Thursday, October 13, 2011

Productivity Under Stress

     My writers group (Living Writers Collective) started a facebook group to keep in touch with members about projects and struggles and to share inspiration and encouragement.  One member posted 101 items to blog about. It's for blogging in general, not just for blogs about writing or books, but most can be applied to anything. One of the suggestions was  "How to stay productive when _______________."
     Tonight I'm there. Had an awful event in my family and everyone is reeling and it's one of those things where you can't do anything to help the situation.  Hardly a time to feel creative or productive. I have been cleaning the house and doing laundry like mad just out of my need to do something. I decided to take a break before I physically exhaust myself and to do something else productive - blog.
     I am once again trying to stay on a schedule of posting something twice a week (on Tuesdays and Thursdays). Although I can write my blogs at anytime and have them post on future dates, I still have to write them. I hope having a deadline will help me deal with my lack-of-self-discipline issues.
     Helen, the heroine of my book series, often has situations she doesn't know how to deal with or has to bide her time when acting on something. The most common way she deals with that is to write. Since she's a ficitonal character, she has no trouble totally losing herself in her project and it keeps her mind off her problem and keeps her productive.
     It's possible this might work for writers in the real world. Somewhere in one of my stories, Helen notes the fact that in her ficitonal worlds she creates the problems and therefore usually knows how to solve them. That could make a writer feel like they are productive and at least able to be active in finding solutions, even if not able to in their real life. A good form of therapy anyway, if it works.
     I don't know if I could do that. I've never tried. I tend to automatically think, "I couldn't possibly write now, while I'm panicked/depressed/upset/whatever."  But my current situation makes me want to try it. And since this is not something that's going to go away anytime soon, I will certainly have the chance.

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