Check out this week’s writing prompt on my website!
February is the month for love and romance. It’s the time of year when our thoughts turn to our closest relationships, whether they be with a spouse, significant other, a friend, a child or a parent. Even if you’re not in a relationship currently, your thoughts may stray to someone you’ve loved before, or would like to love in the future.
In the publishing business, your closest relationship could be with your agent, editor, writing coach or readers. However, don’t overlook the most important relationship – the one you have with your writing.
Is there such a thing as a writer-writing relationship? Yes, if you think of your writing life as a separate entity. You can either embrace it, welcome it into your life with open arms, or reject it as some strange being who insists on getting more attention from you, more than you can possibly give to it.
If you do recognize your writing life as a separate being, how do you built a loving, kind and respectful relationship with it? Here’s one example of a writer-writing relationship, courtesy of Annie Mueller. Also check out this anatomy of a writing relationship by Samantha Stout.
I believe that a writer’s success hinges on how well they relate to their craft. If you love what you write, your writing will love you back – or at least it should. If you give it the time and attention it deserves, your writing will reward you down the road, even surprise you when you least expect it. Just like a real relationship with a human being.
What you and your craft create together is as close to a partnership as you can find. Your writing can draw you out of yourself and bring out the best of you. It can showcase your deepest thoughts and emotions, and show how you have grown through life experience.
Likewise, your time, attention and effort will make your writing shine to editors and readers. Sure there will be rough spots when one or both of you don’t feel inspired to work with the other. There will be times when you ignore each other even. But then those periods may be followed by happy reunions when you work so seamlessly together and you wonder how you ever thought you could live without the other. You need each other, like sunshine needs the rain to keep the earth’s flowers from drying out.
As I’ve explored my own writer-writing partnership experience, I’ve noted a few rules of engagement to make sure it works. Here’s how you can create a healthy relationship with your own writing endeavor.
1. Spend quality time with one another. Try to minimize distractions. Whether you spend an hour a day or several hours a week, it’s important to use that time to learn about each other, to recognize strengths and accept the flaws. Understand each other’s desires and motivations, what makes you tick. If you don’t spend quality time together with your craft, how will your relationship to each other ever grow strong?
2. Recognize each other’s faults, and love each other despite them. Your writing has weak spots, quirky characteristics, routines and tendencies. With time and attention, the writer in you can strengthen those areas and perhaps lessen their detrimental impact. Your writing is an extension of yourself, with all its flaws and mysteries. Your writing is not perfect, but then, neither are you. So accept the flaws, improve them if you can, but otherwise, accept them for part of who you are.
3. Stay friends, even during the rough patches. You may never fully fall in love with your writing, but at least make friends with it. Develop a healthy respect for each other. Keep the lines of communication open to leave open the possibility of a reconciliation. Even as friends, you can learn and grow together.
4. Know when to make sacrifices and special accommodations for your other half. There will be times when each of you will need to make sacrifices and special accommodations for the other, just as if you were in a relationship with a human. For example, your writing may call to you at the most inappropriate times, like during your son’s soccer game or during a movie. It may demand you take notes of a new story idea. You’ll have to decide whether to give in to that demand or ignore it, which could be risky because you don’t know if that idea could evolve into a meaningful story.
5. Keep your heart engaged in the process. Whether writing soulful stories or romantic poetry, be sure your heart is truly engaged in the creative process. Share your deepest fears and your triumphant moments. That’s what will bring out the best in your writing. Without heart, your writing will appear bland and boring.
6. Take a break from each other when necessary. If you lose motivation to write, it might be time for a trial separation. The break might give you proper perspective on your writing partnership. It might give clarity about where you want to go with your current work-in-progress and how to get there. Alternately, if the relationship is beyond repair, dump the project that’s giving you problems and move on to something else.
7. Ask yourself why you love to write. If you love writing for all the right reasons, then you are bound to have a strong, healthy relationship with it. But if you’re doing it for the wrong reasons, such as seeing your name in print or writing to please someone else, the writing side of your partnership may suffer at some point and your interest it may wane. When you remember your ‘why” of writing, you’ll likely return to center and stay motivated through difficult stretches.
It may seem odd to treat your writing as a significant other, but think about where you would be without it. When you view your writing as a true partner that you love for life, you’ll treat it with the care and devotion it deserves. Both you and your writing will thrive.
The Regal Writer 