Sandra Tayler's Blog, page 23

Attending a Support Group for Family Members of those With Mental Health Issues

A support group is an odd thing. It was hard to convince myself to look one up through the NAMI website. Then it was hard to convince myself to go. I drove myself to the state hospital which houses psychiatric in-patients, and wondered what on earth I was doing there. I was told “go down the hall and through the door.” But the hallway had about eight doors, so I had to go back to the front desk for better directions. A different woman walked me to the room, but it was the wrong support group. A lady from the wrong group walked me to the right one. All that meant I walked into a room of strangers already intimidated by the location and feeling lost and out of place. I wasn’t sure if I even belonged there. Would I face something intense because all the others were dealing with conditions more severe than what my loved ones had? I really didn’t know what to expect. In the end, the group was small. Just four of us and two were the ones whose job it was to be there.

The point was to talk. I wondered if that would be hard, but it turns out that when the listeners are interested and sympathetic, the stories flow freely. I tried to form a coherent narrative, but I don’t know if I did. My thoughts jumped from kid to kid and all along the timelines of our lives. At first we took turns, but then it became more conversational, thought leading to thought. Person talking to person. Telling the story of what is going on doesn’t change any of it, but somehow it does. There were parents there who’ve felt what I feel and they survived it. Not having to be alone with the struggle, having someone to listen and witness the difficulty, changes me.

A support group meeting is strange, awkward, intimidating, embarrassing, boring, validating, and helpful. As I sat there, the observer part of my brain was watching how the meeting was handled, the ways that the leaders helped people take turns, the careful validations of feelings and providing of information. That observer part of my brain is often so ready to claim that I don’t need things because it can see how the things work.

Yet, when I came home and walked in my house, I was glad to be there. It has been a long time since walking in my front door has been a glad experience. Of late it has always been a re-shouldering of burden. I came home from the support group and was glad for my house and my people. Such a tiny shift, almost imperceptible, but significant things can be tiny. If that is all the group ever gives me, gladness on returning home, I’ll take it. Sign me up for another meeting next month.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Learning to Share Burdens

I was having a hard Sunday, one of many that I’ve had in the past few months. I sat on the bench at church with only half of my family. Patch had whispered to me that he didn’t feel well and lay his head down in my lap. He fell asleep curled up like the much younger child he used to be, but isn’t anymore. I sat with him, letting him sleep through that meeting and the next. I only woke him for the third hour, since the chapel gets used by priesthood during that time and I needed to be in relief society. I walked down the hall and a friend chanced to be next to me. Or maybe she walked next to me on purpose because I could tell she’d noticed I was having a hard day. We entered the relief society room, and I reached out to touch her and say “will you sit with me?”

“Of course” was the immediate answer. I don’t know why I asked. Usually I’m quite happy to sit by myself in my own little observer space. I guess I didn’t want to be alone with my thoughts anymore. I was tired of my thoughts. They’d been circling in my head through two hours and my efforts to quell them were only temporarily effective. My friend sat next to me and she told me about her life, her kids, the things that are making her stressed. I kept asking questions to draw her out, wanting to hear someone else’s story for a while. Sometimes it seems like we have to do big things to help others. My friend helped me just by sitting next to me and being herself. I could feel her sympathy even though we didn’t talk about my things very much. I went home feeling better.

On a different Sunday, one that was less hard, but still not easy, there was a lesson about taking the yoke of Christ upon us. We had the usual description of what a yoke is (a piece of wood shaped to allow two animals to share a load), etymology of the word yoke (from Proto Indo European meaning “to unite”), and reading of scriptures relating to yokes (Matt 11:20-9-30 “Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.) As I listened I turned over in my head my usual response to this passage of scripture, how I like that the word “light” can be read to mean the opposite of heavy, but also to mean the opposite of dark. One word, multiple interpretations. The lesson did not really go that direction, instead of discussing how we yoke ourselves to Christ and pull with him, we talked about how we as members were yoked together to carry all the things. The point being if we redistribute the load, the work becomes easier.

I’ve been thinking about that yoke lesson a lot. Particularly at moments like the one where I asked my friend to sit with me. Or when I’m walking into a pharmacy to pick up an embarrassing number of prescriptions and I meet a friend, whom I haven’t seen in years, and who is also picking up mental health related prescriptions. So then we sit and talk. We decide to get together for lunch and talk more. I think about it when I’m driving toward home and I see the mother of my child’s friend in her yard, so I stop to talk to her about our children and I realize here is yet another person who can understand my current load. Not only that, but she promises to send her kid to hang out with my kid so neither of them will spend so much time alone. In only a brief conversation, burdens are shifted, shared, made lighter.

It was less than two weeks ago when I felt terribly alone with my pile of troubles. I prayed in that hour and I was heard. Since then I have been shown that the people I need are already in my life. The support network was already in place before I was able to admit I needed one. All I had to do was open my eyes and be willing to share my struggles.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

New Cover for Cobble Stones Year 2011

I’m pleased to announce that Cobble Stones 2011 has a new cover. I’m so very pleased with how it turned out. The cover designer I worked with was brilliant and she created something much better than the one I put together for myself. This cover does a much better job of conveying what the essays inside are about: growth and overcoming difficult things. The essays inside are the same as they’ve always been. For the first 100 copies, this cover will be a dust jacket over the old cover. After that I’ll print up new books with this cover on them.

You can find the book at our store, amazon, and Barnes & Noble.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Scenes from This Past Week

I talked to another parent with a son who is my son’s age. “He has a job now.” This other parent said. “It’s a restaurant job and he doesn’t like it much, but its being good for him.” The parent went on to describe how this boy is part way through learning how to drive and how he complains about the homework from his three AP classes. I sat there and listened to this father describe a parenting experience that was completely foreign to me. He wasn’t bragging, he was just telling me about stuff that felt completely normal to him. It was a description which matches the high school experience as witnessed in movies and on TV shows. And I vaguely remember going through something like it. I thought of my son, who spends so much time isolated. I thought of the therapy sessions, vocational rehab, and homeschooling that make up our existence. I thought about how none of it seems like enough and how I can’t currently picture my son going to college. It was like this other parent was telling me about a work of fiction, the fairytale of high school.

***

I sat in the elementary school office waiting for a meeting. As I waited for the teacher and the principal to be ready, I tried not to think about sitting in this same chair two years prior to discuss a different child in crisis. Two years is a long time, and you’d think that I’d have had time to process and let go of all the emotions. I haven’t had the time. I’ve been pushing thoughts out of my way so that I could take care of other thoughts. Mostly I don’t notice, until I hit a moment which would be déjà vu, except that I know exactly when and where I’ve experienced the moment before. It is so very familiar, same teacher, same room, same month of my child’s sixth grade year. But things are different too. Different child, different principal. This time there were only three of us in the room instead of five. This time we didn’t have to address behavioral or safety concerns. This time I didn’t show up with a plan for how to fix things. I’m too tired to make plans anymore. All I can do is say “this is where we are.” And to let them know that sometimes the homework won’t get done, not because I don’t think it is important, but because sometimes he can’t and sometimes I can’t. And I tell them enough about the things going on (beyond the those which relate to the child under their care) that they believe me when I say that sometimes the best I can give them won’t look like much.

***

My daughter was unsaddling the horse she’d been riding, so I wandered into the indoor arena. The big space was empty and the dirt was soft under my feet. I looked down at the shoe prints and hoof prints in the dirt and thought about how we all make marks upon the world simply by passing through. I looked back at my own prints, noticing the tread pattern of my shoes. I like going to the barn with my daughter. The priorities there are so different from anywhere else in my life. People tend not to be in any particular hurry. They chat, they pause to watch other people ride. The barn cats are friendly, glad to be picked up and snuggled. It is a space where my time is free of any other assignment than to bring my daughter, wait, then take her home again. Sometimes I bring work with me. Other times I just drift; watching my daughter manage a horse, listening to barn conversations. It is a much more pleasant form of therapy than the kind where we sit in and office and talk about hard things. Instead my daughter sits on top of an animal who outmasses her ten times over and learns that if she wants to control the horse, she has to first control herself. Telling people that my daughter has horseback riding lessons feels self-indulgent. Priviledged. But it is cheaper than office therapy by half. I walked back along my footprints feeling the quiet of the big empty space.

***

The words typed themselves on the screen in front of me. Or at least that is how it appeared. The truth was that my college daughter was typing words into a shared document. I was there to help her make sure the words said what she wanted them to say. It was a difficult message trying to give someone hope while also saying “I can’t be your security blanket. Please leave me alone.” It was the third or fourth time this year that I’ve helped my daughter sort out what words she needed for a difficult conversation. She’s had a semester of difficult conversations and growth.

***

The sun was bright in the front yard as Howard held up a brochure and squinted at the colors of our house. The page of the brochure showed shingles and we examined them to pick what would be on our roof for the next twenty years. The contractor stood in the yard with us. He’d made us a good offer, still expensive, but less than I’d been afraid we would have to pay. I’m just grateful we can pay. Even the contractor told us that the current state of our roof is a bit scary. All the gravel is loose, making the walking slippery. We couldn’t afford it last year or several years before that. I’m looking forward to being able to drive up to my house and not have to think “We really need to replace the roof before something breaks.”

***

After ten minutes of idling, I turned the engine off. My son looked up at this change in the status quo. We’d been sitting, mostly in silence. I’d run out of useful words. Instead I was waiting to see if he could decide to get out of the car and go to class. I could tell that part of him wanted to. When I asked, he said he liked his teacher, his classmates. He liked learning. Yet going was hard. It had been getting harder for a while. His teacher was worried. After twenty minutes I walked him into the building. He walked slow, his feet literally dragging with every step. In the hall we encountered his teacher from last year. She just happened to be there, and she happened to have time to stand and talk to us. She named what I knew, but hadn’t consciously recognized. I hadn’t wanted to recognize it because I really wanted one of my at-home kids to be fine. My son was depressed, chemically incapable of enjoying things that he would normally love. I mentioned that he’s already on medicine. She looked at my son, who was sitting, head down, arms curled around his knees, then she looked at me and said “If he’s on medicine, it isn’t working.” And I knew she was right. It was time for doctor’s appointments and teacher appointments. I am so weary of appointments.

***

“Take all the time you need.” He said to me in a quiet voice. We were sitting across a desk from each other in his office at the church building. I was there because I’d finally come to the conclusion that I should probably let the bishop of my congregation know about the mental health struggles impacting our family. I didn’t come with plans, just to tell him where we are and what feels hard. I tried to believe that I could take whatever time I needed, but I could feel that time pressing on me. LDS bishops are not paid for their ecclesiastical time. This man put in a full day of work and then put on a suit to put in hours during the evening. His job was huge. Bishops are always over burdened. I knew that on the other side of the office door sat someone who was waiting for the next appointment. And waiting. And waiting. Despite not wanting to take up too much time, I was so full of stories that I talked for ninety minutes. He listened to all of it.

At one point I apologized for not coming to him sooner. Because I knew that I should. I knew I needed help that my ward family could easily supply if they knew I needed it. But I didn’t want to be a burden. That seems like the good and kind thing to do, carry my own stuff so that no one else has to deal with it. Except that is the opposite of the purpose of having church in the first place. We’re not here to avoid burdening each other, we’re here to share one another’s burdens. With the weight of all the things spread across all the shoulders, it can be lifted. That can’t happen if we all hold our troubles tight and refuse to share them.

***

My fingers are on the keys and I want to spin out words through them, but the white space on the screen in front of me is empty. I try to find a place to start, a story I can tell. Except it seems like each story is tangled up with two or three things which are not mine to tell. My life and mind are filled with confidences that I must keep. Some of them will be less sharp in the future, less able to hurt. They can be told then. Others… will take much longer to lose their edge. I tell the stories I can, in the places that I can. The rest I hold for now.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

The Walking Begins

In the brightest part of the afternoon, I told my kids to put on their walking shoes. We were headed for a park a mile away. One mile there, one mile back, with probable running around the park in the middle. It was the first walking event of the many that I expect to require this spring. We all need to be walking more, because in July our family will be going on a Pioneer Trek. We’ll spend four days dressed as Mormon pioneers, learning history, walking, and pulling a handcart full of our gear. I expect it to be a fascinating experience. At least it will be if we’re all in good enough physical shape that it isn’t miserable.

Pioneer stories are often told in my church. They feature large in our history as the early Mormons were often not welcomed in previously settled communities. They had to migrate en masse more than once until they went so far out west that they settled in Utah. Outfitting covered wagons and ox teams was very expensive. The less expensive alternative were handcart companies. These two wheeled carts were pulled across a 1300 miles by devoted people who believed they were called of God to walk to a promised land. The stories of these people are stories of courage, faith, endurance, sacrifice, tragedy, and pain. Those last items get an unfortunate amount of emphasis in the stories that are told at church. I often tune out when someone begins to tell a pioneer story because I know that the teller will attempt to yank on my heart strings.

We’ll be going on this Pioneer Trek with all the youth in our ward ages 12-18. The event is primarily for the youth, structured to teach them about church history and that they can survive hard things. Howard and I will be there as adult chaperones. We’ll be the Ma and Pa for a group of teenagers. Our kids will all be along for the experience, which is why we were asked to go. This is likely the only chance that clan Tayler will have to take a trip like this together. It will be something we won’t forget. It is already beginning to be. I had a reason to haul my kids out into the early spring air and make them walk to a park with me. Walking together led to talking with each other. It was all good. Next week we’ll walk to a different park.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Facing an Unpleasant School Assignment

I sat next to Link on the couch helping him with his school work. He didn’t need help intellectually. It was a simple “read this and fill out that chart” sort of assignment. Emotionally, he wanted to run far, far away and not think about any of it. My job was to sit next to him so he wouldn’t run away. The assignment was for health class and was part of the unit on mental health.

I don’t know how these units play for someone without first hand experience. In theory there are such people. For my kids, reading about the various disorders is an exercise in self-diagnosis. By the time they’re done with the reading, they’re pretty convinced that they have all the issues. So that was the other part of my job, to explain that, yes son, you do get a little obsessive over clothes, cleanliness, and video games, but you do not have the attached compulsions that are a defining characteristic for OCD. We talk much about how the same trait can be either an advantage or a disorder depending on how it affects quality of life. It is almost a relief when we reach schizophrenia, anorexia, and bulimia, because they are things which my son can clearly see he does not have.

Sometimes he had to stop working for a minute to just breathe and feel. This unit is not going to get easier for him. The next few assignments are focused on stigma and suicide prevention. Yet going through this is good for him. He’s learning things about what lives inside his head. These things have names and now he knows them. That is good. I sat next to him and made sure he read about cognitive behavioral therapy, mentioning that it might be useful in his life at some point.

After we were done, I did my own stop, breathe, feel moment. It is a good practice to have. I’m often too busy to acknowledge the emotional tones of my day. Sometimes I actively suppress them because emotional noise prevents me from getting things done. Short term delay of emotions is fine as long as I deliberately make space for them later. Otherwise, accumulations of suppressed emotion will manifest as rampant anxiety.

We’ll tackle these health assignments slowly in manageable portions. This is one of the advantages of him taking the class through electronic high school. We can slow down the pace and manage it as necessary. Eventually we’ll make it through. I’m certain the unit on exercise will be a much nicer one for him.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

On Unpleasant Medical Screenings

A mammogram is a simple test really. It is a little embarrassing and a little uncomfortable, but the whole thing is complete in less than ten minutes. The hard part is remembering that my sister had cancer and that I’ve had radiation therapy. So I can’t feel completely calm about the process or the report that will come from it. It dredges up old emotion that had settled out. Not my favorite. But the thing is done and I move onward in my day.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Parenting Older Kids

My youngest child, Patch, is now taller than me. This milestone sneaked past us sometime in the last few weeks. In contrast, both of my girls are shorter than I am and they probably will be their entire lives. This is a natural consequence of having a grandmother who was 4’11”. Thus my largest emotion in relation to Patch’s height is relief that he’s headed for at least average male height. I know how difficult it can be to be short and male. Patch’s feelings about his height are far more complicated. He spent a lifetime being the little one, youngest and smallest. Six months ago he still was. Now he’s taller than both of his older sisters and his mother. Within the next six months he’ll likely be taller than his dad and possibly his older brother as well. His world is shifting dramatically and as a result, he is anxious about all the things. Even things that would not have bothered him before.

Earlier this week I read a post titled Dear Lonely Mom of Older Kids. In it, Rachel Anne Ridge talks about how mothers chatter about their young children, but when the kids get older, we begin to fall silent. This is not because mothers of older children don’t need support networks and reassurance. I think that Ms. Ridge got to the heart of it when she said:

so much of it….you just can’t talk about. Because you suddenly realize that these kids are people. People with feelings and emotions. And you can’t go around blogging about their mean math teacher or their failed attempt at choir auditions. These are things that are too precious, too priceless, too soul-baring, too hard to share. They need you to be their safe place. They need you to keep their secrets. They need you to pick up pimple concealer at CVS and not breathe a word to anyone. They are so easily embarrassed and you must do your part to help them get through it.

The parent-of-young-children years are full of frustrations which are exhausting. The teen years, at least for me, at least for the last two years, have been full of frustrations that are heart rending. I’m weary and the stories in my head are a tangle of things I can tell, things I must hold safe, things that are joyful, but private, and things that hurt too much.

Link dances in the kitchen as he does dishes. He’s bopping around to music I can’t hear because the ear buds are transmitting directly to him and not to the world at large. I pause for a moment to watch him because just three months ago he did not smile at all. He was living in the bottom of an emotional pit. Now he is not, and I have to stop and appreciate that fact because not-living-in-an-emotional-pit is not the same as life-is-all-sunshine-and-roses. I spend far too much time worrying about possible futures that I have imagined, most of which I want to avoid at all costs. It gets so that I spend all of my todays trying to maneuver toward the imagined futures that I want for my son. Instead I should spend more time recognizing how far we’ve come and trusting that he’ll grow in his own way.

I have three teenagers and one pre-teen. In a few months my oldest will turn twenty and I’ll be down to two. Until next year when I’ll have three again. I definitely fall into the category of Mom with Older Kids. Yes it is lonely. I no longer have any casual friendships formed because my kid plays with her kid at the park. I’m leaving the era of carpool coordination. I’m often isolated, and this is only increased by an awareness that my kids are navigating some non-standard teenage paths. In fourth grade all the kids are doing pretty much the same things. I can can talk to any other mom-of-a-fourth-grader and know we’re on common ground. Her kid is also doing a state report, just like mine. By high school the kids are all scattered. My neighbor has a son who is my son’s age. He’s highly social, involved in multiple sports, always running off with her car, getting ready to apply for colleges. He’s on the path that is considered standard. My son is being partially home schooled because his anxiety and depression made public high school too overwhelming. Sometime in the next few months I hope to be able to coax my son into learning to drive. The differences between our sons does not mean that my neighbor and I can’t be friends, but it does mean that we need to do a lot more listening and question asking. We can’t assume that our parenting experiences are similar just because our sons are the same age. Which is probably good friendship advice for parents of all ages. Don’t assume that their parenting experience is the same as yours.

My teenage Gleek has been reading and writing horror stories. She loves them. I am disturbed by this, even though I’m aware that it does not necessarily indicate anything to be concerned about. Teenagers are often drawn to the creepy and unexplainable. They live in a strange space where so much of their lives is beyond their control and seeing that lack of control in stories can be very cathartic. In the last month I’ve watched her come out of her shell and form friendships that extend beyond school hours. She’s going to friends’ houses and bringing them here. This socialization was absent from her life for three years. Now it is back. She is happy. She is doing well in school. She is kind and empathetic. And she is writing creepy stories. So I watch. And I remember the good friends I have who write horror for a living. And I try not to worry that her life will become emotionally tumultuous again the way that it was two years ago.

Kiki has had an emotionally eventful college semester. A break up, roommate arguments, too many classes, too much stress. She’s called home and come home more often this semester. Yet I can see how each stressful thing makes her grow. She’s learning lots about herself, about other people, and about how she relates to the world. She’s learned how and when to ask for help. She’s grown so much, and that makes her want to run home and just be a kid for a bit. Good thing her spring break is almost here.

It is all mixed up together in parenting older kids. The hopeful things, the hard things, my emotions, their emotions. We make each other mad and we give each other joy. When I do manage to connect with other mothers of older kids, it helps. Ms. Ridge’s post helps. Which is why I keep working to untangle my thoughts enough so that I can write about my thoughts and my children. Because there are lots of other families out there who need to be able to see that the media-presented version of teenage life is not the only valid path from childhood to adulthood. And because I need to find ways to tell the stories so they can stop circling endlessly in my head.

The thing is, even at its hardest and loneliest, I still prefer parenting my older kids to the thought of going back to the little kid years. My teenagers are amazing. They have perspectives I’ve never considered. They make me laugh. I’m glad I have teenagers and I look forward to growing with them as they become adults.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

The Week Where all the Projects Start Rolling Simultaneously

I needed to reach Monday at full efficiency. I was scared that I would not because I was the opposite on Friday and Saturday. But Monday came and I worked at top speed. This is necessary because the next few weeks are filled with project launches. I was handling art contracts for the Planet Mercenary RPG. Planet Mercenary is going to require a Kickstarter and there is much work to do preparatory to that. I need to make spreadsheets and do math. I was wrestling with the script for the next bonus story. I’ve been exchanging email with the designer for the new Cobble Stones covers. I’ve been helping manage administrative tasks for the Out of Excuses workshop and retreat. My partially-homeschooled son needs me to keep his schooling on track and to require him to work even when he doesn’t feel like it. There are are couple of birthdays coming right up. Today was the opening of exhibitor housing for GenCon, which is always a stressful free-for-all trying to get the rooms we need. And to help fund all of the things, we needed to run a sale in the Schlock store. (Coupon code BIRFDAY15 for 20% off your order.) The sale has done well, for which I am extremely grateful. The funds that are coming in will enable all of the other things. Turning inventory into funds with which to buy new inventory is a necessary business process. I’ve spent large portions of yesterday and today over at the warehouse sending packages.

This is a busy time. It is the sort of busy that I love. Yet every single moment I’m aware of the half dozen things which I ought to be doing and am not. So, I’m stressed. And I’m very worried that I will disappoint people. In fact a part of my brain is constantly convinced that I already have. I try to ignore the feeling as much as I can because it doesn’t help, and I’m pretty sure it is lying to me.

In the meantime it is Tuesday. I’m grateful that I have so much of the week left. Yet I feel like it can’t possibly still be Tuesday because I’ve done so many things since Sunday night. Tomorrow I get to retrieve Howard from the airport. He’s been off in Chicago recording episodes for Writing Excuses. I’ll be glad to have him home. Even better, none of us have any travel scheduled until June. We’re going to have several months in a row where we can stay home and do all the projects. We’re going to need it.

Comments are open on the original post at onecobble.com.

Breaking Through the Blockages

This post is a summary of a presentation I gave at LTUE 2015. I find that posting it right now is particularly apropos because I’ve got two writing projects in process and I’ve made little progress on either one lately.

I am a writer of picture books, blog entries, essays, and children’s fiction. As my day job I run the publishing house for my husband’s comic strip, Schlock Mercenary. This means I do graphic design, marketing, shipping, inventory management, store management, and customer support. I have a house that needs maintenance and I have four children, three of whom are teenagers. My life is busy. In fact when someone who knows me in one of my non-writing capacities finds out that I also write, the question that they ask is “where do you find the time?”

The truth is that I spend a lot of time not writing. Even with my busy life, time is not the problem. I have the hours, I just find myself reaching the end of the week and realizing that I’ve spent them all on non-writing things. This post/presentation lays out some of the reasons writers get blocked, or otherwise don’t write. It also offers some solutions for the problems.

Self Doubt

Pretty much every creative person I know has an inner critic who tells them they are terrible and that there is no point to spending time creating. In my head this voice often tells me that my writing is a waste of time and that I should be spending that time on more important things.

How to counter it: Recognize that the critical thoughts are there. I often personify them a little bit, calling them the voices of self doubt. This small separation is useful, because once I see them as separate from me, it is easier for me to choose to ignore them. Sometimes I even mentally address them. “Yes, I know you think this isn’t worthwhile, I’m going to write anyway.”

Important reminder: These voices of self doubt are lying to you. The act of creation has value, even if the only person who is ever changed by it is the creator.

There may be people in your life who feed the self doubt. They may be deliberately undercutting you for reasons of their own, or they may be doing it unintentionally. It is important to recognize which people make you doubt yourself. If they are unimportant in your life, perhaps remove them from it. If it is a loved one, then spend some time figuring out how they are adding to your self doubt and try to re-structure your relationship so that they have less power to make you doubt yourself. Be aware that this is not simple and the other person may react poorly to the process.

Perfectionism / The editor within

This is also an internal critic, but it is slightly different from the self doubt voices. This internal editor constantly tells you you’re not good enough, but it is more specific. The existence of the internal editor is actually an indicator of writing growth. New writers think everything they write is wonderful. Then they learn more and realize that everything they’ve written is terrible because they’ve acquired knowledge and skill to recognize the flaws in their own writing. Your internal editor is extremely valuable when you need to revise, not so much when you’re trying to draft.

How to counter it: When you’re drafting you have to give yourself permission to write something terrible. You will fix it later. Some people need to have some sort of timer or incentive in order to force themselves to draft quickly without worrying that it is bad. Examples of incentives are Write or Die programs, Written Kitten, or participating in NaNoWriMo. If you are editing you need to distinguish between the useful editor and the mean editor. The useful one says “Wow that sentence is terrible. We need to write it better” The mean one says “Wow that sentence is terrible. You are a terrible writer. Why do you do this anyway?”

Professional Insecurity

When you know other writers or read about how they work, it is very common to come to the conclusion that you’re doing writing wrong. You feel like if your process isn’t like [famous writer] then that explains why you fail to write. I’ve seen people contort their lives and writing trying to be someone else.

How to counter it: There is no wrong way to create. Anything that allows you to get writing done is better than a system that does not. Feel free to learn how other writers approach their writing. Experiment with their methods, but if their methods don’t work for you, discard them. Keep what works for you and don’t let anyone tell you that you’re doing it wrong. (If they do, then they fall in the category of people who feed your self doubt.)

Fear of Failure

No one wants to be rejected or to fall short of their dreams. Sometimes writers will subconsciously sabotage their own writing because if they never finish the book, then they never have to face the rejections that come with publication. Rejections and criticisms come not matter what publishing path you choose. Sometimes writers learn too much about publishing before they’ve finished writing. The whole process can feel futile if no one will ever read your work.

How to counter it: First remember the act of creation has intrinsic value no matter what happens to the creation once it is done. Second, focus on the work that is in front of you instead of on your fears about what will come in the future. If you’re drafting, then fully enjoy the process of drafting. No matter what comes afterward no one will ever be able to take away the experience you had with writing your book. Then you can focus on the experience of editing. Then on publishing or submitting. Each step is its own process. Do one at a time. All the other steps will be there later. Worry about them when you get to them.

Time Management

It may be that how you’re managing your time is causing you to be blocked. This is not the same as not having enough time. The time is there, you just need to figure out how to arrange it so that writing fits. You may not have a large block of time or you may be trying to write during the wrong time of day.

How to counter it: Learn to work in small chunks. Sometimes it feels like you can’t accomplish anything unless you can free up an hour or two. But I know writers who create whole books by snatching fifteen minutes here and there. You just have to train your brain to hold the story ideas and percolate them while you’re doing other things so that when you sit down to write you can pour words onto the page. A notebook is a very useful tool for training your brain to do this. Carry one with you. Scribble notes as thoughts come to you. This teaches your brain to hold story thoughts until you need them. Also learn your biorhythms. Some people are most creatively energized first thing in the morning others late at night. I know that my body wants to take a nap around 3pm. I should not attempt to schedule my writing time for when my body wants to nap. My brain is all fuzzy and not good at writing during that time.

The Story is Stuck

Sometimes you’ve arranged the time, cleared everything else from your schedule, but then you sit down to work and you can’t put words down. There are several reasons this can happen. 1. You honestly don’t know what comes next. 2. Your subconscious knows that something is wrong with a thing you wrote previously and is not letting you proceed until you find and fix it. 3. The story needs skills you don’t have yet.

How to counter it: If you don’t know what comes next, then it is time to step back and take a broader look at your story. You may need to brainstorm or re-outline. This is also a solution to the subconscious blocking you problem. You need to recognize where your story deviated from what it needs to be. If the story needs skills you don’t have, then you may need to step away from it an practice that skill. With practice you’ll begin to develop a sense for which sort of problem you’re having. Sometimes the right solution is to plow forward, just keep putting words on the page even if they’re the wrong ones. Other times you have to step backward, get outside your box and look at the whole thing differently.

Distraction

This is particularly a problem for people who have ADHD or similar distractibilities. Sometimes you’ll be writing and then between one sentence and the next your brain says “We should check Twitter!” So you click over and it is twenty minutes before you’re back to writing. Often what is happening here is that your brain is getting micro-tired. Writing is hard work, and the brain wants to jump to something easier or more soothing.

How to counter it: Turn off or remove your typical distractions. At the very least, make them harder to access so that you have time to realize “Oh I’m getting distracted.” The moment you realize you’re distracted, bring yourself back to the writing. Also control your environment. If you sit in a particular place with a particular drink, these things can signal to your brain that you’ve entered writing time. You can train your brain that writing time is for writing and not for Twitter. Some days will still be easier than others, but physical signals and practicing coming back to writing focus will help.

Creative Depletion

Often people have plenty of time to write, but by the time they reach that hour, all they want to do is relax and watch TV. This is usually the case when they’ve used up all of their creative energy on something else. Parenting is a huge cause of this. Daily parenting requires huge reserves of creativity. You’re expending creative energy just keeping little ones alive, teaching them, entertaining them. As they get older, creative energy goes into helping them with projects, helping them problem solve, and figuring out how to effectively communicate. There are also many jobs that use up all the creative energy.

How to counter it: First determine what you are spending your creative energy doing. If that thing is more important to you than writing is, then you don’t actually have a problem. The writing will wait until your life shifts in a way that you have energy for it again. If the other thing is LESS important to you than writing, it is time to take steps to rearrange your life. Most of us can’t afford to quit our jobs and be full-time creative. But we can be budgeting, paying down debts, and saving money so that someday that dream becomes possible. Parents can hire babysitters once per week so that there is a day with some available creative energy. The solutions are as varied as the problems. The key is to analyze why you’re too creatively tapped out to write and make a small change toward fixing that problem.

I know these are not the only things that can cause a writer not to write, but it is a useful jumping off place for writers to figure out what is going on inside their heads that prevents them from reaching their writing goals.

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