Don’t you just love opening your mailbox and finding books?

After opening the box and checking out each book, I realized I’d had a different reaction to each one. Maybe because I read an article about how emotion is the basis for rational thought, it made me pay attention when another time I’d have just rolled right over the moment. I hadn’t consciously anticipated one book over the other, but as I remembered lifting each one out of the box, I felt three distinct emotions:

• A Writer’s Space gave me the happy thrill of anticipation;
• Character Traits I felt would be informative, but I wasn’t especially excited about it;
• 7 Habits gave me a little shock of anxiety

It made me wonder if I was reacting to the covers of the books–which I’d already seen on the Internet–or if I was in a more philosophical mood and not inclined to work on myself, or what. In case my body knew something my brain didn’t, I started with A Writer’s Space.

Do you get inspired by these kinds of books, or do they get in your way?

This is what I crave. It’s the reason I do a way better job working for other people than for myself. It’s why I feel useless without a paycheck. It’s why my contributions seem worthless. It’s why I need acknowledgement on Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, my birthday. It’s why I have a very hard time writing a book simply because I want to.

At my core, I crave external validation in an active form. A thank you, a pay raise, an apology, a compliment…Anything, really.

No doubt everyone loves to be validated by the world, but I think mine goes a little deeper than that. It seems to be the reason I do everything I do, and I get very down when I go through dry spells. I almost don’t feel human. (The latest has lasted a few months.) I’m happy to have identified this, although it seems weak of me to care so much, especially since I can’t control how other people interact with me. Ultimately, however, it must be a good thing to bring things like this out into the light.

What about you? Can you identify a single need you work to fulfill?

The only place I have available for a separate office is my tiny enclosed porch at the front of the house. Last summer I decided to do whatever I could to make it a cozy, beautiful space–an acknowledgement of the importance of writing in my life.

I have a view of the beautiful Oklahoma landscape and plenty of light, and in the spring the mulberry tree right outside the window attracts dozens of different species of birds. The windows are positioned to catch the constant breeze, and the trees keep the sun at a manageable level. It’s paradise, in mild weather. In the winter it’s just too cold, so I sit uncomfortably on the couch with my laptop or legal pad and wonder if one of the kids would mind giving up his/her room to a good cause. I don’t even like blogging on the couch.

So for me, it’s important to have a place that is undeniably mine, and also business-like yet beautiful. I like serenity with pops of energy, such as that blue painting above my desk.

This is an old piece of textured white laminate that I washed paint over. Basically free art.

I know some people love creating in busy coffee shops, others love a quiet park bench, and others flop down wherever they happen to be, but I think most people have at least a rudimentary space in their homes devoted to their craft. And apparently I’m not the only one fascinated by them, because there are sites devoted to all kinds of work spaces. Here’s one for studio musicians, one for artists, and one for writers. I bet if you googled your brand of creativity plus “office pictures” you’d come up with a site just for you.

Where do you connect with your muse?

~~~

Writers have to cope with many negative responses, both personal (the reactions we receive from friends, teachers, or family to our chosen profession) and professional (those we receive when we send out our work). In my own experience and in my experience working with other writers, it’s the personal negative messages that are the hardest to overcome. We can collect rejection notices in a colorful binder, make a poem out of some of the choicest lines, pin them to the bulletin board and throw darts at them. But what about the negative messages that we carry in our hearts, those that weigh our spirits down and throw us off track, even from the distance of nearly a lifetime? I’m willing to bet that we’ve all got at least one wounding sentence that we carry around, said to us by a teacher, a parent, a partner, a friend. It might be something like:

“You can’t be serious about being a writer! You’ll starve!”

“This paper is not what the assignment called for. Grade: D.”

“Listen class, to this essay, as an example of what NOT to write.”

“Only really talented people can be writers.” (The implication being, “and you’re not one of them.”)

These are powerful and hurtful messages that might have originated in a relatively blameless person’s mouth, but have now assumed the toxicity of words spewed at us by what I think of as “the troll under the bridge.” Writers who are struggling with feeling like they deserve to write, wondering if they “have what it takes,” afraid to really embrace their dream, must confront this troll who tries to sidetrack us by throwing these powerful barriers across our path.

Here is a three-step process that will help writers to begin to move past the troll under the bridge, and on to their rightful path.

First: Acknowledge the troll.

Don’t pretend you aren’t bothered by what people have said in the past, or continue to say today. Look that troll right in the face.
Spend some time recalling these messages. Write them down. Ask yourself and write down:

• Who said them?
• How old were you?
• How did you feel?
• How powerful are they still today?

Then, give yourself credit for being brave enough to confront the troll and for the courage to keep going. Draw a picture of the troll or find an image in a book or on the web and stick your tongue out at it. (I keep a small troll figure near my desk, and have come to view it with some affection!)

Second: Let go of why.

It’s tempting to spend lots of time trying to understand why someone might have said what they did. Maybe your mother was worried for your future. Maybe your teacher was a frustrated writer himself. So many hurtful things have been said with the best intentions and the worst results. But after awhile, figuring out why someone said a certain thing or treated you in a certain way is no longer productive. It won’t change what they said or did. It’s time to move on.

Spend some time thinking about how much energy has gone into grappling with the negative messages you have received. Ask your self and write about:

• How important is it to me that I figure out why this person said what they did?
• How is this process helpful to me? And if it is no longer helpful to me, then what am I gaining, or avoiding, by continuing to stay focused on the negative?
• What can I do to acknowledge the positive messages I have received?

Third: What Does It Really Mean?

I am not just saying, “Let it go! Let it go!” Because I think we all move on from hurt at our own pace. What I would say is that the depth of the pain and the way it has lasted is an indicator of how strongly you want to write–how much it is a real part of you. After all, you’ve probably been told at other times in your life that something is not right for you–a color you were wearing, or a skill you tried out at work, or a certain haircut. Do these sentences hold the same charge, weigh you down in the same way, echo in your mind when you sit down to create? Having been told that you are not meant to write, because it’s too hard to make a living, or you aren’t talented enough, or you don’t have what it takes, can be a powerful barrier, yes, but think about this:

Your reaction is an indicator of how much your spirit resisted, and still resists, that negative judgment.

If you didn’t really care about what they said, you would have forgotten it by now. Your pain is a form of resistance–a lifelong and powerful message from your spirit that says “You are wrong. I am meant to write.” Hold that truth close to your heart. Let it sustain you as you move past that troll, and keep going forward into your own future as a writer.

~~~

Sarah Stockton is a published author, teacher, and creativity consultant from San Francisco. In her own creative practice, Sarah writes nonfiction, poetry, and fiction. She is currently working on a novel, enjoys photography, and is learning to play the guitar. She blogs at Centered Path.

My challenge has always been, and apparently still is, working for myself. The stuff I do for others–critiques, laundry, being available at all times–is done with gusto and abandon, and without regard for my desires. Well actually, those thing replace my own desires, thereby becoming my desires, on the surface at least. It’s gotten so I don’t know where I end and other people begin.

So. How do I motivate myself to work? How do I distinguish my interests from others’? And then how do I apply that information? I think for me the answer lies in pulling back that overly empathetic aspect of myself enough so I can first of all identify my interests, and secondly see the value in them. Lists don’t work; making my own deadlines don’t work; visualizing the end result doesn’t work…I could use some new ideas or philosophies.

How do you do it?

The moon makes no apologies for her beauty. I wonder if she looks at the sun the way we look at her.

Unfortunately, they didn’t feel right to my scanner which has chosen this morning to go all blinky on me. Change course.

Tried to find images online of the cards I’d chosen, but got stuck on the first one, the 5 of cups. No dice. My card was not there. I was all mad, just about to click away and give up, when this caught my eye:

5 of cups by Santiago Caruso

This image pulled me in, and I found myself immersed in Santiago Caruso’s work. Suddenly I was glad my scanner was being contrary, because I’d never have seen this otherwise. His work doesn’t necessarily inspire my brain to conjure a storyline, but it does prod the imagination awake. I want to absorb it. He does book covers, too.

Peruse, and tell me if you’ve been inspired.

The reason I’m asking is because I took a personality test and found out my Myers-Briggs type is probably INFJ (Introversion, iNtuition, Feeling, Judgement) though the F part is balanced by a well-developed T (Thinking).

Knowing these online tests are sometimes unreliable I spent a good amount of time researching the different personality types. A lightbulb went off over my head, about why I always feel so out of sync with how I know I “should” be writing.

It’s my opinion most of the advice out there for writers is written from an extraverted, judging perspective, from people who are (or, who, like me, have bought into that as the correct writing advice) pedantic and driven and willing to put stuff out there. That seems, to me, to be the norm now. It seems the Orson Scott Cards and the Stephen Kings have been generally accepted as the gurus. Perhaps because outgoing is accepted over introspective as the way to be in society, logic over emotion, certainty over consideration. But it’s just not true. If you develop the first in each comparison and ignore the second, you will suffer. The same could be said for the opposite imbalance, but I haven’t encountered that much. Those guys definitely have a lot of good advice, but their perspective is no better than, say, Sarah Stockton‘s or Laraine Herring‘s, who take a more centered, thoughtful approach.

That’s why it’s so important to pay attention to what works for you, and hold your ground when you feel bullied by someone else’s inability to understand why you don’t write like him. This is something I’ve struggled with over the years, and since one aspect of my personality is aligning myself with my peers, I can see why. It’s all about who I hang with.

So what about you, have you ever taken a personality test? Did the results confirm what you already knew about yourself, or did they open up some aspect you hadn’t seen before? Did your new knowledge affect how you are in your writing space?