angel, even before their mother died. When their guardian is killed in a fire, rather than be separated by Social Services, they run. Life in off the grid in L.A. isn’t easy, but worse, there’s something wrong with Angel.

Harlie walks in to find their apartment scattered with shattered and glass and Angel, a bloody rag doll in a corner. The doctor orders institutionalization in a state facility. Harlie’s not leaving her sister in that human warehouse. But something better takes money. Lots of it.

When a rep from the Pro Bull Riding Circuit suggests she train as a bullfighter, rescuing downed cowboys from their rampaging charges, she can’t let the fact that she’d be the first woman to attempt this stop her. Angel is depending on her.

It’s not just the danger and taking on a man’s career that challenges Harlie. She must learn to trust—her partner and herself, and learn to let go of what’s not hers to save.

A story of family and friendship, trust and truth.