Stepping Away from the World to Get into the Zone

 

Photo Credit: Ron Lach via Pexels

Sometimes, the world is just too loud.

 

I don’t mean loud on an audible level. I’m Deaf, so noise doesn’t bother me. I mean loud on a mental level.

 

There are all of these things constantly going on: Social media feeds, emails, TV, outside distractions and books. Especially books!

 

And sometimes, I just need to step away from it all in order to write.

 

But before I can write, I need to get into a zone. If I know what I’m going to write, then I focus myself mentally and, if needed, emotionally for that particular kind of work.

 

In other words, I get into a zone.

 

“Being in the zone” typically means that you get so caught up with the work you are doing that you start to hyperfixate on it. You can’t focus on anything else until you are done with the work.

 

This will happen to me sometimes, but there is another kind of zone that I get myself into as well.

 

The zone that helps me to write.

 

Like I said, knowing what I need to write will help me to figure out what kind of zone I need to get into. But if I don’t know what I want to write, only that I WANT or NEED to write, then I shut down. I don’t look at my phone, read anything, check email, make any phone calls or go anywhere. No, I just sit in a place where I won’t be disturbed and get myself into a zone where I will be able to write something.

 

All of the stuff that we are exposed to every day – phone apps, TV shows, movies, music, videos, hobbies and activities – tend to distract us from tuning into our creativity. We get so caught up with these things and so distracted that we forget who we are: Writers. And we forget what we must do: Write.

 

So for this reason, it’s a good idea to occasionally step away from all of those things and focus on our ability to write.

 

This is why I often write first thing in the morning, before I do or see or read anything else. I put myself 100% into the task of writing and be 100% present for the work. I’ll put my phone upside down so it won’t distract me, keep the TV off so that it won’t distract me, and sit down to write in a place where I won’t be able to pick up a book or magazine to read. (One of the desks I write at is next to a bookcase, but all of the books on there are reference books, so I won’t pick one up to read unless I need to look something up – though I often use Google for that!)

 

But on the days when I don’t write first thing in the morning, I’ll still make sure that, when I need to write something, I get myself into the zone for writing first. That’s when I’m not available for chats or to answer emails or … whatnot. No, I’m focused on the work that I must do, and I must not allow myself to be distracted by other things.

 

This has helped me to get quite a bit of writing done far more effectively than other strategies. Sometimes, I just need to step away from everything going on in the world and all around me to get into the right headspace so that I can write. Doing this has also helped me to write on certain topics or in certain genres that required my full attention.

 

Some writers try to achieve this by changing their environment, routines, clothing or writing space. And all of those things can be very effective to help writers get into the zone to write. But, for me, all it takes is shutting down, being where I am not interrupted and without distractions, and telling my muse, “It’s time to write.”  

Writing is What Gave Me Hope When I Was About to Lose All Hope

 

Photo Credit: fotografierende via Pixabay

 

The year was 2020 and it was not only a bad year for the entire world that was dealing with a pandemic, but it was also a bad year for me. After months of dealing with constantly changing protocols at a job that required I wear a mask for several hours, I resigned. I didn’t want to quit this job, but because I had been written up too many times, I was faced with the choice to either quit or lose a substantial amount of money earned through PTO. So I quit that job in order to at least walk away with some money in my pocket to help tide us over until something else came along.

 

Still, I was very depressed, as I had created an entire identity around that job. I loved the work, so it was hard to walk away from it after almost three years. But it was time for a change.

 

And that change was writing.

 

I did manage to get another job shortly after I resigned from being a Direct Support Professional (DSP), but I was let go from it three months later.

 

The thing that was still a constant in my life even after I lost the other job? Writing.

 

Up until I started writing again in late 2020, I had been dealing with a dry spell. This occurred during my recovery from alcoholism-induced pancreatitis, which happened in 2017. For some reason, I was unable to write! As worrying and alarming as this was for me, I didn’t realize at the time that my body was going through a transformation. After years of being a heavy drinker, I was no longer drinking. I was no longer an alcoholic. And this shift took my body by surprise. This shift meant that I needed to go through a reset and allow my body, as well as my brain, to heal from those years of addiction.

 

I had to wait until I was able to write again in order to resume writing again. Writing did come back into my life, in its own time. At the right time. At a time that I needed it the most.

 

While I was going through that dry spell, though, I focused my energy on finding satisfaction through other means. I read books, threw myself into my job, and got out there to explore. These things brought me satisfaction. They brought me joy.

 

But once the BIGGEST thing that brought me joy was gone, I hit rock bottom. I was extremely depressed. And because I kept hearing about more people dying from Covid as well as more people losing their jobs and more people struggling through the pandemic, I started to lose hope.

 

Then writing came back into my life. It brought me the joy that I lost. Even better, it brought back hope. Being able to write again was something of a miracle for me, and it brought some hope back into my life.

 

And nearly six years later, I am still writing. (I am also still sober!)

 

Having witnessed how writing can change a person’s life and boost their mental health is what inspired me to write the book Write for Your Life!: The Health Benefits of Writing. While doing research for this book, I learned about how writing can improve our mental health. As someone who has chronic depression, anxiety, and panic disorder, I have also personally experienced how writing has indeed helped my mental health. Writing provides me with a strong sense of satisfaction, release, empowerment, and therapy. I keep a daily journal, and I gotta say that being able to rant and whine on the pages has been immensely helpful. (Sometimes I’ll rant to my husband, but only after he insists that I share what is bothering me. I really don’t like dumping things on people.)  

 

While I understand that not everyone can benefit from writing, it still remains a powerful tool in coping with the downsides of life, as well as offering healing when mental health issues get out of hand.

 

Writing is the one thing we have control over.

 

Writing is the one thing we can choose to do in our own time.

 

Writing is the one thing that we can rely on as a constant in our lives.

 

The best part about writing? Anyone can do it. You don’t need to write for publication. You don’t need any special tools to write with (you can write with pen and paper or even on your phone). You don’t need to have any special training in order to write. You can write, in your own way and in your own time.

 

So, write. It will offer you the joy you might be missing. It can bring some hope back into your life. I know that it did for me, and it still does.

Have Yourself a Toxic Family Christmas: NEW RELEASE of Home for the Holidays!

 

No, I am not ACTUALLY wishing this upon you. I am merely suggesting you read about a toxic family Christmas – in my new book!

 

I hope you have an awesome Christmas, if you celebrate it. And if you don’t? Please check out my new book anyway!

 

Some stories have a very interesting way of appearing to writers. They come as ideas, a feeling, a gentle nudge at our brain, a memory, an experience, an impression from something – or even as a scene!

 

That is what happened for me, with my new extreme horror novelette, Home for the Holidays. (Which is my FIRST extreme horror book! I am not new to writing extreme horror; I have done it with short stories. And I challenged myself to write extreme horror in a book-length story. I hope I succeeded!)

 

But, yes, this story came to me as one scene. The scene in question? A mother sitting at the table with her adult children and the three of them talking about what they wanted to do while they all had a break from school and work. That’s it! That was the scene!

 

So I wrote it. And at the end of the scene, the daughter says she wants to see Grandma, to which her mother looks at her with horror, then stands from the table and says “Absolutely not.”

 

Yep. That’s how the scene ended. And I was curious, too. Why was the mother saying they could not see her mother? Why did she want to keep her children away from their grandmother during Christmas?

 

These and other questions are what I pondered, explored and toyed around with as I tried to figure out the rest of this story.

 

One thing I observed during that particular holiday season that I wrote this story was that there were a lot of people posting online about how the holidays were not so cheerful for them, because they could not celebrate Christmas with their toxic families. I know people who have had to sever ties with their parents and siblings because of toxicity, homophobia/transphobia, or because of past abuse that seeps into the present. I myself have had to unfortunately sever ties with a couple of siblings who are toxic. (And, believe me, I have given them many chances, only because they are siblings. Family is hard, dammit.) This made me realize, you know, that not everyone gets to go home for the holidays.

 

And that’s where I got the title for my story. That’s also where the rest of my story started to unfold!

 

Toxic family + Christmas + the expectation (illusion?) of being with family during Christmas = the perfect Christmas horror story! I decided to make it extreme horror based on some of the things happening in the story.

 

I used some of my own experiences of past abuse from my dad in the story, and I combined it with other things I have read in books of abusive and toxic families, in creating the past of the mother of the adult children in the story. There’s also a dream I had of one scene in particular that I used in the story (writing that scene made me nauseous). And the amazing cover by the very talented Christy Aldridge of Grim Poppy Design gave me the nudge to write yet another scene. And, finally, an idea I had for another scene I added during the revision stage of this story came from my original idea of what the cover looked like.

 

But other than that, the story took on a life of its own. It’s definitely not the same story that was originally accepted by a publisher that now no longer exists but it ended up being the story I was satisfied with when it was published by Twisted Dreams Press on Friday the 13^th.

 

As a writer of horror, I challenge myself to try my hand at writing the different subgenres of horror. I will probably do the same when the time comes that I start writing fantasy, romance, suspense, etc. But for now, I am writing in the horror genre, and I’m happy that I made the leap to try writing an extreme horror book. It’s a novelette, sure, and maybe I’ll take it as far as writing an extreme horror novel at some point. For now, this is my contribution to the horror community, and I can only hope that it is a good one.

 

Blurb:

 

Mona Townsend was five years old when her mother tried to kill her father.

 

This crime cost her and her brother, Colton, 23, twenty years with their mother.

Finally reunited on one December morning, the siblings are willing to forgive all and create a fresh start with their mother.

With Christmas coming up, Mona wants to make the occasion extra special.

Knowing that her mother has had a long-term rift with her own mother, she and her brother hatch a plan: Why not surprise their mother with a family reunion so that the two women can bury the hatchet and have a relationship again? After all, if she was capable of forgiving her mother for the past, why wouldn’t her own mother want to set things right with her mother too?

It was Christmas, after all. A time for miracles and family.

But what Mona and Colton don’t know is that their mother had a very good reason for severing ties with her own mother, and that some families are too toxic to appreciate the holiday spirit.

 

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