How to Write AND Have a Life [from someone who is still figuring it out]

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Jackie Lea Sommers

A lot of people have asked how I manage to pack so much in: writing, blogging, reading, working full-time, while maintaining relationships with friends and family. I’m by no means an expert– and since I’m single and don’t have kids, my minutes aren’t swallowed by family demands– but here are my thoughts on the matter.

1. Learn to say no. I had to learn how to STOP making plans I didn’t want to keep. I’m so, so blessed to have a huge circle of friends, but when my writing life gets wild, only my inner circle makes it onto my schedule.

2. Be upfront with your friends. When things are crazy with revisions, I tell my friends right away that I’m going to be MIA for a while. Thankfully, I have incredibly gracious friends who respect that!

3. Schedule your blog posts. I hammer out a month’s worth of blog posts in about two or three evenings. Then, like the Showtime Rotisserie Grill, I can “set it and forget it” for another month. Yes, that’s right– I post about 12-15 times a month, but I only work on my blog posts for a couple days. I am always collecting ideas for blog posts and adding them to my blog ideas list on Wunderlist (see #4). Then, about halfway through each month, I will go into my blog, set the schedule and write the title for the entire next month’s blog posts. Over the course of the next day or so, I will systematically go through all those pre-programmed, pre-titled posts and write the actual post. The only other post I have to worry about is my “Dear Diary” post at the end of the month, where I summarize what I’ve been up to.

4. Make lists. I use Wunderlist, and I’ve detailed the amazingness of that here.

5. Listen to audiobooks. I listen during almost any mundane activity I do, most notably driving. Or else I’m calling my mom. Double-duty those commutes!

6. Writing sabbaths. I don’t let myself write on Mondays (usually after a tempestuous weekend full of it). I try to set aside Monday evenings for reading.

7. Overcommunicate. Again, I’m so lucky to have friends to whom I can explain, “I’d love to get coffee and catch up, but I can only stay for two hours.” I often set really clear parameters for what I have time for– not always, but when I’m especially busy.

8. Nap. I wouldn’t be able to power through everything if I didn’t sneak in naps wherever I can find time.

9. Stay connected to God. For me, a necessity. While I try to pray consistently, I find that I actually pray far more when I’m in depths of a creative project … that would be the very worst time for me to disregard my direct connection to the one who embodies creativity. (In fact, when I am doing intense writing or revision, I usually begin with a time of communion with Christ and any time I get stuck or scared or confused or need to brainstorm, it’s back to the prayer journal. I do the majority of my brainstorming with God. Ask me about it.)

10. Turn off the TV. I almost never watch TV, though I will take in an episode of Law & Order: SVU if my roommate is watching and I’m doing something else simultaneously (researching, for example). I can’t write with the TV on or while watching a movie.

11. Sacrifice. I just can’t do everything I want to do. This, I believe, is just part of the artistic life.

Image credit: Robert Mehlan, modified by me

OCD & Fiction

Posted on August 10, 2014 by Jackie Lea Sommers

Will I ever write a book about OCD?

I have … and I think I will again. Someday.

I spent four years working on a novel about a young woman with OCD. The story picked up after she’d already been diagnosed but before she’d found the right treatment. It was the first novel I ever wrote, and it’s quite obvious that I was figuring out how to write fiction as I went. (Interestingly, I was figuring out OCD treatment as I went too … I started the book before I went through ERP and finished the story after ERP was over. Needless to say, it dramatically changed the story.) I’ve set that story aside for now, though I have been known to send it to people in the OCD community who ask nicely. 🙂

I’ve wondered if there will come a time where I will want to go back to that first novel and revise it for publication. Maybe. Not yet.

Meanwhile, two characters have been stirring to life in my mind: an adventurous young woman named Rowen, and her best friend Jess, a young man who is a mathematics prodigy … and who has OCD. It will be a while till I will get to write their story, but that’s okay, I think.

For now, they are just waking up inside of me, yawning, stretching out like satisfied kittens, blithely unaware of what tortures lie ahead.

#MEANAUTHOR

(But to have a book at all requires conflict. The poor, sweet lambs! I have been known to cry over the situations I get my characters into.)

Meanwhile, Truest. My final edits are due SOON. (Note: final developmental edits … there will still be copyediting ahead.)

Image credit: Anselm23

Tokens

Posted on August 10, 2014 by Jackie Lea Sommers

The bullets bit into more than this wall,
which no tokens may patch.
There is such silence in this place;
it lets you hear the blood.

Image credit: Erica Murriel Davis

OCD, Depression, and Suicide: There Is Hope

Posted on August 8, 2014 by Jackie Lea Sommers

Good thoughts. Be sure to check out Alison’s blog too: http://www.alisondotson.com!

IOCDF Blog

Eight years ago, I was so depressed I considered committing suicide. My obsessions had completely taken over my life—not only were they daily distractions from work and friends, they were terrible. These obsessions, the fear that I might harm a child, didn’t just consume my free time. They consumed me. Nothing about life was enjoyable anymore. Not my wonderful boyfriend, Peter, who’s now my husband. Not visits with my parents. Not my favorite TV shows, or books, or dinners out.

Not even shoe shopping! On St. Patrick’s Day weekend in 2006, Peter and I went to visit a friend in New York City, and we all went shopping. Peter wanted new shoes, so we headed into a crowded Puma store to browse. I felt a small jolt of panic when I saw a little girl with her father. It was the middle of the week, a school day, so all…

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To Die For

Posted on August 8, 2014 by Jackie Lea Sommers

Love this.

the beautiful due

I’m sure I don’t understand everything that was involved

but some evenings when the breeze is slight but jazzy

and the shadows are almost honest I feel I’ve a hunch

as to why God thought this world was to die for.

I’ve got nowhere near the courage God has but I’d like to

believe that if presented with the same chance to take

one for the team that I would have taken it, shame and all.

Again, this would not be due to broadly shoulders but rather

of possessing a ticker that’s a sucker for lemonade stands

manned by the pure of heart that refuse to close up shop early

because surely there’s one more righteous neighbor willing

to pay for a cup of cold sweetness before the day’s end.

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Idea Factory: Where My Ideas Come From

Posted on August 7, 2014 by Jackie Lea Sommers

I feel like people always ask writers: Where do you get your ideas?

More often than not, the answer is everywhere.

It’s the same for me.

I get ideas from song lyrics, conversations, the radio, dreams, daydreams, Wikipedia, real-life events, funny things my co-workers say, freewriting, scents and smells, prompts, answers to the (many) questions I ask on Facebook, people I meet, Pinterest, memories from high school, websites I visit on accident, websites I visit on purpose, Tumblr, photographs and images, pretty dresses, cute things my favorite kiddos say, Quora, novels, memoirs, poems, books of quotations, books of symbols, books of trivia, books of anecdotes, books of mythology, instruction manuals, online journals, art, antiques, trees, weather, arguments, and on and on and on.

I usually start with an idea and a handful of characters. Truest started because of a Wikipedia article I stumbled upon years ago about a topic that continued to fascinate and haunt me until I decided to write about it. The next novel that I’m working on was sparked by a tiny entry in the Encyclopedia of Things That Never Were. The novel after that? Inspired by a website I love and the what if thought that popped into my head one day while visiting it.

Of course, the characters make the story, so once I have an idea– even just the tiniest wisp of one– I have to start assembling the cast. I start actually by looking for pictures– I scour Pinterest, Tumblr, & We Heart It until a picture hits me and I know that’s my character. I know a lot of authors despise character surveys and think they’re a waste of time– and I actually can agree that’s true for most surveys (this is not the time to worry about my character’s favorite color)– but I have two that I just love and always, always use. The first set of questions comes from Gotham Writers’ Workshop. The second set are from this Yingle Yangle post. When I finish answering those questions about my main characters, I am usually brimming with ideas and feel like I know tons more about them.

There’s lots of research involved. I end up requesting a boatload of books from my public library and from the university libraries in the Twin Cities. I read like a maniac– both on paper and online– about all the various elements that I think are going to matter to my book (some of those things will not survive the cut, of course, but knowledge is knowledge and I love learning!).

Research and drafting will mostly happen simultaneously, and the entire time, I will keep getting ideas from everything in my world, jotting them down, and turning them into scenes.

Inspiration and ideas are all around us, and if you have your eyes and ears– and heart– open, you can’t help but marvel.

Image credit: Andres Nieto Porras

Read These 10 Novels and We Can Be Friends

Posted on August 4, 2014 by Jackie Lea Sommers

I break out in a cold sweat when I try to define my top 10 novels, so I’m not going to give these that label … but such a list would be pretty darn close!

I consider myself a strong curator, and I am telling you that you just absolutely cannot go wrong with these ten. These books are ones I will always, always suggest– and I will always, always want to talk about them too. And I will always, always wish I wrote them.

So, what are you waiting for? I challenge you to systematically read these ten novels, let them work you over and change your life, and then let’s talk.

Noticeably absent: the Harry Potter series (because if I were to choose just one, I would choose #7 Deathly Hallows, but I would also never recommend that one read it without reading the rest of the series); The Last Battle and the rest of the Narnia books (because, again, I chose just one, and I think it’s the best story of the seven, though The Last Battle has possibly/probably been more important to me). See, this is what happens when I force myself to make such list. Caveats! Caveats, I tell you!

OCD Scrupulosity: Is ERP Sinful?

Posted on August 3, 2014 by Jackie Lea Sommers

Sometimes people with religious scrupulosity fear that ERP therapy itself is sinful. It’s true that ERP therapy will definitely ask you to do things outside of your comfort zone, things that will probably make you sick. (This is how ERP works, and it is crafted specifically around your own deepest anxieties.)

But once embarked on this ERP journey, I think it’s unwise and counterproductive to try to convince yourself (or convince others … or let others convince you …) that your therapy is not sinful. (After all, the whole point of this therapy is to embrace the uncertainty!)

If you are a Christian and concerned about ERP therapy, I suggest you say a prayer like this then dive in headfirst:

Lord, I am terrified about what I am being asked to do through this therapy, and I worry that it might be sinful. But there is at least some part of me that believes this is connected to OCD, so please cover over all I have to do with your grace. I am doing these things in the hopes of restoring my right and healthy relationship with you. Please be honored by my therapy and my choice to fight for my freedom (which you won on the cross) and my relationship with you (again, made possible by the cross). Be glorified in my therapy, and cover anything sinful with your incredible grace. Make me strong enough to complete my exposures. Provide the strength I need to press through this scary therapy, and let these hard exposures and choices (that may sometimes seem wrong to me) glorify you. Amen.

There were definitely times when I (and others– wow, that was hard!) wondered if I was doing something wrong with my ERP exposures, but in my heart of hearts, I knew that this was my last and best chance at freedom and health and hope. I held onto that and pressed through, and I will tell you this: every. single. thing. in my life is better post-ERP, in particular, my spiritual life is now thriving and health

y. I am growing in my faith. I have the joy of salvation. I trust Christ more.