The Insecure Writer, Me

Courtesy of Michael Scott
Well, here we are at the first Wednesday of the month in our new year. Wednesday is a great day for posting about Writerly Insecurity--a Wildly emotional experience. Woden who was the chief Anglo-Saxon/Teutonic god was kind of a wild guy.  A leader of the Wild Hunt, his name comes from wod "violently insane" + -en "headship." And if that's not enough to make this day perfect for this check in,  his association with the god Mercury should be. We all know how old Mercury used to speed off hither and yon, an erratic-unstable dude if there ever was one.



Based on my experience in the writer world, a lot of it involves Insanity and Erratic-Unstable behavior: DEADlines (not the most uplifting term and definitely not the most stabilizing for me), the Mercurial process of creating believable, captivating characters and the Insane one of sending these treasured creations off to strangers who are looking for the best way to say NO THANK YOU to them. That's their job, after all, while ours is to keep them from doing so. Talk about speeding hither and yon! My mind is always chasing after the perfect characterization.



So how do we deal with all of this Insanity and still set down captivating prose? I've adopted several strategies, but here's one that always works for me, and it only takes a minute or two.



I call it creating my BALANCE ZONE and when I feel that bit of that Insane-Erratic-Unstable behavior creeping in I put this strategy into play and STOP. (My thanks to yoga and to Lisa Dale Miller for this idea.)



S: Stop. Close your eyes.

T: Take a slow, conscious breath. Make sure it starts in your abdomen, then rises to your chest. It can't     be shallow.

O: Observe how that breath enters your body. Pause at the top of that breath, then release it slowly. Pause at the bottom. Repeat until all you're thinking about is that breath.

P: Proceed with your writing. 





Here's to balanced, secure writing throughout 2012! And don't forget to pop over to Alex Cavanaugh's INSECURE WRITER's SUPPORT GROUP. We need all the support we can get.





Sliding on the Edge, C. Lee McKenzie, WestSide Books, Spring '09