Start Small

- a post by Jeanna Mason Stay

Anyone who lives near me and knows me well enough to drop in unexpectedly (or just drop in at all really) already knows this unsurprising fact: I am not much good at keeping the house clean. Insert the usual reasons here: small children, other priorities, and so on. This isn’t about making me feel better for having a messy house.

This is about making changes—to cleaning up, to writing, to whatever.

A friend of mine recommended this book called How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind (which, incidentally, is on sale at Amazon today only!), and I recently started reading it. Previous decluttering/cleaning-related books had fallen flat for me over and over. The ideas sounded awesome, but I was never very good with follow-through. (Plus, as has become a standing joke, I don’t like to talk to my socks, and my tax documents don’t really spark joy.)

This book is for the non-organized among us. In fact, the author, Dana White, starts off by saying that most of those other books are written by organized people, people who just logically work that way. White is not.

Well, honestly, I think this book is pretty great. It’s all kind of completely obvious—except that I’d never really thought these things through, and I’d never really bought into them before. So it’s obvious but also ... not obvious. And for the first time in a long time, my dishes are being finished every night (even if I have to handwash a couple!), my kitchen floor is clean(ish), and tidying doesn’t feel like it takes forever. I consider all of these things epic wins (even at the same time that I’m super embarrassed to admit that as a 37yo I still hadn’t figured out how to do these things regularly). So if you too have cleaning problems, go buy it! Read it! It’s an idea.

But this post isn’t actually about whether or not you’re a clean person. It’s about starting small. And how small makes a huge difference.

In How to Manage Your Home, the first task you’re assigned is just to do the dishes every day. For some of us, this seems like a daunting task. But White essentially says, “Pull up your big-kid panties and just do it.”

Do it the first day, when it’s really hard because you’re way behind.

And then do it the second day, when it’s not as bad.

And the third day, when it’s getting a little easier.

Novel concept, yes? Just do it.

And now we come around to writing! (See? I do get there eventually.)

How does a story get written? A few words at a time. A couple of sentences, then paragraphs, then pages. But how does it not get done? By staring at the blank screen (or even just thinking about the blank screen) and freaking out because there’s so much to do and you haven’t started and you’re on a deadline and your ideas are crap and everyone out there is a bestseller and your friend has a more popular social media account than you and maybe if you just post something brilliant (like a blog post about starting small?) suddenly everyone will love you and you’ll get contracts and agents and publishers and million-dollar advances, but wait, none of that is going to work because your screen is still blank and it’s freaking you out and...

Get the picture? So what should you do about that story that you haven’t figured out yet? That you really want to write but it’s scaring you because it’s so hard or you’re not sure where to go or you’re not sure you’re good enough to write it yet? (Welcome to my entire life right now, by the way.)

You should go sit and type a few sentences.

Do it today, when it’s awful and hard.

Do it tomorrow, when it’s still insanely daunting.

Do it the next day, even when you’re still lost.

And the next and the next and the next.

You can do it. (And now I have to go start working on that story I’ve been avoiding like the dickens. Sigh. Taking my own advice is overrated.)

In a Slump

- a post by Jeanna Mason Stay

I’ve been in a major slump when it comes to writing. Seriously. The last several times I sat down to write an MMW post, it didn’t happen. Last fortnight’s post only happened because my husband took mercy on me and wrote a guest post. But I’m starting to think it’s maybe one of those get-back-in-the-saddle-again things. Like this whole writing this is getting scarier and scarier because I keep avoiding it.

Here’s a true story:

You may or may not remember that I am a bit petrified of driving. Yes, I’ve gotten fairly used to it, and desensitization has definitely helped a lot (ongoing exposure to the thing you’re scared of). But I wasn’t always so petrified.

Back when I was fifteen, I took driver’s ed. I wasn’t a great driver, and I wasn’t superbly comfortable doing it, but I was passable. Then, through a series of unimportant, unrelated events, I didn’t get my license. Then the certificate saying I passed driver’s ed expired, so I had more reasons not to get a license. What started out as lack of comfort with driving grew bigger over the ensuing years. It became low-level anxiety, then it grew into occasional nightmares, and it kept going until just the thought of driving was slightly nauseating.

My phobia developed over a long stretch of time, and though it is fairly manageable now, I still have to be careful. If I go too long without driving at least a bit, I start feeling anxious again. I have to take the freeway frequently because I find that if I avoid it for a week or two, the fear begins to rise. It has to be tamped down on a regular basis.

I think I have gotten that way about writing too. Even now, typing this post, I can feel the tension in my shoulders, and my brain wants to be anywhere but here. It’s about all I can do to just stay on the page and not go skittering off to check Facebook or my email or Youtube or really anything. But it is only the continuing to do something that wears away at this sort of anxiety.

So this post, my friends, is my therapy. :) And you’ve all made lovely therapists. You probably deserve a raise. But I’m not going to give it to you. Unless I suddenly write a best-seller and magically become filthy rich (ha!). Then I’ll credit you all in the acknowledgments.

In the meantime, back in the real world, I hope that if you too are in a writing slump you will just sit down, tell the anxiety to go take a time-out like a misbehaving toddler, and write.

My english teachers hated me....

By Lacey Gunter

I often think about the crazy road that brought me to this unexpected junction in my life right now.  As I have mentioned in previous posts, I am not your stereotypical writer.  My 'talents' as a young child and continuing through adulthood mostly seemed to be clumped around mathematics. I did exceptional at it, so that is how people saw me, as a math wiz.

One thing I liked about math is that it is so black and white. You knew there was one right answer and if you could figure out a correct way to get there, you knew where you stood. Other people's opinions didn't matter. But that sort of black and white mentality always seemed to get me in trouble in English class.

I was never a bad student, mind you. I have always been and will probably always be studious to the core. But my wanting things to have an apparent 'correct' answer often set me at odds with my English teachers. Honestly, I think some of them flat out hated me. Or at least that's how it felt when I was young.  As a result, I think I hated writing. It was an unbearable chore. 

Educational research often studies interactions with math teachers and how it affects students' perceptions of math ability. I have not seen the same type of examination on interactions with English teachers, but based on my own experience, I am guessing it is the same.

I am mostly free from the direct influences of a judging English teacher now, and luckily I have also broken free from hating writing. But I still carry around a vibrant insecurity of sharing any of my writing with them.  I have a lovely friend who has taught English for years and I am sure she could influence my writing for the better, but I can't seem to muster enough courage to even tell her I am writing.  I have managed to conquer any insecurities with sharing my writing with other writers, general audiences and even with prospective agents (thanks to a healthy dose of anonymity, hiding behind a computer screen). But this one I haven't been able to conquer yet.

How about you? Have you had any of these types of insecurities and how have you conquered them?