New Year’s might be my next favorite holiday after Halloween. After being a child who shed tears over every insignificant change, I’ve become an adult who loves a chance to start anew. I think it began in college, when I discovered that the winter break between semesters allowed me to come back and reorganize my living space and start the next semester far more effectively. Spring semester was almost always better than the fall as a result. If I could reintroduce one aspect of college life into my adult career, it would be the clear endings and beginnings, along with the chance to clean house and start over. Since graduating…
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You Might Be a Veteran of Mental Illness If…
Mental illness is a lot more visible and acceptable to discuss now than it was even one generation ago, but it’s still no cakewalk living with it on a daily basis. So if your day-to-day involves popping pills (that were prescribed to you) and describing how you’re doing using terms that 300-level psychology undergrads haven’t encountered yet, this list is for you. If you haven’t wrestled with a disorder yourself, you might wonder what it’s like. There are plenty of articles out there that can fill you in on the science behind mental illness as we understand it. It might be a good idea to start there. But no list…
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Being Haunted by That One Story
What if I told you I’ve been working on the same story for twelve years? I’ve outlined and attempted to start this story multiple times, but it always fails. And whenever I try to explain the concept to someone, it’s too vague to describe. It lives in the back of my mind while I work on other projects, always searching for inspiration. I’ve collected images on Pinterest, made countless playlists, and drawn or designed its characters again and again. Pages of thoughts litter my inspiration notebook, going back generations of notebooks in my desk drawer. I feel like Charles Muntz tracking the bird in the movie Up, when he tells…
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My Writing Space Essentials
Writers are strange, often solitary creatures. And like all creatures, they require the correct habitat in order to thrive. Proper care and feeding can help your writer produce better quality and more consistent work, and though it cannot guarantee they will keep their butt in the chair and their hands on the keys, it can certainly help. Specifically, every writer has his or her own hang-ups when it comes to their writing space. Here are some of mine! It’s probably fairly typical for a creator to need a space that minimizes distractions and interruptions. But I also think it’s important to minimize feelings of self-consciousness. Maybe you’ve had this problem:…
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I’m Bad at Resting. Here’s What Has Helped.
I have a weird relationship with rest. The pressures of guilt, anxiety, and the after-effects of busyness hum in the background like a constantly-running machine. Even on my days off, I often find myself sitting on the couch, unable to focus on the Restful Activity I’ve chosen, watching the clock like I’m still at work, and wondering if I’m resting productively enough. Somehow we’ve managed to turn rest into another obligation, another checklist item, and one we even try to multitask! Trying to observe the Sabbath has further complicated how I feel about rest. Resting on the Sabbath is one of the Ten Commandments. So having been commanded to rest,…
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Mental Illness: Things I Wish I Had Known
I will not attempt to fit 29 years of a life marred by mental illness into a single blog article. However, in the spirit of Mental Health Awareness Month, I would like to offer up a few thoughts that would have benefited me immensely as I navigated my own journey. I didn’t learn these things until I’d suffered through years of pain, shame, and confusion, avoiding help because I feared judgment. But maybe I can ease yours by offering what I’ve learned. If you’ve had even peripheral experience with mental illness, you’ve surely experienced your share of well-intentioned and negligibly researched advice on the subject. Here is a list of…
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A Fiction Author’s Modern Psalm
Preliminary notes on this piece: I call out to you, Lord, In this place where I am neither writing enough to be a full-time author nor working enough hours to be a part-time librarian, Selah; Where I am neither established enough as an author to make a living nor making enough money to live on at my day job, Selah; Where I am both doubtful of future success and numb to my previous accomplishments, Selah; Where I have thrown away a promising career to achieve a dubious dream, Selah; Where I am single as a Pringle when my castle in the air was founded upon a fiction career, a husband,…
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You Never Know Who’s Watching
To tell you the truth, I’m in a slump right now. In fact, that might be a bit of an understatement. In the two and a half years I spent at my most recent full-time job, I came home so drained that I wrote almost no fiction at all. Since then, I’ve bounced back somewhat, but as often happens, I stalled out after the creative burst of October subsided. Between that and having an entire manuscript I don’t know how to fix, I’ve been pretty down for some time. It’s more than just my writing. After quitting said job, I was able to find part-time work at a library, but…
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So You’re Considering an English Degree
If you’re considering a degree in English, chances are, people have been only too willing to volunteer their opinions. So like the rest of them, I would like to offer my unsolicited advice. But unlike many or most of them, I can offer relevant insight. I’m an English major myself who has been working “in the real world” for about five years now. I went to a small college in order to pursue this degree, and I’ve heard a LOT of advice. Caveat: I recognize that college is exorbitantly expensive, not conducive to every career path, and that the views surrounding it are changing. However, many employers require or prefer…
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Gina’s Writer Confession #1
I have a confession to make: I’d rather write than read. I’m often embarrassed when people ask me what books I’ve read recently or how many, because I often give up on books or struggle to pick a new one. Don’t get me wrong—I love reading and it did a great deal to shape the person I’ve become. But I’m very picky about which authors I trust in my brain and imagination. As hypocritical as it is, I don’t like to feel vulnerable, and reading is vulnerability. You’re letting someone else drive, and sometimes they don’t take you where you want to go. Have you ever driven with someone who…