The Productive WRITER

YOUR WRITING LIFE IS A LONG-TERM COMMITMENT. IT IS A relationship with yourself and your readers that you very well may be nurturing for the rest of your life. I invite you to think of productivity as the romance that keeps things spicy, surprising, and always evolving. If you get bored with what you are doing, so will everyone else. Productivity means you are always growing toward something specific, with a vision of what waits for you on the other side. And just as in any relationship, there are any number of arrivals and departures. Productivity is the grace with which we navigate these and the creativity with which we adapt to the ever-changing nature of the writing life.

One of the risks of that great discipline of keeping your butt in the chair is the expansion of said butt. Keep in mind that you wouldn’t be writing without your body. And it needs you to keep it well fed, exercised, stretched, and rejuvenated so it can show up at your desk every day and do what you ask of it. Plus, if you are like many writers, being physically in motion is one of the best ways to wake up to the interesting ideas and insights that are getting ready to come through.

Consider a regular practice of as many of the following that you have time, interest, and funds for: rigorous walking, massage, yoga, acupuncture, stretching. Whatever appeals to you and keeps your body feeling like the receptive writing machine you’d like it to be is worth considering, trying, and sustaining for the long term. Because often I’m typing all day and all night, I’ve to had take extra special care of my arms, hands, back, and neck. One of my favorite (and almost free) rituals is a daily bubble bath with healing herbs and Epsom salts before bed every night. This is my blessed time of giving back to the body that has given so much to me all day long. What is yours?

“My husband once bought a great bottle of wine that we decided to save until I placed my first short story. This was back when we didn’t know up from down about storing wine, and by the time the big day came — four or five years later — the wine had turned. Since then I’ve made it one of my life missions to celebrate everything. Immediately.”

Writing is not something we do for or with an audience, a boss, or a team of colleagues. No one is going to pat you on the back after that six-hour shred of a writing session. And no one is going to congratulate you for delivering on your promises to yourself. In short, the only person who has enough information or investment to appreciate how hard you’re working is you.

We all know what a difference a little appreciation can make, especially when we are busting our butts (and an occasional button) to accomplish some very strenuous goals.

That’s why one of the most important jobs you have as a writer is to celebrate yourself, your successes, your failures, your willingness to take risks, your ability to follow through on your commitments, your capacity to work through fear when it comes up — the whole shebang. Every flawed and magnificent aspect of your writing life deserves to be celebrated each step of the way.

Learning to honor yourself in this way gives you the keys to the Productive Writer kingdom or queendom. When you really start to authentically feel accountable to and appreciated by yourself, it matters less and less what anyone else thinks or believes or says. You become a closed circuit that doesn’t depend on any external energy force to make things happen. You transform from a person needing validation to a person deeply secure in who she is and what she is doing. All this from a little celebration. You have it in you, even if it sounds silly. I know you do.

One great way to celebrate is to take a moment or two to document and correctly file every good thing that comes your way in your writing life. I recommend that you create a system of paper or computer files where you record in detail:

• PUBLICATIONS AND PUBLICITY (a clip of or link to each one). Log every publication, interview, tip, mention in someone’s blog, and review of your work so you can watch your visibility grow. Plus, you’ll start to get a sense of who is interested in what you have to say and what their experience of your writing might be. This can help you refine your platform and your approach to productivity as you go.

• CELEBRATIONS (a record of good news, good reviews, bad news you handled well, promising rejections, and anything you can possibly count as something to be grateful for). Refer to this every time you need a shot of faith in yourself — both your accomplishments and your attitude.

• TESTIMONIALS (a list of every positive thing said to you by students, editors, clients, colleagues). Attribute each one with a date and context of your relationship with the speaker. These are useful as a pick-me-up for yourself and to share in promotions of all kinds along the way.

Try keeping a writing success log to help you track what you’re learning. It can also help you stay committed to your own productivity adventure and define success for yourself along the way.

The idea that talent and suffering go hand in hand in the writing life has become legendary; the “starving artist” is now an all-too-familiar archetype. I think it’s time to blow some kisses to this archetype and bid it adieu. Why? Because it keeps us small, scared, and struggling. And it keeps our writing starved for something bigger in us.

The truth is, starving writers are too busy trying to make ends meet to write much of anything. And the well-fed, reasonably employed writer has such comforts as a roof over her head and some tried-and-true organizational skills to employ toward the success of her writing life — whatever she defines that success to be.

A few years ago, when I had the good fortune to hear Mary Oliver read, she mentioned a review in which the reviewer had no particular objection to Oliver’s poetry per se but seemed quite troubled by the fact that this poet found the time to lie around in the grass and contemplate nature. Oliver must have a trust fund, the reviewer concluded, in order to afford such leisure, thereby suggesting that poetry is available only to the independently wealthy.

The truth, said Oliver, is that she lives extremely modestly on money she has earned. And in so doing, she is liberated from the overwhelming demands of “making a living” so she has the time and space to make a (writing) life. What Oliver clearly understands (and the reviewer clearly doesn’t) is that the wealth of creativity is available to every single one of us in any given moment. We need only choose to tune in wherever we are — whether it be a field of daisies or a swath of concrete — and start writing.

If we don’t question the popular paradigm that aligns “wealth” with money, and we make the pursuit of cash a primary goal, we may find that we have little time left over for writing. And on the flip side, if we neglect our material needs in pursuit of a writing life, we are likely to end up in real, uninspiring distress.

But if we agree that a prosperous life is one with time to literally and figuratively smell the roses, and then luxuriate in the time to write about it, we are establishing a root system for a new paradigm of prosperity — one we feed and water with our attention and our words. By recognizing, welcoming, and prioritizing both our material and creative needs, we have a far better chance of striking a balance that feels like true wealth and can sustain us over the long term.

No matter what your financial status, time limitations, or family commitments might be, I know that you have the skills and the creativity to cultivate a spirit and a practice of prosperity both in your life and in your writing. Once you start investigating, you may be surprised to find yourself shaping a life that is wealthy with time, inspiration, community, and even money. I’ll bet you will find yourself doing more and more of what you love most without sacrificing anything but an old archetype whose time has come and gone.

LET GO AND LET GOOD

Write a list of everything you’ve been carrying in your writing life that is no longer serving you. Then whittle this list down to only those habits, beliefs, and choices you feel ready to let go of once and for all. Climb to the top of a hill (literal or metaphorical), make a fire, and burn your list. Skip back down the hill, released from who you once were into who you are becoming.

“Success is not the key to happiness,
Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing,
You will be successful.”

What’s standing between so many of us and our dreams is an idea — conscious or subconscious — that we do not deserve to be successful. The Productive Writer is committed to working through such limiting beliefs because she understands she has important work to do, and she is ready to clear any clutter that’s in her way.

It’s okay if you’re afraid. You can expect to fail; everyone does sooner or later, and the most successful people often fail the most spectacularly. The Productive Writer picks herself up, dusts off her pen and paper, chooses to be grateful for the gifts of wisdom and trust that get cultivated along the path of mistakes and disappointment, and keeps on writing.

“What would you do if you could do anything you wanted to?” James Martin, author of The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything, asked readers in a recent interview.

When at the Wharton School studying business, this Jesuit priest says he shared his desire to study poetry with his advisor, who responded, “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” Martin disagreed, went on to study poetry, and says it’s what he remembers best from his education.

Of course, there are dozens of “practical” reasons not to pursue poetry or a writing life of any kind. It’s not likely to pay the rent or mortgage, at least for a while, and no one at your job may give a whit about your affinity for Whitman. The good news is this: No one needs to care about the writing you love other than you.

In my experience, when we let love lead, our lives and our work become far less confusing. When we trust our passions to steer us where we are intended to go, we may find ourselves in a less prescribed career track. And it may take some exploring to determine exactly how and where we fit. Good thing creative people are good at exploring!

Inspiration may not immediately fill your bank account, but it is likely to fill your sails. Committing to a productive writing rhythm may not lead to your next big career move. But it just might make you happy. And there’s no better compass than happiness.

Who knows, doing exactly what makes us happiest may have an even greater untapped earning potential than that predictable pay-check. With passion as productivity engine, we’re far more likely to throw our shoulders into the work and stay with it, simply because it feels better to do so than to stop.