Your writing coach part 15 pptx

living near Munich before and after a new international airport went into operation close by. Children living directly under the flight path had increased blood pressure and higher levels of stress hormones. The other study determined that office noises from ringing telephones, printers, and copiers reduced efficiency and concentration by up to 30 percent. If you work in a noisy environment, consider how you can minimize the noise (e.g., move the copier to another location, turn down the volume on the phone ringer, etc.). If that’s not possible, consider shielding yourself from the noise. Special headphones that block noise are available. They work best with a steady source of noise. I use them on long flights and they do reduce the stress that comes from the drone of the engines. The cheaper and more subtle alternative: ear plugs. Of course, you can also choose to listen to music on your iPod or other MP3 player. Sound expert Dr. Jeffrey Thompson has studied the impact of sound on creativity. He says, “The brain looks different if you’re trying to solve a creative problem than if you’re trying to solve a math problem.” He adds that when you play music, your brainwaves try to entrain (match) the speed of the pulses in the music, which alters your consciousness, put- ting you into a more dream-like state. This level is more con- ducive to creativity. The next time you have a task that is creative rather than ana- lytical, experiment with having different types of music on in the background. Try brainstorming for five or ten minutes with each type of music, and jot down your ideas as well as what type of music was playing. Which prompted the most ideas and the best ideas? Repeat this experiment a few times, varying the order of the music, because the quantity and quality of the ideas may also be linked to other factors. When you find the soundtrack that seems to work best, use it regularly for the brainstorming phases of your writing. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Boris Akunin, Russian author of a successful series of mystery novels, says before he begins writing he plays recorded music: “I have to put 132 Persist! on the right sort of music, to listen to it for five or ten minutes just to get tuned to the right mood.” For a tragic mood, he likes Mahler; for a tender mood, it’s early Beatles albums. There’s another way to use music. Wait until you naturally get into a good writing mood, then put on a song or an album you don’t normally play but that supports the mood. Do this two or three times, always using the same music. Thereafter, when you don’t feel in a great writing mood but want to, put on that music and it should create the mood by association. In neuro-linguistic programming, this is called an anchor. Of course, before there was NLP, Pavlov did something similar with dogs and food. For those times when you want to have music, I recommend www.pandora.com. It’s a website that creates a virtual radio sta- tion for you, playing music only by the artists you specify and ones whose music is similar. You can also teach it to be better at judging what to play for you by responding to individual selec- tions. Furthermore, you can set up a whole bunch of stations— maybe one for jazz, one for rock, one for country, and so on. Classical music is missing, unfortunately. At least at this writing, the service is free. A similar program that does include classical music is www.last.fm. What are you looking at? Several studies have shown that hospital patients need less pain medication and take less time to recover when they have a view of nature from their windows. Even a mural of nature lowered dental patients’ blood pressure, compared to just looking at a plain wall. What are you looking at when you’re in your writing environment? Obviously, we don’t all have natural vistas to look on from our windows, but it’s easy enough to buy some great calendars with scenic views, and to keep changing them often enough that the sight refreshes you anew. If you’re not into nature, calendars Find the Write Space 133 featuring your favorite animal or pictures of babies may work just as well. Bringing a bit of nature indoors can also be calming, accord- ing to a study done by psychology researcher Helen Russell at the University of Surrey. She gave two groups of volunteers a tough math test. One group took the test in a room with normal office furniture. The other group took the test in a room that contained 27 tropical plants. The group with the plants scored lower on a skin-conductivity stress test. Even if, like me, you have a red thumb (is that the opposite of a green thumb?), it’s a good idea to have a plant or two in your work area. As well as reducing stress, they add oxygen and humidity to the air, and NASA research suggests that common houseplants can convert chemical air pollutants into harmless substances. Recommended plants include ivy, potted chrysan- themums, peace lilies, and philodendrons. Working away from home For some writers, working at home is not an option. Fortunately, there are alternatives: ✐ Coffee shops. For once, we can be happy that there seems to be a Starbucks or Caffè Nero sprouting up on every corner. If you avoid the busiest hours, these can be calm environ- ments in which to write without feeling pressured to leave the minute you’ve finished your cappuccino. Cafés in museums, galleries, or colleges are also good during off- peak times. In many cases you’ll even find a power point so you can plug in your laptop rather than depending on its battery. Some writers take an extension lead with them to make this easier. Cheeky? Sure, but why not? ✐ Libraries. Although some of these are facing budget cuts, many are being turned into media centers with computer access, so they are good for doing online research as well as writing. 134 Persist! ✐ A friend’s home. If you have friends who are away at work all day, you may want to ask whether you can use their home for writing sessions while they are out. ✐ A park. Obviously this depends on the weather, and the light conditions aren’t ideal for working on a laptop, but a park bench can be a great place to brainstorm or to edit your manuscript with a red pencil. ✐ Your car. If no other place is available, you can just drive somewhere, park, and work. ✐ Anywhere, any time. If you carry a notebook and maybe a digital recorder, you can jot down or dictate ideas or bits of dialogue whenever you have a spare moment. This turns those minutes spent waiting at the bank or the post office into productive chunks of time. If you have an answering machine, you can even call yourself and leave your ideas as messages to be harvested when you get home. This will be totally unobtrusive, since these days everybody is on their mobile phone 90 percent of the time anyway. If you regularly write away from home, create a portable office you can tak e with you. This can be in the form of an accordion file or a briefcase or a gym bag. It should contain all of the doc- uments you need, plus supplies like extra pens, paper clips, a small stapler, and ear plugs. Ultimately, the only answer to the question “Where is the best place to write?” is “Wherever you can.” Try out a variety of loca- tions to find out whether you thrive on a bit of noise and bustle, or prefer to have calm and silence. With a bit of creativity, you can find—or create—your ideal writing space. Find the Write Space 135 KEY POINTS ✐ There is no one best environment in which to write. ✐ If you work at home and have a family, set rules about not being interrupted and about others respecting your work- place—and enforce them. ✐ Respect your own writing time by not giving in to interruptions. ✐ If music helps you to think or write, use it as an anchor for creativity. ✐ Have some plants in your writing area to freshen the air and improve your mood. ✐ If you have to work away from home, try a variety of venues. EXERCISES ✐ Don’t assume that the place you do your writing at the mome nt is the best; try a variety of settings and compare how you feel and how well you write before settling on a permanent venue. ✐ If you work at home, post some writing-time rules where your family or roommates can see them. CHAPTER BONUS On the website www.yourwritingcoach.com, click on the “Chapter Bonuses” tab, then the “Write Sites” tab, and type in the code: site. You will be taken to a video tour in which three writ- ers give you a look at their very diverse writing spaces, and tips on how best to take advantage of the space you have. 136 Persist! 1111 With a Little Help from Your Friends “People who study resilience in children have found that all a child needs is one adult who believes in the child, who con- veys a sense of encouragement and faith, for the child to pre- vail. And I think that is probably true for artists as well… I think that at some point you do need to be encouraged—told that it is OK to be creating and that what you are creating is worthwhile.” —Diane Ackerman Usually, writing is a solitary endeavor, but it becomes even more so if the p eople around you don’t understand and don’t support your creative activities. It’s not rare for aspiring writers to be treated with anything from condescension (“It’s nice that you have a little hobby”) to outright negativity (“What makes you think anybody would want to read anything you have written?”). There are lots of possible reasons for these attitudes. Some people may be jealous, some may not understand how you can get excited about something that doesn’t excite them, and some may be trying to help you avoid the pain of rejection by suggest- ing you give up before others judge your work. Training expert Dr. Julian Feinstein has pointed out that the world can be divided into positive people (who expect to win) and negative people (who expect to be right). Because most new ventures fail, the easiest way to be right is to be negative. Whatever the reasons behind them, negative comments hurt writers and sometimes drain their energies so much that they do give up. Let’s face it, writing is hard enough without that kind of negativity added to the mix. My goal is not only to help you eliminate the negative atti- tudes of other people, but also to make sure you have one or more who are actively cheering you on. Having even one person who believes in your dream can make a huge difference. One of the more eloquent statements about this came from author Thomas Wolfe (the one who wrote Look Homeward, Angel and You Can’t Go Home Again, not contemporary novelist Tom Wolfe). Referring to a time when he doubted his ability as a writer, Wolfe wrote: “During this time, I was sustained by one piece of ines- timable good fortune. I had for a friend a man of immense and patient wisdom and a gentle but unyielding fortitude… I did not give in because he did not let me give in… At this time there was little that this man could do except observe, and in one way or another keep me at my task, and in many quiet and wonderful ways he succeeded in doing this.” You ma y not have such a magnificent champion in your life right now, but fortunately there are things you can do to make it more likely that you will find support and encouragement from friends and family. Here are the steps you can take. Consider the intention As I said above, there are many possible reasons for the negative remarks people make. Often there is a positive intention behind them. Begin by reviewing the comments the unsupportive peo- ple in your life make and try to figure out what positive intention might be prompting them. The most common one is that they are trying to shield you from disappointment, on the basis that if you don’t try, you can’t fail. Of course, the downside of this is that if you don’t try, you can’t succeed, either. Many people let 138 Persist! fear stop them from going for their dreams, but that doesn’t mean you have to buy into their outlook. Make time for a talk Find a time when you and the other person are not stressed or in a hurry. By asking them to invest the time to have a talk about their comments, you’ll be signaling how seriously you view the issue and how seriously you expect them to take it. Acknowledge their positive intention If you feel they have a positive intention, begin by acknowledg- ing that. For example, you might say, “I know that you worry if my writing is rejected I’ll be hurt, and I appreciate that. I think that’s why you sometimes make comments that sound negative.” Or the statement might be something along the lines of, “I know you like to kid around about lots of things, and that’s why you make jok es about my writing.” Let them know how their behavior affects you If you haven’t detected any positive intentions, just go directly to this step, telling the other person how their comments or other lack of support affects you. Tie your feeling to the action rather than the person. In other words, instead of saying,“You make me feel like you’re not taking me seriously,” say, “Your jokes about my writing make me feel like you’re not taking me seriously.” Behavior can be changed, so focus on their behavior. They may say that’s not what they intend, or that you should have a better sense of humor, or not to be so sensitive. Don’t let them sidetrack you into a debate as to whether or not you are entitled to your feelings. You can tell them that may be so, but With a Little Help from Your Friends 139 this is how you feel, and since you believe they don’t intend to undermine or humiliate or belittle you, you’d like them to change their behavior. Be specific about what you’d like them to do differently It’s very important to be specific about what you want the other person to do. Asking them to change their attitude is too abstract. It’s much easier for them if you are exact about the behavior you’d like to see. This might be no longer teasing you about your writing, or not interrupting you when you’re writing unless it’s an emergency, or not referring to your writing in front of friends as your “little hobby.” Again, beware of getting sucked into a discussion of why these things aren’t really meant to hurt you; restate the fact that they do, and ask that the other person agree to change that behavior. If you’re not sure what you want them to do, daydream for a few minutes about what you would see and hear if the problem were solved. If the people in your life were fully supportive, what would they do differently? Jot down everything that occurs to you, then pick out the most important behaviors and make those the focus of your discussion. Look for win–win situations Sometimes this kind of discussion brings out that you need to change your behavior as well. For instance, if your spouse or partner feels that you are no longer spending enough time together because you are working on your writing so much, you may need to negotiate a little. You might suggest that the two of you go out for dinner or a movie one night a week. Agree to honor your commitment to that time and ask your spouse to honor your commitment to your writing time. You might also 140 Persist! volunteer to make it easier for the other person to enjoy an activ- ity they want to do; for example, if you have children you could agree to be with them one evening a week when your partner goes bowling or playing poker or swimming at the health club, and your partner can be with them one night a week when you go to the library or a coffee shop to do your writing. Another change you can make is to take breaks between major writing projects. Use these to catch up with all the things and people you may have neglected while writing. This is the time to send letters or emails to friends, or invite them out for a lunch or dinner (maybe a dinner party if you want to catch up with several at one time), and any gardening or household tasks that have fallen by the wayside. It’s also a good time to catch up on your reading, exercising, or other pleasures you’ve denied yourself. Not only will it restore balance to your life, it will replenish your brain and soul and give you a fresher perspective when you sit down again to write. Point out infractions immediately If you have agreement that the other person is going to change, be prepared for the fact that old habits die hard. If the other per- son slips back into old patterns, point it out calmly and gently. There’s a saying in the personal development field that we train people how to treat us. In some cases we have allowed them to mistreat us, but that can always be changed. To many people, writing is sort of a make-believe, artsy thing to do. Surely it’s not as important as helping them to move, or serving on the refreshment committee of the church social group, or joining them for a beer while watching football on tel- evision. When you encounter this attitude, stand fast! If someone dares to suggest that you give up your writing time to help them move, since you’re “only writing,” tell them you’d prefer to help them between midnight and four a.m.“But I’ll be sleeping then!” they’ll say in astonishment.“Only sleeping?” you can reply. When With a Little Help from Your Friends 141 . longer teasing you about your writing, or not interrupting you when you’re writing unless it’s an emergency, or not referring to your writing in front of friends as your “little hobby.” Again,. when your partner goes bowling or playing poker or swimming at the health club, and your partner can be with them one night a week when you go to the library or a coffee shop to do your writing. Another. plants in your writing area to freshen the air and improve your mood. ✐ If you have to work away from home, try a variety of venues. EXERCISES ✐ Don’t assume that the place you do your writing