Writers in the Storm

by Michelle Johnson

We all have questions, hesitations, and those moments when we lack courage. As a writer, you will also often encounter doubt. It is an enemy you will have to defeat more than once. 

Doubt takes many forms.

It is the voice that questions your right to create, the one that rehearses worst-case scenarios, the one that keeps you safe by keeping you small. Doubt can protect you by making you consider if there is a better option or another perspective. Should you consider how the intended audience might misunderstand your message? What if there is a better way to make your point?  

But too much doubt can stop you from starting.

This is when doubt gets in your way. Your thoughts will begin to focus on limits. This leads to thoughts such as “What if I’m not good enough?” As you can see, this is definitely a battle. The push and pull of doubt could paralyze your creativity and passion for writing.

Good News from Your Imagination

In a perfect world, writers would just sit down and type a first draft that is meaningful, exciting, and beautifully edited. Alas, ‌it would be easier to win the lottery. The good news is that you don’t care if it’s bad because, when you write the first draft, you are throwing ideas on the page while your mind gives you the gist of your story.

Forget about stress, because your imagination plays tunes in your head long after that first draft. You’re still on the train tracks and looking to fuel your story with steam. 

What if Stephen King had written his book, Christine, about a car owner who is obsessed with his 1958 Plymouth Fury (something classic car owners can relate to) and instead went with the first idea that came to mind, such as a 1968 Mustang convertible? 

Let’s pretend that he did.

Suppose he spent time imagining and saw that the Plymouth was bigger, stronger, scarier, and, in a word, better. He may have even looked at cars on the internet or randomly seen the Fury at a car show. Anything that sparked his imagination would be worth the time spent asking himself the question, “What if ?”

Imagination is your sword to fight doubt. 

It challenges your hesitation and limits that keep your first idea smaller than it might need to be. Some of your ideas may be perfect the first time, but the test will come when you try other options. Your result may surprise you!

Let’s explore the tension between Doubt and Imagination.

Instead of enemies who must win every time, you may prefer to consider them as two friends who don’t think alike. Doubt will negotiate the situation as an editor, reminder, or guardian. It covets fear and wants things to be short and specific. Imagination will want to push for more details, imagery, and may go overboard.

The result is a compromise of ideas after a series of negotiations.

Doubt	Imagination
Questions one's ability	Explores possibility
Creates hesitation	Encourages creativity
Focuses on limits	Pushes boundaries
Doubt thinks, “Not yet?”	Imagination thinks, “What if this is amazing?”

Writing Insight

Your first drafts need imagination to get ideas flowing, so think of them as a sketch of a house. 

You haven't built the house yet, so you still have time to decide how many rooms and cars you want, whether it's in the city or country, who will live there, and so on. You are not spending money on materials, and using your imagination saves you money. 

This is why so many movie scripts get revised. I’d like to think that they make additions and spend more money to make the movie better as well. Big moments are exciting in books and movies. 

Please do not limit your imagination. 

Remember:

• First drafts need imagination
• Editing needs a little doubt
• Good writing happens when both are balanced.

If your writing looks too much like a strict parent or a teenager who wants to describe every detail over a three-hour phone call with her friends, you need to work on balance. 

The Doubt and Imagination Team Interact

Doubt immediately shows fear. It asks questions, does not want to take chances, and wants to stay inside. Imagination is like a puppy that wants to play in the mud and see what happens. Negotiation may look like this: “I will give you X if you give me Y.”

Doubt works!

• It protects by predicting pain
• It conserves energy by preventing risk
• It borrows authority from past voices and past hurts

Imagination helps!

• It is a rehearsal without consequences
• It lets you try on outcomes, practice courage 
• It helps create evidence for possibilities

If our team of Doubt and Imagination can work in tandem in our minds, then we should find it interesting to share the fun with our friends or family. 

Note: I recommend using the Imagination version for this random sharing of ideas. 

If you have a writing group, they can be your best allies for rehearsals. For example, in my group, we were writing short stories for an anthology, and someone used her grandfather’s story about his service in World War II for inspiration. 

She wanted a grand ending to the romance, but struggled to find it because her grandfather had been a French interpreter in the war. While brainstorming with a group member, she was asked, “Why couldn’t he be a pilot who flies his plane to his girlfriend’s farm after the war?” 

It was a sweet ending, and it worked. 

Final Thoughts

The Doubt-Imagination team works if you allow yourself to see both sides and the benefits that each provides. You are the creator. You are the doubter. You are the “Imaginator.” Let yourself explore the possibilities and negotiate boundaries. Build the house in different ways, let the puppy play in the mud, put the hero in the airplane, and get the teenage girl off the phone.

Doubt will thank you, too.

 What ideas come to mind when you consider the doubt - imagination balance? 

About Michelle

Michelle Johnson, B.A., M.S., MBA, is a mom, wife, retired English teacher, academic with lots of letters behind her name, traveler, and lifelong learner.

This is her first time blogging for writersinthestormblog.com.

"Louisiana life is ripe with stories, great food, loyal friends, and family. Y’all are welcome, anytime!"

Featured photo by Pixabay

by Dr. Diana Stout

Did you know that our habits are science-driven, and so is our procrastination? Have you ever tried to create a better writing habit only to fail or fall into procrastination?

Would you be surprised to learn that it’s not about you, but the science of you? And, that changing or creating a habit doesn’t have to be hard? Once I understood the science—the why—I better understood the how. How to make the changes without feeling deprived or having to work harder.

My Journey With This Topic

Earlier this year, I published a short how-to resource guide, The 3 Secrets of Time Management & Eliminating Procrastination that features the science of how and why we procrastinate, how to overcome what is a natural inclination within us, and the various things you can do to increase your writing time.

This blog post represents one of those chapters—the one entitled, “Habits.” For this blog post, I’ve added even more specific advice for writers. So, here goes.

Defining “Habits”

What we do repeatedly becomes habit, and our habits become so ingrained that we perform them without thought. Our lives are composed of daily, weekly, and yearly habits, including our procrastination habits.

Have you ever driven the same route to school or work and wondered how you got there, as you don’t remember driving it? Habit.

Applying this to Writing

When we can use our willpower and tie it to a habit, that’s when success happens. You can easily increase your writing time by purposefully creating a new habit.

For example, I created a daily three-hour writing window and connected it to Zoom, inviting writer friends who were struggling to write every day to join me. This was two years ago. Some writers have come and gone, but there is a core group of us who still participate. Some leave early; others arrive late. Most aren’t here on the weekend, but I’m here almost every day.

I schedule other activities around those three hours, making those three hours a priority. It’s now a habit. Plus, we’re each provided accountability, camaraderie, and are a support group. The thing is, we’re all writing and most of us are publishing.

Forming Habits

Your future is tied to the habits you’re engaged with now, so this is the time to make changes if you want different results later. A different future.

What do you want to manifest for that future?

Be specific. It’s a goal.

To achieve the goal, you’ll want to break the habits that hold you back or are stopping you from reaching that goal.

If all habits are heavily traveled neural pathways (the science I talk about at the beginning of the book) that we travel along without thought, it makes sense to stop traveling the pathways of bad habits and replace them with fresh, alternative paths.

Any rut we’re currently in is the result of a habit. Change the habit that maintains the rut and you’ll be replacing the rut with a new brain path.

What holds us back?

The problem most of us have in wanting to do something new, we think in terms of stopping something first.

That’s where we flounder.

Don’t ever just stop doing something. Replace it with another activity or action. If a replacement isn’t engaged, the original pathway remains, and the old habit will return because our brains seek out patterns and easy paths first. Thus, a replacement blocks the old path.

When changing habits:

• be verbal
• be specific
• make statements in the positive, not the negative

For example, instead of saying I’m going to drink less soda, instead say, I’m going to drink more water.

Tying a Habit to Writing

Be specific about your writing.

Instead of saying, I’m going to write more every day, say, “I’m going to write three pages every day,” or “I’m going to write half an hour every day.”

Why specific? So that you’re better able to track it, be sure to keep a written record of your habit. You can look back and see if you’re fulfilling that desired change. For instance, are you finding you’re writing fifteen minutes every day instead of thirty minutes? If so, then change your expectation and commit to a time you can do.

Change the time to accommodate what you’re doing. Why? Because you’re more likely to repeat that recent change every day. And, you’ll be building on positive success rather than negative disappointment.

When changing a writing habit, focus on what you’re going to do rather than what you’re stopping. This is how the brain’s rut pathway disappears as the new habit pathway replaces it.

Timing is Important

Whatever change you want to make, start doing it today! Not tomorrow. Today. Right now! (After reading this post.)

Don’t let procrastination win today.

Even if you’re writing nothing more than a sentence or two today, or jotting down ideas, it’s a strong start!

And then, make yourself do it every day for a week or a month. Start small, not big. If you find yourself happy and satisfied afterward each day, you’ll want to continue it tomorrow. After a week or a month’s time, re-evaluate your daily goal—your new habit.

Is it working? Can you increase it by just a little?

My recommendation:

I recommend recording the time spent writing after every day’s writing so you can see that you are making progress.

Do this new habit long enough and you’ll have created a new pathway where you’ll soon perform without thought. You’ll want to write or need to write every day because it’s now a strong habit.

Because my Zoom group’s three-hour writing window is a strong writing habit I’ve created, it’s nearly impossible for me not to write every day or perform a writing task. Even when I travel, I take a project with me. It’s habit.

Final Thoughts

Remember these four things…

• Behavior + repeated behavior = habit.
• Positive, purposeful change of behavior + repeated behavior = changed behavior.
• Purposeful to-do list + managed time = a to-do list getting done! Success!
• You will never change your life unless you change a daily habit.

What writing habit would you like to start? Do you already have some strong writing habits in place? Share them with us!

About Dr. Diana

An award-winning writer in multiple genres across multiple media, Diana is a screenwriter, author, blogger, writing coach, and indie publisher through her production company, Sharpened Pencils Productions.

She recently published her first thriller, Harbor House: Deadly Intentions, a gripping split-time psychological paranormal of two women separated by a century yet bound by peril, legacy, and the haunting secrets of Harbor House Island.

Since then, she’s published The 3 Secrets of Time Management & Eliminating Procrastination as part of her Finding Your Fire series. And just last week, the first guidebook in her Grammar & Writing Rescue series, the I Hate Commas Comma Book: Commas Made Easy Short Read.

Currently, she's writing her next thriller, Buried Trash: A Shelby Hale Thriller.

Featured image purchased from Depositphotos.

Since the beginning here at Writers in the Storm, we've been all about spreading the love. And every so often, we throw the doors open for some shameless self-promotion opportunities for our readers. Our only requirement for those glorious days (formerly called "Pimp & Promote") is that they double the love and promote someone else's work alongside their own.

Today's event (May the 4th Be With You!) will give us all the opportunity to share great resources and celebrate our own successes. Plus, it's almost summer, one of our favorite seasons for reading. So get ready to double the love!

How DO you "Double the Love?"

Here in the States, school is still going strong, athletic games abound, and it is prom season. In that same spirit, let's dance around and cheer for ourselves and other writers! Down in the comments section, we ask that you:

• Heap love on somebody else’s work—a favorite author, blogger, post or book you’ve read, a wonderful teacher or just someone who had profound influence on you as a writer or a person. Please limit your comments to one work.
  AND
• Promote one of your projects that you’re excited about—a hobby, a blog, a book, or a new direction your writing is taking you. You decide. Just tell us about it in the comments! (Please restrain your enthusiasm to just one of your WIPs.)

The rest of us will shake our writerly booties, and “ooooh and ahh” (with a side of rah-rah). Full disclosure: our to-be-read piles and our resource lists double in size on days like these, which is always a cause for both celebration and nail-biting.

We'll lead off the love fest with some of the WITS Team!

Lisa Norman

New Love:

If you've struggled at all with making your writing come to life, my favorite teacher is still Margie Lawson. When I'm working with a writer who needs to up their game, I send them to this series of lecture packets:

• Empowering Characters’ Emotions
• Deep Editing, Rhetorical Devices, and More
• Writing Body Language and Dialogue Cues

For those who want to listen instead of read, she's got bite-size webinars and online classes as well.

Self Love:

All of my energy has been going into building No Stress Writing Academy! We have a bunch of classes with more coming all the time. I offer a Marketing 101 class at no cost for those who want to explore the platform and see what we're up to.

Jenny Hansen

New Love:

Have you experienced any of Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi's "Thesaurus" books? If not, you're missing out!

They have a new one that released a few weeks ago: The Fear Thesaurus. Fear is so vital to character development. Here's how the duo describes their "why" for writing the book:

“No matter what genre you write or who your audience is, one thing is certain: Everyone experiences fear. This makes it a great tool for reader engagement, especially when we choose one that’s woven deep into the fabric of humanity.”

My copy just arrived and I'm excited to dig in!

Self Love:

Calling all business owners (which includes savvy authorpreneurs)! I'm teaching my favorite class on Wednesday, May 6th at Noon Eastern (US time):

Storyselling Deep Dive into the 5 Key Stories

In these 90 minutes, we explore the 5 story types every business needs to attract clients, build trust, and stand out. The point of this class is to make your value as a business unmistakable. By the end of our time together, you'll understand the five Key Stories, how to use them, and be well on your way to crafting your own. The Storyselling Deep Dive helps you master business storytelling, shorten the sales cycle, and attract the people who get you.

This 90-minute workshop is currently on sale for $30. Click here to enroll.

Jenn Windrow

New Love:

As a person who is pretty happy living in my own little bubble, I don't engage with others besides the people and creatures that live in my house that often. But there is one class I took on story structure, that not only shaped the stories that I write, but also have helped me in my editing career. Story Structure Safari by Lisa Miller.

Her easy approach to how a story should flow, what belongs where, and digging deep into character motivations has not only made me a better writer, but also an editor who not only knows how to find problems in a manuscript, and offer suggestions on how to fix them. I use what I learned from her every day.

Her amazing classes can be found at the No Stress Writing Academy

Self Love:

I've got so many cooks in the kitchen write now between my own writing, editing for clients, and illustration, that my days are filled with creative endeavors, just the way I like it. But I think the thing I am most excited about right now, is the reader themed sticker/bookmark/mug series I am creating. Each one is hand illustrated and designed by me, and they just make me happy when I look at them. Plus, I get to draw, which is something I had to put aside for years.

For me they are an extra revenue stream at author events, but they also attract readers to my table, allowing me to open up a conversation about my books.

Sarah (Sally) Hamer

New Love:

Why do we write? Because we can't NOT write. Well, at least that's the way it works for me. Anything to do with writing makes me happy, especially taking classes about writing, whether it's craft or philosophy.

So, even though she's on this blog, promoting her academy, I'm going to talk about it again.

Lisa Norman is not only an amazing person, she's also an amazing teacher. I've been taking her classes for over a decade and find them brimming with usable information and full of fun. She knows her stuff, knows how to teach it, and supports us as we work our way through it. I HIGHLY recommend the No Stress Writing Academy and anything that Lisa and her other instructors teach.

Self Love:

Which leads me to my self-love. I'm fortunate enough to teach for the No Stress Writing Academy. I taught for Margie Lawson's Academy for about fifteen years, loving every minute. You'll see some of my original classes and some new ones on No Stress, and more will be going up this year. Come have fun!

Okay, now it's your turn! Double up heaping amounts of love in our comments section, please. We want to learn about some new resources, and buy some great new books!

Important Note: Be sure to enter your links with "website name" (dot) com formatting. (We have a setting on for the comments to strip links!)

Featured Photo created in Canva.