Using Intuition to Balance Writing and Life: Advice from an Editor and Life Coach for Writers

by editor Kendra Levin

We all know how the hero’s (or heroine’s, if you prefer) journey goes. The protagonist is called to go on some kind of quest or adventure; he or she embarks on a voyage filled with trials that leads to some climatic confrontation; and ultimately, our hero returns home changed—wiser, not necessarily happier, but enriched by the experience.

You may not usually think of it in these terms, but when you write, you are on your own hero’s journey. To write, you must travel to a strange and powerful place that few people visit willingly: the realm of the imagination and the subconscious, and the seat of your deepest emotions. You have been called to go to this place, because without obtaining the emotional truths that reside there, you know your writing will feel as flat and dry as a cracker. You need that depth of emotion that can only be pulled from the farthest reaches of your own emotional landscape in order to bring your story to life.

Visiting that part of yourself can be treacherous and painful. To get there, you must cross a threshold that takes you out of your day-to-day life and can be difficult to get to. Once you arrive, you may find this inner landscape loaded with land-mines of memories that can detonate at the slightest touch, husks of old dreams that can turn out to still hold fruit, and all kinds of hidden geysers of emotion that can leave you staggered by surges of anger, sadness, or mania.

But like the archetypal hero, you need to take this journey. Your writing won’t be complete without it.

Let’s be real, though: How is it possible to go on this profound inner journey on a daily or even weekly basis? Could Dorothy have handled trekking to Oz in two-hour daily sessions each morning before Aunt Em called her for breakfast? Would Odysseus have been able to squeeze his epic adventure into scattered fifteen-minute breaks between getting the kids to school, paying the bills, and taking Argos to the vet for his annual heartworms vaccination?

When you’re a real-life hero—in other words, a writer—balancing your journey with the rest of your life can often be a struggle. I know one writer whose greatest joy in life is getting her car serviced, because it means she gets three solid hours of stranded, unplugged writing time, sitting in the waiting room at the auto shop. Another gets up at 4:45 in the morning several days a week so she can put in time on her novel before her kids wake up. And probably one of the reasons you’re attending WriteOnCon is because going to an in-person writers’ conference is more of a time commitment than you can realistically add to your already-full plate.

So how can you reconcile your journey with your life? How can you give your manuscript the emotional truth it needs and deserves while keeping everything else in balance?

The first step toward getting help with anything in life is to ask for it—which you’re doing right now, by participating in WriteOnCon. Once you’ve opened that door, you’ll find you can actually help yourself by giving yourself a few simple but crucial tools to help you on your journey:

1) THE GOAL
To find the lost father. To save a beloved friend from danger. To return home. Every hero needs a goal—otherwise, what would the journey be for? Developing a character’s motivation is central to writing any story. No matter what you’re writing, you always need to know what the main character wants, why he or she wants it, and what’s preventing this character from obtaining or achieving his or her desire.

Just like the heroes in these stories, writers need motivation in order to keep sitting down at that keyboard or notebook and plugging away, week after week, month after month. You probably already have a broad goal—to finish your novel, for example—and an ideal timeline for when you’d like to complete that by. This is important: it gives you a destination and a sense of purpose. And when the going gets tough, your vision for the project can be a great banner to hang onto, to remind yourself why you’re doing this in the first place.

In addition to this broad goal, though, it can be helpful and more rewarding to set smaller, more measurable goals. Sitting down and thinking Okay, I’m going to write a novel now can set you up with a pretty daunting goal; on the other hand, sitting down and thinking, Okay, I’m going to write the scene where the main characters first meet is smaller, more measurable, and ultimately more satisfying since, most likely, you’re not going to write the whole novel all in one sitting. Setting up a small goal and achieving it can give you an immediate feeling of accomplishment, while only setting up a huge goal can leave you feeling deflated and underachieving, even if you’ve actually gotten a lot done on your project.

With this in mind, what writing goal would you like to set this week? What would you like to accomplish within the next week that will bring you a step closer to achieving your larger overall goal?

2) THE SACRIFICE
Heroes often get what they seek, but it always comes at a price. Something must be sacrificed in order to attain our desires—that’s what nearly all stories teach us, not only because it makes for more exciting drama, but because it’s often true. You probably already feel that you are making sacrifices for your writing. After all, you may be carefully reserving time, energy, and headspace to focus on your project; meanwhile, you can’t help but notice that other, non-writing people seem content to blithely fritter away a whole evening watching back-to-back reruns of The Office (which you, of course, would never do…). As Gloria Steinem, a pretty busy lady herself, once said, “Writing is the only thing that…when I’m doing it, I don’t feel that I should be doing something else instead.”

But the truth is, when it comes to the sacrifice part of writing, we often hold back. We compromise—we say, “I can’t do that,” or “I’ll try,” setting ourselves up to let ourselves down, even though we genuinely want to accomplish our goals. Why do we do this, when our intentions are so pure? Perhaps it’s because we are afraid of what might happen if we really make writing the number one priority in our lives. We may be afraid of losing things we love very much—the people in our lives, jobs we value, our sense of self and identity. Putting writing first means putting other things second, and third, and tenth; what would life look like, without those things to cushion us from our raw, wild creative selves?

I’m not advocating for terminating all your relationships, quitting your job, and going to live in a tent on a mountain to write. I am advocating for giving up a little more of your creature comforts, the non-essential rituals or activities or even people in your life who form part of that cushion, that barrier that holds your hero’s journey at bay.

Starting today, starting right now, what one thing are you willing to sacrifice for your writing?

3) THE GIFT
Making sacrifices is tough—but when you give something away, you may receive something else. Heroes in stories are often given some special item at the beginning of their journeys, a gift to aid them on their quest. Often, they don’t know how the gift is going to be useful, but when a wizard or a wise aunt says “You’re probably going to need this later,” they listen. And when the moment comes when exactly what’s called for is an enchanted spinning wheel, or a ball of string, they are so glad they accepted that gift without question.

Writers need gifts, too. Gifts can keep you motivated toward your goal, and make your sacrifices feel more worthwhile. Gifts can inspire you, and go a long way toward validating the importance and seriousness of writing’s role in your life. This is especially true for writers who are not (yet!) getting paid. Writing on spec can sometimes feel like a thankless endeavor, and as a result, it’s important to “pay” yourself, with gifts.

Moreover, a gift is not just a form of self-bribery or a source of motivation. Not only does a hero find a special gift comes in handy at a crucial moment, but he or she will often be unable to cross that threshold into the dark woods or the alternate universe without the aid of the gift—or to survive in that world without it. Think of Mary in The Secret Garden with her key; or of Brian in Hatchet with his, well, hatchet. The key allows Mary to traverse the boundary between her old world and the new world she must enter in order to evolve into her better self; the hatchet allows Brian to survive in his new world, with the same end results. So the gift you give yourself can be a tool to send you deep into the place where your creativity and the impetus for your story springs from, and to help you extract the maximum fulfillment from your time there.

For writers, these gifts can come in many forms. They can be things you do for yourself and your writing, like attending this conference—a great first step. They can be books you treat yourself to for research, or artistic events you go to see or experience for inspiration. They can also be less about your specific project and more about preparing the space in yourself for writing to find its way through you—like taking a walk in nature, or having a long conversation about writing with a trusted fellow writer who you know has a knack for getting your juices flowing.

So, what is the one gift you choose to give yourself this week? Pick something (in addition to attending this conference) that you will really value and appreciate—you deserve it!

You probably thought you were just going to read this blog post and then move on to the next WriteOnCon event, or go eat lunch (or both), but this blog entry is interactive, and the most important part involves your taking action after you’re finished reading. I’ve invited you to commit to three things: a goal, a sacrifice, and a gift. I challenge you to set this goal, choose this sacrifice, and pick this gift right now. Not tomorrow, not soon, not after lunch, but right at this moment.

If you like, write your goal, sacrifice, and/or gift in the comments below. If you prefer not to do that, but do want accountability around them, you could share them with your writing partner or group, or with someone in your life you can trust to follow-up and find out if you stuck to them. Or, you may prefer to keep them to yourself. Maybe you will write them down and post them over your desk, on your phone’s home screen, or on your computer’s wallpaper. Do whatever works to help you set and achieve your goal, make your sacrifice, and give yourself your gift.

However you choose to create accountability and value around these three actions, I hope you will follow through with them. As the hero of your own journey, it’s up to you to keep your focus on what’s most important to you; to be willing to give up whatever you don’t need in order to get what you do need; and to treat yourself as generously and kindly as you would someone you love very much, someone you know has a long, challenging, thrilling road ahead of her.

Kendra Levin Kendra Levin is an editor at Viking Children’s Books, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA), where she has spent almost six years working on a wide range of children’s literature from picture books to young adult novels. Prior to that, she worked at Scholastic in several different capacities. An award-winning playwright whose plays have been produced Off- and Off-Off Broadway, Kendra also helps writers as a teacher and certified life coach. Authors she edits include David A. Adler (the Cam Jansen series), Susane Colasanti, Sharon Robinson, M.H. Herlong, Stasia Ward Kehoe, and others.

 

Kendra has generously donated a prize pack of books to one lucky U.S. winner! Leave a comment to be entered!

 

*You DO NOT have to donate to WriteOnCon to win this prize.