This post originally appeared in December 2017 and continues to be one of my favorite posts on the blog. Hope you enjoy it!
I don’t often talk about my personal life on Go Teen Writers. Our focus here is always writing, and yet today is one of those days that I can’t deny that my personal life and writing life are woven together. This fall, due to circumstances outside of writing, I’ve often felt drained and uninspired
Last week, when I confessed to my friend Roseanna that I was struggling to stay focused, she did that lovely thing that good friends do and validated how I was feeling. She told me, “That makes sense, considering…” And then began to list the circumstances that have surrounded me the last few months. My father has an aggressive and rare form of cancer that he’s currently battling. I’ve been deeply disappointed by a close friend of mine. I’ve had a conflict with extended family that has kept me awake and crying at night. I have a two-year-old who’s the size of a one-year-old, which has led to an appointment with a specialist in the next few days. And I have a book that’s due to my editor in a few weeks. With all of the above sitting on my shoulders, it’s been the hardest book I’ve ever written.
As Roseanna and I talked about our mutual lack of motivation right now, she said the old adage to both of us. “Butt in chair, and all that.”
Rule One: Show up
Yes, I thought when she said that, I’m at least doing that.
All semester long, when my family has been hit by one stressful situation after another, I have maintained my butt-in-chair discipline that’s so crucial to creating. I have shown up.
Even when you don’t feel like it. Even when it truly feels like your life is crashing around you, as mine has often felt these last few months, the discipline of just showing up every day will help you, as Shannon so beautifully put it, to create an author and not just a story.
But my bigger issue has come after I put my butt in the chair.
Rule Two: Be Authentic
I recently had the chance to visit the Georgia O’Keefe museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Georgia O’Keefe is famous for her paintings of large flowers and skulls—sometimes painted together—but I was surprised by many of her other subjects. Skylines of New York City, where she lived for a long time. Mount Fuji. Churches in the southwest. Views from airplanes. The inside of a tent, looking out.
Something struck me as I was there at the museum, and then again as I sat here at my computer thinking, “I’m too run down to put a blog post together.” Georgia O’Keefe did not try to divorce her art from her life. Rather, her life informed her art. The art was created from the riches and trials of her life, not separate from it. When she was in the southwest or reminiscing about it, that was reflected in her art. Same as when she was in New York, or anywhere else.
Yet I have tried so hard to keep my messy, stressed-out self off the page, off the blog, and off social media. I wanted to leave all that stuff outside my office door and create worlds that were independent of what I’m currently going through. Today I wanted to bring you neat, easy-to-follow, pinnable writing advice, but all I feel capable of right now is shrugging at you and saying, “I don’t know either.”
Last summer, a darling young writer put her copy of The Scorpio Races into my hands. “I would like your signature and your number one piece of writing advice.”
I kinda froze, to be honest. Many other Big Deal writers had already signed the book, including Stiefvater herself. I wanted to write something really good, especially because I know and like this young writer, and she’d asked me to put my thoughts on the page there with other YA authors I love and admire. If I remember right, I wrote something about, “Follow your curiosity” which is advice from Elizabeth Gilbert.
I knew it was the wrong choice even as I wrote it, and I’ve thought about that moment many times since then. “Follow your curiosity” is fine writing advice, but it’s not my number one. I mean, I hadn’t heard it until this spring, and somehow I had managed to be a happy writer for over a decade, so how could it be number one?
If I could have that moment to do over again, I would write this in her book:
Show up. Be authentic. Repeat daily.
That’s a recipe for creating art—for creating a life—that matters. Not just showing up sometimes, or occasionally being authentic. But showing up faithfully, being authentic always, and repeating the process every stinking day.
How are things going these days with your dad, son, &family?
How funny (and kind!) that you would ask. Before I reposted, I thought, “Wonder if I should open with an update on how that whole situation is . . . nah, it’s probably fine.”
My dad is still with us. Thank you, God! We had to go to M.D. Anderson in Houston to find a surgeon willing to go after his gnarly tumor, but it worked! We thought he was going to leave us by Christmas of 2017, and he’s alive and well with us now. So grateful!
Eli continues to be a small five-year-old, but he shows up on the chart now, and he actually moved up to 10th percentile. Getting him to eat is a daily battle, but the only specialist we have to see for him now is an allergist. (Tree nut and sesame seed allergy.)
The other yucky situations listed in that opening paragraph are ones I would still put in the “healing” category. Some relationships got pruned during that hard season of my life, which was painful at the time, but feels mostly okay now.
Thanks for asking 🙂
One thing I’ll add, in case it’s helpful to anyone, is that I pushed on through that season . . . but was creatively dry for months afterward. That had never happened to me before, and I had some fears that I would never get it back. My enthusiasm for creating and stories did eventually come back, so if that happens to any of you in a hard season, try to not worry about that. Spring always comes after a creative winter.
Such an encouraging post, thank you for sharing! I hope everything is all right with your family. I’m very glad your father’s health has improved, and everything is fine with your son!
Thank you, Joy! Yes, I’m in a much happier season currently. Grateful for the lessons that I learned during that season, though!
I love this advice! I’ll be sure to keep it in mind when I hit rough patches in my life and my writing. Thank you!
(Also, glad to hear that things are looking up for you and your family!)
Thank you, Em!
Well, I like the sound of that. I’m going to remember this.
I hope it’s helpful to you, Ashie!
TODAY is one of those days where I really needed this advice. I’m in the middle of a short story contest that I only have 8 days to write and it’s due this Saturday. Work and school are keeping me busy so by the time I get to this shirt story, it’s nighttime. And I lose all my concentration and will to write.
Evenings aren’t my best for work either, so I get that. Hopefully knowing that it’s just for a season will help you to persevere!
Great advice! I think a lot of people can relate to this; not just writers. We all have tough patches in our lives and it’s hard to concentrate on passions, hobbies, and jobs sometimes when our personal lives get in the way.
Thanks for this! I’ll definitely try it out!
Yes, Tracy. Sometimes showing up, being myself, and then doing it again the next day is about all I can manage!