by Lisa Norman

Welcome to the holiday season, when thankfulness and belief mingle with the season’s magic, whether you’re in the cold, snowy, magical northern hemisphere or the warm southern sun.

Like the little girl in Miracle on 34th Street, we may allow our hearts to hope and dream of the new year. And in that moment, everything changes.

Creativity is an act of belief. Every story, painting, or project begins with that quiet leap, the decision to trust in something unseen. To believe that our work has meaning before there’s proof that anyone will care.

The Difference Belief Makes

Once upon a time, I worked on a group project that mattered deeply to me. I’d poured months of heart and planning into it. Despite months of planning and promo, only a few of us were generating interest. As the event neared, it became clear one person didn’t really believe in it. Their contributions were late, their communication distant. Their promo material hadn’t generated any involvement despite them supposedly being an influencer.

And then they said the words that destroyed me. “I’m only doing this to help your little project.”

Little?

The person did not know about the work others had invested or the quiet attention that project had garnered from some big names in the industry. We had people waiting to see the quality of our materials, the same materials that were suffering from late contributions.

Help?

As if the project depended on them? When so many of us had already poured our hearts into it?

It wasn’t malice. They were simply showing up out of a sense of duty, not conviction. And that, I realized, was the real problem. Creative work, like belief, can’t thrive where the heart isn’t present.

Helping with the project they didn’t actually believe in was distracting this person from other projects. Because, while they weren’t doing a lot, they were carrying guilt and stress about not meeting commitments.

That was the energy that was pouring out to their followers: guilt and stress. They were hurting their own brand in the process of unintentionally destroying ours.

Our creative energy is like a pitcher. Every project we take on is a glass we choose to fill, and there are always more glasses than there is energy.

If we pour our creativity into something we don’t believe in, we’re taking it from projects that we DO believe in!

When We Help Without Believing

I’ve been thinking about this lately. How often have I done the same?

Have I said yes to something because it felt polite, or because someone needed me, even when my heart wasn’t in it?

Helping without belief feels noble at first. But it quietly drains both giver and receiver. The energy doesn’t multiply; it flattens. It’s like trying to light a candle with a damp match. The intent is kind, but the spark won’t catch.

And yet, when we show up for others with belief, when we’re invested in the possibility of a project’s success, that potential transforms everything. It fills the work with joy. It tells the people around us, “I see what we’re building, and I believe it’s worth the effort.”

If you know the story of Elisha and the widow, it has a lesson for us all: if we pour out our creative energy, it will expand. Suddenly our pitcher miraculously contains more energy than we could ever imagine. It goes farther. Our creative capacity grows exponentially.

The Creative Kind of Faith

In Miracle on 34th Street, belief doesn’t come from proof. It creates the proof. That’s how it works in creative life, too.

When we write, paint, or collaborate from joy and conviction, people can feel it, even if they can’t name it. Joy leaves fingerprints. So does obligation. Readers can sense the difference between a story written from delight and one forced out of duty. So can collaborators.

It shows up in our marketing, too. I’m so guilty of this, I feel bad writing it, but I’m going to tell you. If we just repost something someone’s posted—without a note, just “signal boosting”--maybe people read it, maybe they see it. But they can feel our lack of enthusiasm.

If we post something with a note, adding a bit of a personal comment about how excited we are for the project, people can feel THAT energy, too. And no, you can’t lie. I am a firm believer that emotions and our hearts show, even when filtered through the cold screens of social media.

Belief is contagious. It’s what keeps writers revising after rejections, artists painting after criticism, and musicians practicing when no one’s listening. It’s the gentle breeze that fills our creative sails.

Start Believing Instead of Helping

I used to think the best way to support another creative was to help, to fix things, to offer advice, to make it easier. Now, I think the best help is belief. Oh, helping is good too! But belief? That’s where the magic happens.

When we say, “I know you can do this,” we’re giving someone courage. That kind of honest faith changes everything.

Maybe that’s the real miracle of creative life: that we get to believe in one another even when the world doesn’t yet see the magic we see.

A December Blessing

So this December, I’m choosing to believe: in my work, in my fellow creatives, in the quiet miracles that happen when we show up with joy.

Belief isn’t just a holiday sentiment. It’s creative potential energy.

And when we share it, when we dare to say, “I believe in you,” we just might give another writer the energy to finish that project they’ve been putting off. The energy to try that marketing experiment or to send out one more query.

I want to encourage you: as you move into 2026, pour your energy into projects that bring you joy.

What examples of the power of belief (or lack of it) in a creative individual can you share?

About Lisa

Lisa Norman's passion has been writing since she could hold a pencil. While that is a cliché, she is unique in that her first novel was written on gum wrappers. As a young woman, she learned to program and discovered she has a talent for helping people and computers learn to work together and play nice. When she's not playing with her daughter, writing, or designing for the web, she can be found wandering the local beaches.

Lisa writes as Deleyna Marr and is the owner of No Stress Writing Academy. She also runs Heart Ally Books, LLC, an indie publishing firm.

Interested in learning more from Lisa? Sign up for her newsletter or check out her school, No Stress Writing Academy, where she teaches social media, organization, technical skills, and marketing for authors!

Top image by Deleyna via Midjourney.

by Jenny Hansen

A few weeks ago, I came across a LinkedIn post that stopped me mid-scroll. A business strategist, Chantel Soumis, asked a deceptively simple question:

“How much is too much?”

Her reflection was honest and beautifully human. She talked about working a full-time job she loves, serving on four boards, staying active in social circles, parenting, and juggling life’s never-ending subplots. Reading the post, I was exhausted FOR her, but she said she genuinely loves all of it.

And yet… loving everything on your plate doesn’t magically give you more hours in the day. Passion doesn’t prevent burnout. Joy doesn’t erase exhaustion.

As writers, we know this struggle. Most of us feel it in our bones. Some of us with chronic illness feel it in multiple places.

A Writer’s Reality: Creativity Doesn’t Respect Your Calendar

Storytelling is not something you turn on and off like a lamp. Stories arrive whenever they want. Characters refuse to behave on your preferred timeline. Your best ideas often show up in the shower, the parking lot, or in Aisle 17 at Walmart.

So, while you’re also navigating work, family, deadlines, friendships, health, caregiving, 43 open tabs in your browser, and the fourteenth urgent email of the day. . .“too much” becomes a real conversation.

5 Grounding Strategies to Help

Chantel offered five grounding strategies to help with the “Too Much,” and they translate wonderfully for writers and creatives. Below is my translation through a writer's lens.

1. Protect your energy like it’s intellectual property.

Your energy is your most valuable writing asset (besides your creativity, of course). Energy is more valuable than your word count, your writing schedule, or your marketing plan.

If you’re running on fumes, the writing suffers. The joy suffers. YOU suffer.

Rest isn’t a reward for finishing everything. Rest is the fuel for creating anything.

2. Align your “yes” with who you’re becoming.

Let me explain what I mean by that.

Writers tend to say yes to everything because we’re curious, compassionate, and often wildly overconfident in our future selves. But every “yes” has a cost.

Neil Gaiman said it perfectly in his 2012 commencement talk. It’s an awesome motivational talk, but here’s the summary of what he says about saying yes to the wrong things.

“Picture your [creative] dream as the distant mountain that you’re traveling to reach. If you believe something will move you closer to the mountain, then do that. But if something will take you further away from the mountain, let that thing go by.”

Say yes to the things that align with where you want to go, not just where you’ve been.

If your week or month or season is about writing a book, protect that time fiercely. This is also true of launching a blog, building your author platform, or formatting your manuscript.

3. Treat commitments like chapters, not life sentences.

Some projects, groups, and obligations are perfect for a time. That doesn’t make them permanent. Saying yes for today doesn’t mean you’ve said yes forever. It’s okay to join, contribute, grow. . .and then turn the page.

Writers evolve. Our needs and our bandwidth change. Even our stories or our genre will change if we let them.

4. Be fully present in the world you’re in.

When you’re writing, write. When you’re with family, be with family. When you’re editing, edit. When you’re resting, rest without allowing guilt to ruin it for you.

Trying to be perfect and present in all your worlds at once keeps you from fully living in any of them.

Your creativity thrives when your presence is anchored.

5. Leave room to be human.

You are not a content machine. You need to be rested, and your creative soul needs to be replenished. The responsibility for that replenishment is up to you. We all recharge differently.

Creativity needs wide margins.

Some of your richest creative insights, and definitely your best writing, come from quiet, unhurried spaces within your life. You are not a word factory. You are a storyteller. And storytellers need space to breathe, think, notice, think some more, and feel.

Bonus Reminder

There are two truths writers that often forget, but desperately need. Perhaps they are just my two truths, but I’m going to share them with you in case they apply to you too:

• You can love every single thing on your calendar and still feel stretched thin.
• You can be grateful for your life and still need boundaries to protect your creativity.

Final Thought

What story are you telling yourself with your life right now? Have you defined for yourself how much is “too much?”

If your days feel overflowing. . .If you’re juggling multiple roles with both joy and exhaustion. . .This post is your invitation to pause.

I’m not suggesting you quit or withdraw. Just pause.

Pause long enough to choose your next step with intention.

Pause because nothing steals a writer’s voice faster than overwhelm. (And nothing strengthens that voice faster than clarity.)

Pause so you can have a quiet moment, all for yourself. Fill it only with what you want, even if it’s just for 15 minutes. Those minutes are precious, and sometimes we forget to take them because we’re busy “doing all the things."

One last word, to give credit where it’s due.

Thank you to Chantel Soumis for sparking this post. I read it at the perfect time: in the middle of a short holiday season, when I needed permission to check in with my own capacity. (Note: it was lacking that day, and I was needlessly pushing it.)

May this post be your reminder that even in the middle of overflowing to-do lists, we can choose to spend some time doing the things that support our own growth, creativity, and well-being.

How do you navigate the busy seasons? What do you say yes to, and what have you learned to let go of? Please share down in the comments. Your story may be the one another writer needs today.

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.

Top photo purchased from Depositphotos.

Original LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chantelsoumis_how-much-is-too-much-its-a-question-i-activity-7401998021661827073-GaQn/

By Julie Glover

A couple of weeks ago, I finished drafting the final novel in my YA contemporary series. Once I edit and release Pairing Anton, I’ll be ready for the next project. Which is…what? I don’t know yet.

Perhaps you’ve faced a similar dilemma, wondering what to write next—usually for one of two reasons.

Out of Fresh Ideas

Some writers pour themselves into the book they’re writing, reach the end, and face a blank slate in their mind. They need a break between books to observe the world around them, let the wheels turn in their heads, and come up with a fresh idea.

Here are some ways to come up with a great one:

Ask “what if”?

Stephen King encourages this approach in his popular book, On Writing. His ideas are a bit wilder than some, such as “What if vampires invaded a small New England village?” (Salem's Lot) and “What if a young mother and her son become trapped in their stalled car by a rabid dog?” (Cujo), but the notion is solid.

Your “what if” could be about a single person, a community, or the whole world. Here are some classic movie examples to show what I mean:

• What if you had to relive the same day again and again until you got it right? (Groundhog Day)
• What if a killer shark preyed on a small beach town? (Jaws)
• What if artificial intelligence took over? (The Terminator)

Create your own imaginative what-if, and you’ll have a compelling idea to work with!

Combine contrasting things.

Suzanne Collins came up with The Hunger Games by blending two opposite events: “I was flipping through the channels one night between reality television programs and actual footage of the Iraq War, when the idea came to me.” Contestants in one, soldiers in the other—mix and voila!, kids compete in a life-and-death game.

The first book in my YA series, Sharing Hunter, also used this approach. I was thinking about dating advice given to teen girls and then how huge shows like Big Love and Sister Wives had become. Next thing I know, I had the idea of two best friends sharing a boyfriend.

Take two things that don’t seem to go together and test out whether they might. If a combination strikes you as exciting, that might be your next book!

Watch and listen to people.

Tayari Jones was partly inspired to write An American Marriage after visiting her mother in Atlanta and overhearing a couple arguing. She explained, “I couldn’t get these people out of my head.” From there, she wrote her bestseller about a marriage torn apart by a wrongful conviction of one spouse.

Writers are, by nature, people watchers and eavesdroppers. Why? Because people are interesting and inspire stories without knowing it. So keep your eyes open, your ears peeled, and your pen ready.

Look wider in the world.

At any given time, numerous social issues can be explored through story. Alicia Ellis tackled today’s artificial intelligence concerns with her Flesh and Metalseries, Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, and Bonnie Garmus’s Lessons in Chemistry addressed sexism in the 1960s (and, let’s face it, beyond). Classics like Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and George Orwell’s 1984 also wrestled with social issues of their time.

Consider what’s bugging you today. Maybe that issue could be the focus of your next book. 

Twist another story.

How many times has the basic plot of Romeo and Juliet been copied? Who knows, but it’s a lot. For instance, These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong retells Romeo and Juliet in 1920s Shanghai, A Hope Divided by Alyssa Cole depicts a star-crossed-lovers romance between a black woman and a Union soldier during the US Civil War, and Twilight by Stephenie Meyer essentially replaces Capulets and Montagues with humans and vampires.

Take someone else’s idea, twist it, and you’ll get a fresh plot! Honestly, that’s what Shakespeare did too. He often borrowed from others and built on it to create an original work. Good enough for the Bard? Good enough for you.

Too Many Ideas, Not Enough Time

Some writers have more ideas than they can write in a lifetime. How can you decide which ideas get the red flag, and which get the go-ahead?

Here are a few questions to ask:

What are your readers waiting for? It might be okay to pause and do something different, but If you have an established audience, you don’t want to keep them waiting too long for the next installment in your series or genre.

What needs to get wrapped up? Speaking of which, perhaps you should tie up the genre or series you’ve been writing before taking on a new project. Prioritizing the completion of your current body of work can free you up to fully concentrate on the next grand idea.

What do you have the time and energy for? Maybe writing the medieval family epic you’d love to pen isn’t the best choice for your crazy calendar, but you could probably knock out the shorter, lighthearted rom-com. Consider what your life will allow right now and lean toward projects you can actually finish.

What won’t let you go? Is there an idea that won’t leave you alone? Maybe it’s a plot idea you had, a first draft you wrote, or a half-finished manuscript tucked away somewhere. For various reasons, you haven’t completed it, but the project is like an earworm in your mind—unwilling to let go. That might mean it’s time to tackle it.

What do friends or colleagues tell you to write? Of course, you shouldn’t write whatever others tell you to. Rather, come up with what you want to write, narrow your list, and then get input from people you trust. It could be friends, family, critique partners, or writing colleagues, but they likely have valuable feedback worth your attention.

As for me, I’m in the too-many-ideas camp, but two potentials have been calling out to me the most. So I’m delivering the first chapters of each project to my critique group for their input.

What should you write next? Only you can make that decision. But hopefully, you’ve gotten a few ideas for how to solve the dilemma.

Do you ever wonder what to write next?
How do you decide?

About Julie

Julie Glover is an award-winning author of young adult and mystery fiction. Her contemporary YA includes Sharing Hunter, Daring Charlotte, and coming-soon, Pairing Anton, and she has written several YA paranormal stories. She has also co-authored five supernatural suspense novels and two short stories in the mythology-based Muse Island series under her pen name Jules Lynn.

With her coauthor, Christina Delay, she recently published Together, We Write: An Author's Complete Guide to Cowriting, currently available as an e-book and soon coming out in print.

A native of Texas, she now lives in Denton with her hottie husband, her loquacious cat, and her large collection of cowgirl boots.

Photo credit: Konstantin Postumitenko, Prostock-studio @Canva; Professor25, Getty Images Pro @Canva