Stressor Stacks

Do you ever feel your life is a game of Jenga? If you pull out the wrong block the whole works is going to thunk down on your head?

If so, it's time to manage your stressor stack. We all have a tower of obligations that conspire to squash our creativity. The trick is knowing how many you can juggle at once and still have brain space to be creative.

Lately my writing brain has felt like cold oatmeal. 

Writer's block? No. A gazillion unfinished projects still rattle the bars in my noggin. 

Fear of rejection? No. Rejection is an expectation along the yellow brick writing road.

So what gooped up my process? Yep, you guessed it

 STRESS.

The human brain had a finite capacity to deal with stressors. When we overload it, we are zapped emotionally and the first thing to go is creativity.

I ignored and mismanaged my stressors, allowing them to shut down the creative factory between my ears.

So how did I solve it and jump back in the creative saddle? 

I identified and validated each stressor to keep them from immobilizing me. We all have them, and they're not going away. By ignoring them, I'd allowed mine to grow fangs and gnaw at my brain. Once I put a face and priority on the blocks in my stack, I could strategize, assigning each a fair portion of my consciousness. The stressors didn't disappear, but they no longer run wild, wantonly slurping up my mental time and emotional space.

I assigned importance to relaxing. I'm terrible at finding contemplative, peaceful moments, but I'm working on stillness to give stress an outlet to leak out of my ears and blow away on the breeze. 

More importantly, I re-validated the place creativity has in my life. It is a "have to" for me. By letting the stressors take the lead, I had passively relegated writing to a lesser priority. *slaps hand* I re-committed to treating my creative life as if I were an athlete in training. I focus on healthy eating, exercise, and not compromising the time my writing muscles deserve each day in order to tone and build.

And guess what?

The creative channels in my brain unclogged. The energy and drive to sit down and write came flooding back. Once again I'm surrounded by spiral notebooks overflowing with ideas and bullet points, and my laptop needs charging everyday.

So get out your whips and tame those stressors. Don't let them sneak up on you the way I did. 

Writer's have a right to write no matter how high your Jenga stack grows.

LATEST NEWS IN THE BATTLE AGAINST ANONYMOUS COMMENTS:

You may notice this post was blitzed by those maddening anonymous comments. Thanks to my fellow bloggers I learned the secret formula to block the buggers. Since sharing is caring, here is the sequence to solve the problema in Blogger. 

DESIGN

SETTINGS

POSTS AND COMMENTS

WHO CAN COMMENT?

Check: REGISTERED USERS 

Cover Reveal: The Binding Stone by Lisa Gail Green

The word gorgeous hardly does this cover by Lisa Amowitz justice. It summons me into the world of Lisa Gail Green's Djinn Series akin to the way Bert and Mary melted through the chalk pictures in Mary Poppins.

I've had the honor of reading The Binding Stone, and it is an amazing ride through a rich and complex world. 

Tricked into slavery by the man she loved, the Djinni Leela has an eternity to regret her choices.

Awakened in the prison of her adolescent body, she finds a new master in possession of the opal that binds her. But seventeen-year-old Jered is unlike any she's seen. His kindness makes Leela yearn to trust again, to allow herself a glimmer of hope.

Could Jered be strong enough to free her from the curse of the Binding Stone?

Coming soon!

View From the Fifth Grade Trenches: March 2013 - Put the Creative Back in Writing

Have you heard of the Common Core Standards? If you haven't, they are basically a new set of academic expectations that will hit public education across the country in the next year or so. 

The good news is CCS are rigorous and give our kids the chance to take their critical thinking out for a spin. The new standards will dignify and challenge intelligence while promoting the spirit of cooperative learning.

With the growing emphasis on research skills and expository writing, I fear for the future of creative writing. Even the current standards here in California lean heavily toward non-fiction reading and writing at a young age. 

Here's my issue. Shouldn't kids be immersed in wonder in equal proportion to the world of information? I agree both are important, but I worry about sending a message that creative writing is a lesser form than its non-fiction cousin.

We've all watched funding for the arts being pushed into the corners of public education. I hate to see creative writing joining it in the shadows.

What kind of balance or imbalance do you see between creativity and information in your schools?

Eenie Meenie Miney No Way

I challenge you to pick the BEST picture below.

I've just asked the impossible. It feels like a crime to place Monet, Rivera, Kandinsky, Matisse, Dali, Van Gogh, or Parrish in first place and leave the rest of these masterpieces to be also rans.

There is no such thing as THE BEST in art. 

This week the Academy Awards will choose a best picture. The concept boggles my mind. 

How do you choose between:

Going back in a time machine to watch LINCOLN shape our nation.

A beloved musical combined with the grit of the original novel in LES MISERABLES.

The heart pumping escape wrapped in a Hollywood lie in ARGO.

The triumph of the human spirit over mental illness in SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK. 

A shameless reality that exists a breath away from our comfortable lives in BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD.

The transcendental journey in THE LIFE OF PI.

I regret I haven't seen ZERO DARK THIRTY, AMOUR, or DJANGO UNCHAINED, but I have no doubt each would leave its indelible imprint on me.

A masterpiece is a masterpiece. We are all the better for them.

The Long and Short Story of It

At the beginning of 2012, I decided to mix it up a bit in my writer's journey. I've been on the 

draft

revise-revise-revise

query

revise-revise-revise

query again

revise-revise-revise 

hamster wheel with manuscripts for a few years now. 

I've faithfully gone to conferences, latched onto amazing critique partners, blogged, and been a reading fiend to polish my skills. All my energies were focused on novels until...

Last January when I sold my first short story, a paranormal Hansel and Gretel extension called The Shimmer in the Woods that will be released any minute from Cliffhanger Books. Ironically I wrote it in an "I wonder if I can pull off a short story," moment. 

What followed was a year of writing and working with whip cracking editors on three more short stories that have seen the light of day in the Journeys of Wonder anthology series (check out the sidebar).

Had I become a traitor to my manuscripts?

Not at all.

My short story work has honed and sharpened multiple aspects of my craft by forcing me to:

• Create a compelling story arc in a compacted space
• Develop characters that matter right off the bat
• Drop right into the middle of high stakes
• Agonize over word choice to get maximum bang for my buck
• World build in the blink of an eye
• Add immediacy to every beat
• Write in present tense instead of my beloved past tense

I've taken these mad short story skills and applied them to my existing manuscripts. It's been a great ride revisiting my darlings with a fresh set of eyes and making them the better for it.

What have you done to shake up your writing pattern?

If you want a brilliant "how to" on short story writing, run don't walk to get a copy of:
Ron Carlson Writes a Story

Love Letter

Once Upon a Time...

There was girl who was New York City phobic. No matter how many episodes of Sex and the City she watched, she was still intimidated by the intensity of such a place.

Until...

She walked through Central Park in the winter. 

She was wowed by one Broadway show and

then another.

She was dazzled by the lights of Time Square.

She hung out with an Avenger at FAO Scwartz.

She inhaled pickles, pastrami, and cheesecake while sugary snow sprinkled outside, and

She fell in love with New York City.

*********************************

Free - Free - Free

Sunday, February 10th through Tuesday, February 11th, JOURNEYS OF WONDER Volumes 1 and 2 are free downloads from Amazon. Click on the covers in the sidebar to hop over and grab your copies.

Hypnagogia

Thank you all for your patience at my impromtu blog vanishing act over the last month.  

Have you ever been awakened by a deafening noise? 

Or did you just imagine you'd been awakened by a deafening noise? When you embrace consciousness, the house is dead silent. Your middle of the night investigation fails to reveal any mass destruction.

You've been visited by the specter of HYPNAGOGIA.

It's the freaky transitional state between sleeping and waking where the real and unreal inhabit the same space. Yes, there may be unicorns.

I woke up in a panic last week POSITIVE a mouse ran across my foot under my covers. I've never leapt to my feet faster in my life. My blankets were whipped off that bed so fast I created a wind chill factor in my bedroom.

I had two more "twilight zone" encounter with the mystery mouse. Alas, I have yet to prove its existence. 

Finally I unleashed my cat, Padme, who is a huntress extraordinaire, into my room. All she did was look bored. No scent at all. 

It's time to admit my mousey nemesis lives in the ether between sawing zzzzz's and being conscious.

At least it wasn't a snake.

No Freudian comments please.

Have you ever had an oddball twilight vision?

I feel a Hypnagogia Club coming on.

View From the 5th Grade Trenches: December 2012: Heartbroken

I am shocked and heartbroken by the unthinkable sorrow the families at Sandy Hook Elementary are going through. I know you are as well. 

I found a post on Facebook passed along from teacher to teacher that I've never met. It puts into words what my teacher's heart is feeling. I paraphrase a bit, but the sentiment remains the same.

Five days a week, we teach your kids. That means we

 Educate your kids

Play with your kids

Discipline your kids

Joke with your kids

Console your kids

Praise your kids

Question your kids

Beat our heads against a wall about your kids

Laugh with your kids

Worry about your kids

Keep an eye on your kids

Learn about your kids

Invest in your kids

Protect your kids

and yes

Love your kids

WE WOULD ALL TAKE A BULLET FOR YOUR KIDS

It's nowhere in our job description. It isn't covered in the employee handbook. It isn't cited in our contracts, but we would all do it.

Hug your kids tonight, really really tight and know they are always in our hearts as well.

The truth is, in this day and age, we do practice lockdown drills at school and teach the kids what to do in the event of a malicious intruder. It's tragic that we have to train our students for a potential outcome such as that, but it is a necessary precaution to keep our precious children safe.

Fangirl Heaven

Prologue: Monday and Tuesday - December 10th and 11th - the Kindle version of Journeys of Wonder Volume 2 can be downloaded for free. GO FOR IT.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Yes, I'm a fangirl. Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Comic Con, Dr. Who, Firefly, The Avengers...

This weekend my daughter (Yes, I've raised a second generation fangirl) and I reveled in a Lord of the Rings marathon - all extended versions - at the Arclight movie theatre as we gear up for The Hobbit. Total Middle Earth immersion. There really is nothing like seeing films on the big screen.

Today, on his birthday I want to salute the person who awakened my fangirl self, lo those many years ago:

Donny Osmond

I have no proof, but I'm fairly certain he was singing Puppy Love to me. I was in hog heaven back on March 15, 1972 when D.J., Robert W. Morgan, played Puppy Love for 90 minutes straight on KHJ radio in Los Angeles. 

A lifelong dream came true this week when I FINALLY got to see Donny Osmond perform live on stage in:

It was AMAZING. I sang, I swooned, I was inspired. The performances by both Donny and Marie were stellar. So many times we build idols up in our minds to a place impossible to live up to. Not so in this case. Donny surpassed my wildest expectations. I hereby nominate him for national treasure.

Happy Birthday, Donny.

Who makes your fangirl/fanboy heart go pitter patter? Any stories to share?

Make Believe Anthology Featuring Lynda R. Young

Exciting news!

Lynda R. Young’s short story, Birthright has been published by

J. Taylor Publishing in the 

Make Believe anthology 

launching on  

December 3, 2012! 

 

Virtual cake for everyone!! 

Make Believe is currently available in e-book format and includes Paranormal Romance and Fantasy stories inspired by the image on the cover. This will make great holiday reading by the fire while you wear your fuzzy socks.

Blurbs from all the stories included in Make Believe can be found on the J. Taylor Publishing website HERE. 

Hop HERE to grab your copy. 

  Birthright by Lynda R. Young Christa can mask the pain and hide the scars, but running from a birthright is impossible. She’s tried to escape her grief by fleeing to a small town in Florida. Much to her frustration, the locals think they recognize her even though she's never been there before. To make things worse, a man named Jack spouts outrageous theories about her. Both spur Christa to bolt, to start fresh yet again, but there’s something about Jack that intrigues her enough to stay. The only problem? Someone else wants her to leave, and they won’t stop until she’s dead.  

About Lynda R. Young: Lynda R. Young lives in Sydney, Australia, with her sweetheart of a husband who is her rock, and a cat who believes world domination starts in the home. She writes speculative short stories and is currently writing novels for young adults. In her spare time she also dabbles in photography and all things creative. You can find her here: Blog, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads