Five Things - January 15, 2024

Welcome to my blog titled “Five Things” where you can expect just that - five random musings or reflections from the previous week or so. In addition, at the end of the blog, I’ll keep a running itinerary of our travel plans. For a photo gallery of our life on the road, our pets, and miscellaneous things I find interesting, you can follow me on Instagram @tabithalord.

So here are this week’s five things…

1. San Diego has been great fun so far. We’ve visited the botanic gardens for the annual Lightscape display, biked around Coronado with a college friend, had dinner at Torrey Pines, and spent the weekend with R.J., Nick, and Leslie. Still up, the San Diego Zoo, La Jolla, some tide pool exploration, the aquarium, the wildlife preserve, and another trip to Balboa Park!

2. There’s this cute little hummingbird that visits a nearby bush every morning, and I am fascinated by her. Because of my tiny new avian friend, I went down the internet rabbit hole and learned all kinds of interesting things about hummingbirds like the fact that their miniature wings beat more than fifty times per second and they can fly over 30 mph. They have to feed every fifteen minutes or so to support their super high metabolism, and they’re partial to nectar and sugar. Also, they use spider webs as a nest-making material along with moss and lichen. You’re welcome!

3. At a yoga class the other day, the instructor shared a quote that went something like this: Transcendence occurs when half the time you are reaching up and half the time you are letting go. I interpreted these words to mean it’s important to find the right balance between striving and not becoming overly attached to the outcome of that striving. I constantly have to remind myself of this because many, many things in the writing and publishing industry are out of my control. Simply put, I can write a book, but I can’t make people read it. As this new year gets underway, I’m aiming for the right balance between reaching up and letting go.

4. In support of the rather aggressive writing goals I’ve set for myself this year, I’ve implemented daily writing sprints, and they really work for me. Here’s a tip for any new writers out there: Shut off the internet and eliminate potential distractions, then set a timer for thirty minutes. Write until time’s up and take a break. Rinse, repeat. It’s a pretty effective method for reaching your daily word count.

5. "I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Our itinerary, subject to change:

January 3 - February 2: Chula Vista, CA

February 2 - 16: Palm Springs, CA

February 16 - March 1: Las Vegas, NV

March 1 - March 4: Meteor Crater, AZ

March 4 - 8: Albuquerque, NM

March 10 - 17: Austin, TX

March 18 - April 5: Dallas/Ft. Worth, TX

April 5 - 12: Fredericksburg, TX

April 12 - 19: Hot Springs, AK

April 19 - 24: Ozarks, AK

April 24 - 28: Topeka, KS

April 24 - May 12: Kansas City, MO

May 12 - 24: Chicago, IL

“Not all those who wander are lost.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

Monday Musings 7-13-20

Once in a while, my muse takes a vacation. When this happens, I might stare at the keyboard and panic, or distract myself by playing around on Twitter, or clean my sock drawer, or sort the laundry, or make a snack. You get the idea! Whatever the case, it’s disconcerting when the words won’t flow. I’m sure we all feel uninspired sometimes, whether it’s with our art or our day job.

I have some strategies that help me through these sluggish spots, when real life stressors are taking a toll on my creativity, or when I’m just plain stuck in a plot tangle. I use different strategies depending on the issue. So, my creative friends, here’s some of my best advice to break through a block if your muse in on vacation.

If it’s just one bad day…

Work somewhere else. Mixing up locations might be the jolt your mind needs to kick back into gear. If I’m particularly distracted by the stack of bills that need attention, or the pile laundry growing exponentially in the bathroom, I’ll take myself out to the porch or back deck. 

Take a walk to clear your head. A little breathing space might be just what you need. Give your brain time to relax or switch focus, even if it’s only for thirty minutes. When you return to your work, it will be with a fresh perspective.

Participate in a writing sprint. Don’t worry about writing perfect words, just write. Forcing yourself to write when you aren’t feeling particularly creative may sound counter-intuitive, but it also might break the log-jam. Even if you can’t keep all your messy prose, there may be something worth salvaging.  

When I’m struggling with this particular project…

Talk it out. If I’m struggling with a plot tangle, or I haven’t worked out certain big issues with my story, I’ll schedule a time to talk with my good friend and fellow writer. She’ll ask the right questions or give me a new perspective on my project, and we’ll laugh and commiserate together.

Write out of order. Usually, I have a few pivotal scenes from my story that anchor things. They’re mostly high-intensity moments or big reveals and I’m always excited when I get to write one of them. If I’m really struggling with my manuscript, I might give myself permission to write a juicy scene, even if I haven’t reached that moment in the plot yet. If nothing else, I have a bit of fun, and often, this is enough to get the words flowing again.

If you’re thinking about your story, you are working on it. I’m a loose outliner, meaning before I sit down to write a new story, I have a good bit of it planned out. I still leave plenty of space for the creative process to unfold while writing, but I like to have a roadmap. I consider this mapping part of the process. Sometimes, in the middle of the story, I have to stop and outline further before I can dive back into writing. When I’m thinking through my story like this, I am making progress, even if I don’t hit a word count for that day.

Plan tomorrow’s writing before you end today’s. This is my favorite trick for keeping my writing on track. If I leave off with a few notes on where I’m going for my next writing session, I can dive in relatively pain-free the next time I sit at my keyboard. It’s worth finishing up a few minutes ahead of schedule to add in this planning time.

Things are tough in my life right now…

Self-care comes first. You may not feel motivated to do kind things for yourself, but this is when you need to the most. Self-care doesn’t necessarily mean heading to the spa for a week, although that’s certainly nice! It may mean a fifteen minute daily walk with your dog, or a cup of tea on the porch in the early morning. Whatever you need to do to keep your head above water, do it guilt-free.

Remember why you love writing. Writing can be the catharsis you need during a rough patch. Worry less about hitting a word count and remember why you started writing in the first place. Maybe you can use your writing time to journal, or maybe you just want to escape into the world you’ve created for a little while. This may not be the time for aggressive deadlines or new projects.

Lower your expectations. If you can do a little work each day on your project, you’ll still make forward progress, even if it is slower than you’d like. Maybe just opening the document, reading through a chapter, and writing a few notes is all you can manage. That’s okay. Life hits everyone hard at some point, and sometimes all we can do is get to the other side.

Whether it’s one bad day, or something more, we can still make realistic forward progress on our project if we have a few tried and true tools in our shed when we need them.

Monday Musings 10-7-19

Last week on the writing blog I manage, I asked each of my authors to share their personal top five writing tips. Advice is a funny thing. We all come from different backgrounds and we’re all at different points in our careers. For me, some bits of advice had no meaning until I’d actually worked in the industry for a while. Others were helpful straight out of the gate.

When pulling my top five together, I realized once again that these reflections likely transcend the writer’s world and may be universally helpful, especially if we’re moving into a new career. So, feel free free to replace “writer” with any number of other occupations!

Finish what you start. 

When new writers ask me for one piece of advice, this is usually it. Why? Because an unfinished manuscript will never become a book. Every writer will experience a lack of momentum, a conundrum about a plot twist, or a crippling moment of insecurity sometime during the writing process. The shiny newness of writing the first few chapters will eventually wear off, and we’ll have to power through the tough days to hit the finish line. I believe it’s worth powering through even if it’s only for the sake of getting to the end. We may have to rewrite, or even trash, some of our manuscripts, but until the whole story is out, we won’t know what we’ve got.

Patience, young Padawan.

Whether you’ve dreamed of sitting down at your writing desk and cranking out a finished manuscript by month’s end, or you thought the moment your story went live, thousands of readers would flock to read it, you will come to realize that everything in the writing and publishing world takes time. Like a construction project, your writing project will probably take more time and require more resources than you thought. We’re in this for the long game.

Kill your darlings? Yikes!

Wait, kill who? This alarming bit of advice made me quite nervous when I first heard it. Would I be required to kill off a beloved main character even if they were supposed to live happily ever after? Probably not. What I’ve come understand from this little nugget is that we have to be willing to sacrifice good bits of writing in our manuscript if they don’t serve the story. I’ve had to scrap entire well-written scenes because when I started editing, I realized the story was stronger without them. The idea here is not to become so attached to a piece of your own writing that you aren’t willing to change or discard it for the sake of telling your story better.   

Recognize the things you can and can’t control.

You can’t control reader response. Not everyone will love our stories, and that’s okay. We don’t love every story we read. Variety is the spice of life after all! Let this go. We also can’t control book sales. There are many things we can do to impact our book’s visibility and accessibility, but ultimately, we have no direct control over this. We can’t force people to read our book. We can control our work ethic, professional behavior, and commitment to our craft. We will have more satisfaction and less frustration as artists if we keep our focus on the things we can impact.

Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.

I’ll end here with a sports metaphor that my son has posted on his bedroom wall. We’re storytellers. Likely we have some talent at it if we’re in this line of work, just like a good athlete probably has some natural talent. But at the end of the day, if we don’t work to improve our skill, commit time and energy to our projects, and meet our deadlines, we really won’t have much of a career. 

SAVE THE DATE:

I’ll be at the Tapped Apple Winery, with my friend and fellow author Mike Squatrito on Thursday, October 17 at 6:30 pm for a reading, Q&A, signing, and more. This place makes amazing hard cider and apple wine. Come spend a couple of hours with us!