How to get back to writing after a break

Life happens. Sometimes it happens a little, sometimes it happens a lot. Sometimes it's the goods stuff, sometimes it's the bad stuff, and sometimes it's utter shit. But no, you can't just simply be interrupted, your writing is sacred. So you struggle against it, you keep writing. You don't sleep, you don't eat, you keep doing it. You keep doing it until your body turns around and says: "You know what? Fuck you. I quit." And then you have to stop. You have to interrupt your writing, in order to attend to life, because it demands you. Unfortunately, it has no schedule, it likes to drop on your head without warning and then gleefully declare stuff that you wish didn't happen. It kicks you out of your routine, and you let it. What choice do you have? People get sick, people die, things blow up. You get into this stuff that demanded your attention, and sometimes it sucks you in to the point of creating a new routine, even if it's the absence of any routine, as in, pure chaos. It can go on for a long time. In my case, I was interrupted twice this fall, first time for 1 week, second time for 2 weeks. The first time I flew out to Russia to get my son (long story short, because of a missing document authorities wouldn't let him board the plane). The second time I flew out to Russia to attend to my sick mother, with the help of my readers and friends who donated for this trip. I just got back this Monday and am dying to get back to reading 2nd draft of ROSEHEAD, so I can start on the 3rd draft, but this week I'm taking care of my boyfriend who got into a motorcycle accident and recently had surgery (well, I hope I'm able to take care of him, because I feel like it's mostly him taking care of me, since I'm very cranky without my daily writing). Did I mention we are supposed to be moving in several weeks? Packing, unpacking? Yeah. I was lucky that my interruptions lasted only this long. But what if you had to stop for a year, or two, or ten? I did have a break of about 1 year between SIREN SUICIDES drafts. Here is what helped me get back into groove.

Read your own work. This is one thing that does it for me. Reading. When I pick up anything I have written, be it a published book or a draft, I start seeing things I want to fix, to change, or I imagine how I could've written it better. And I don't mean just sitting down with a cup of coffee for 30 minutes or so, to skim through a few pages. No. I mean blocking out a whole day and diving in, without any interruptions, if possible. If not possible, I try to block out at least 4 hours, which is usually enough for me to read several chapters and get into the story. I also use this rule - I don't write anything down, don't take any notes, as tempted as I am. All I want is a feeling, an emotion, and, miraculously, at some point at the end of this day, I get an itch. I want to write. I want to either go back and fix things (if I was reading a draft), or I want to write something new. In any case, usually I don't have enough time to write anything, because the day is over, but the itch stays. I read some more the next day, feed it, until the itch spills into this mad desire to write. At this point, I usually can't wait any longer and start. This is the trick. Even if I typed a couple sentences, the next day I want to continue. My brain started working, it can't stop now. This is the hardest part for me, to start. It might be different for you. I heard people tell me, starting is easy for them. I envy you, if you're among them. Starting after a break is the hardest thing for me to do. Once I'm over the hump, things start flowing.

Read the work of your favorite author. Read something genius. Not because the critics said it's genius, read because YOU say it's genius. Read your favorite author, read your favorite book, read the book that gets you on fire, that makes you want to create. Again, try to block out a whole day. For me the equivalent was the 10 hour flight from Moscow to New York, and the 6 hour flight from New York to Seattle (if my damn Kindle's battery didn't die in the middle, I would've scored nearly 15 hours of uninterrupted reading). I'm reading DOCTOR SLEEP by Stephen King, because King is one of my favorite authors, and because I just finished reading THE SHINING for the first time, and was dying to read the sequel. I wanted to see what King's writing was like, after years and years of experience, wanted to compare. And I love it, absolutely love it. It's so dark and bloody and yet deep, that it gives me courage to start writing IRKADURA, which is going to be a very dark literary novel based on my experiences growing up in Soviet Union and being abused as a child by various family members, as well as jerked around by my country and its bureaucracy. Literally, when my Kindle died on me, my first impulse was to dive into 1st draft, only I couldn't, because I know that once I start, I can't stop. So I saved this itch, saved it for later, but I will continue reading, to keep it alive, and I can't wait to block out a whole weekend to read 2nd draft of ROSEHEAD, prior to starting on the 3rd. This is why I'm picky about what I read. Some books are simply not mine, and instead of inspiring me to write, they get me frustrated.

Create a bubble around you. Those of us who have a nice writing corner and a nice writing routine are lucky. Not everyone has it. Not everybody can afford to have a whole room dedicated only to writing, not everyone can afford to write full time, or even every weekend. Not everyone has a stable relationship that allows to focus on writing, instead of being constantly interrupted by family drama. So how do you deal with that? How do you still block everything out, to be able to write? (And you HAVE to block everything out, to gather your wits and have enough presence of mind to be creative). Here is how. Create a bubble around you. It doesn't have to be physical. I mean, ideally, you will write in a room that has a door, a door that you can close on the world, even if it's just a closet or a bathroom. But you can do without it. Headphones and loud music blasting in them can work as a door, or a blank vacant look. The trick is, to get there. And to get there, you have to have a rigid schedule, something that can put your body into writing mood even when everything else around you goes to hell. Maybe it's staring out the window at 5am in the morning for 10 minutes, before anyone wakes up, and writing for the remaining 50 minutes, but WRITING EVERY DAY. Maybe it's taking a walk to a coffee shop at random times, on random days, but always going to the same coffee shop, and maybe even sitting at the same table. Maybe it's watching a TV show with a completely dumb look on your face, to tune out your brain from daily drama and empty it, watching something totally stupid. Or polishing your shoes, or dancing in a tutu, or eating one chocolate chip cookie, always the same. What I'm talking here is routine that will help you establish the discipline of writing through no matter what shit life throws at you, because you will learn to flip life a finger. You will be able to hold on to something, to not lose your sanity. Something that is the same. At first you might need to force yourself, but soon it will become habit. Once you build the habit, you become golden. Confession: for me one of those quirky things to start writing is playing a few Words with Friends games. I know,  I know!

Anyone has any more stories or tricks up your sleeve, on how you get yourself into writing after a break, be it short or long? Come on, share, we're all curious.

MINIMIZE interruptions while writing

Photo by Sarah Ann Wright

Once upon a time while tweeting (of course, what else?) I've been asking people what they want me to blog about next, and the topic of interruptions came up. Namely, one of my Twitter followers, Bridget, asked me to write about how to minimize distractions and interruptions like the Internets and such, and although my typical answer to this is, turn it off, silly, there is much more to that than simply turning off your Internet. I'm by no means a time management expert, but I'll share here you with you what I do and how it helps me, and perhaps it will help you too. Because I had to learn it the hard way, by trial and error and through tears and tearing out my hair in frustration. My methods are as follows.

Turn off everything, and I mean, EVERYTHING. Literally, when I start writing, not only do I close all my browser windows except Pandora (gotta have my music), I also turn off my mobile phone and don't pick up home phone if it's ringing. Kids in the house have been trained not to knock on my door while I'm writing, unless it's an emergency. If I come out to grab a snack or a glass of water, they know not to talk to me. I do have a connection to the real world, in case something happens, as in, true emergency, when my family needs to reach me. They can reach me through my boyfriend who is always on Skype with me while I'm writing, so he can let me know if something is going on. And that is the only window into any human contact that I leave open. Even there, we don't chat much, it's mostly me either whining that my writing is shit (and him yelling at me that it's not, usually takes him 3 to 4 lines in ALL CAPS to shut me up), or it's me asking him questions about something technical, like cars or motorcycles or some other gadgets I'm writing about. That's it. The other most important part to this is, I lock myself up like this for at least for 4 hours straight. I don't allow myself out of the room until I either do 2,000 words or 4 hours of writing. I don't check my text messages. I don't look at my email, don't skim through Twitter updates. Nothing. Nada. I keep my mind clear of it. Why? Because. Let me illustrate my second point.

Protect your train of thought like it's your life. When you write, you pull ideas out of you by association. One thing leads to another, leads to another, until they form a kind of translucent imagination web in your mind that allows you to wander into it and record what you're seeing. The problem is, this web is very fragile. In fact, it's terribly fragile. A single word can kill it. A single knock on the door can break it and send the rest of your ideas tumbling to the ground in a mess that you won't be able to untangle later. If you have a mess left. Typically it leaves you completely blank, with all this beautiful stuff gone, your face puzzled. A second ago you had a whole story in your head, and now you have nothing. It's empty. This kills your flow. A simple phrase like, Mom, I lost my jacket! turns your attention to the jacket and breaks your concentration. Puff! It's gone. You can kiss your writing time goodbye. It's extremely hard to be able to pull yourself back together after an interruption, and it's extremely hard to write in short little bursts (it's why writing retreats are booming). This is why so many writers are excited when their writing seems to flow. You know why it flows? Because they finally were able to focus on it, that's all. That's why it's important to have a writing cave, be it as little as your closet, as long as you can shut the door on the world. If you can't do it, it will be very hard for you to battle the world and produce anything at all, because the world will insist on interrupting you and wreaking havoc.

Learn how to say no, and say no every day. I'm one of those people that doesn't like saying "no". I want to help people, I want to interact, it's extremely hard for me to decline any kind of request, so this was the hardest lesson for me to learn. Because I had to. I had to tell no to parties, to dinner invitations, to emails, to offers of promotion, to... many more things. In short, I had to clean up my social life and my life in general, to be able to create a quiet space for me to write. 4 hours every day is a long time. 4 hours in the middle of the day, when people like calling you, and emailing you, and talking to you, is a very long time to stay hidden from them. People will be pissed. People will demand an answer from you right away. People will bang on your door, and it's your job to let them know that you're busy. Without any explanations, without any interactions. Because interactions will suck out your creative energy. You have to learn to respond with a simple NO. Why can't you go with me to this party? Come on, let's go! NO. Why not? Because I said NO. But explain it to me! Because I said NO. But so-and-so will be there, and what kind of a friend are you anyway, if you're... I'm sorry, I'm busy, my answer is NO. 

Make the world evolve around your schedule. My entire life I spent my time according to other people's schedules. When someone would ask me to meet for coffee, I would always ask in return, what time would you like to meet, where? And then I would arrange my life around that request, to accomodate the time that is not convenient for me, to go to a place that is difficult to get to and will lose me more time. It never even crossed my mind that I did it, until I started writing. Because all of a sudden these invitations to meet and chat started distracting me from my work, and I felt increasingly uncomfortable adjusting my schedule to other people's schedule, until one day I realized that all of this diddling-daddling is depriving me of my precious writing time and energy, with its constant interruptions of my daily routine flow. And routine is very important to producing art, no matter what anyone says (yell at me here all you want), it's like a safe boundary where your creative genius can feel safe and start blooming. Unless you create it, it won't bloom, won't grow, afraid to open up and be interrupted. It's a fragile thing, it needs to be protected. Human drama will kill it in no time. It's only by sheltering yourself from any interaction that you'll be able to tap into your inner self fully. Of course, as time goes by, you will learn to be more flexible. For example, I can hold my thought mid-interruption better now than 1 year ago, when I was only starting. Still, it's very hard for me. I imagine, it's very hard for you as well.

So, the conclusion to this is... BECOME A HERMIT! And ignore anyone who tries to stop you.