There's a difference between "Into every life some rain must fall," and "I must be standing underneath freakin' Niagara Falls"—and having been there, all I can say is, you know the difference when it's falling on your head.
The trauma that slams your writing to a standstill can be anything: an assault, an auto accident, birth, a child molester, death, divorce, earthquakes, fights, floods, fractures, guerillas, heart attacks, hurricanes... all the way down to living in a war zone or being run over by stampeding zebras.
Life ain't gentle.
It can kick the wind out of you, drain your creativity dry, leave you rolled up in a ball under the table sucking your thumb. And sometimes it comes at you so hard and so fast that all you can do is grit your teeth and let it, and pray for better days.
If you write for a living, though, or want to, you need to know how to get out from under the table as fast as possible, to kick-start your creativity, and to turn whatever it was that just ran over you to your advantage.
Please note here: I'm not talking about writing the day disaster strikes and every day thereafter. There's a point where you do have to mourn, grieve, punch walls, visit your lawyer or the police and deal with details, or take any other necessary steps to simply survive whatever it is that befell you.
You may need a couple of days to drag yourself out of the torrent. You may need months. It depends on who you are, what happened, who it happened to, and how many other things blew up at the same time. But once you or your loved ones are out of current danger, or the disaster has stopped dumping brand new horrors on your head—and once you've had your chance to get over the initial stages of shell shock—it's time to get your writing back.
I've had a whole lot of practice at this. In that little list I started out with, the only things that haven't run over me (yet) have been the heart attack and the zebras.
I'm still writing.
This is how I do it.
Includes:
- Escape the Bombs--Close Your Eyes, Stick Your Fingers In Your Ears, Click Your Ruby-Red Heels Together, and Repeat After Me, "This Isn't Happening, This Isn't Happening, This Isn't Happening..."--8 strategies
- Absorb the Blows--Yes, I Can Learn Something From This Mess—Question Is, Do I Really Want To?--7 strategies
- Fight Back--"I'll Get You, My Pretty. And Your Little Dog, Toto, Too."--3 Strategies
- Transcend The Nightmare--Open Wide And Say "Ooooommmmmmmm"--3 Strategies
Strategies you can use immediately to:
- Write through your trauma
- Use your trauma to help your writing
- Use your writing to help yourself and others
- Get even without getting in trouble by writing through the rage
- Get over it and move on
Buy it now, download it now, use it today.
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