Writers place great demands on themselves, inducing a frothy head of stress. If you follow #WritersCommunity on social media, you’ll see a lot of self-judgement and criticism. We waste too much time, we write too little each day, we spend too much money on books and coffee—you get the idea.

Good Stress. And the Other Kind

A little stress can be good. A deadline, a goal, or a commitment to others gets us fired up and focused. In the short term. But a big writing project isn’t short term, and long-term stress is paralyzing. That paralysis is seen in all the ways writers procrastinate: Starting additional projects, falling down research holes, designing elaborate book promo campaigns, or just surfing the web.

Can We Just Cut Ourselves Some Slack?

Imagination. Writers are creative types—take a few minutes to clear the mind, then imagine your future self. You’ve met your goals; how is life different? Enjoy visualizing a victory lap.

Meaning. In the midst of our stress, can we take a deep breath and look at its meaning? What is this particular brand of stress for? Not the “why,” but rather identify its role. Can we learn from it? How can we tweak our future plans to be more effective?

Play. Don’t forget joy! Sometimes it’s OK to focus, gently, on small projects—one creation at a time, and integrate the work (could we call it “play”?) into our day-to-day lives. While creative folks draw, act in community theater, and sing in church choirs for the fun of it, few writers  seem to take that attitude. It’s often some variation of “If I don’t get an agent, I must suck.”

If you enjoyed this journal entry, you might like to read about Motivation, or this guest blog on Doubt and Regret.

I started this blog thread on the gritty details of the writing process over on my Facebook Author page, @kbkathylbrown, but think I might be better served putting it over here. If you’re interest in following my writing process in an informal way, you’ll find a few posts on Facebook that might interest you. You can subscribe to the blog from the website landing page (scroll down).