Encouragement From The Guys!

It’s a distinct possibility that a few people misunderstood my previous post on encouragement and were under the impression I was talking about ego stroking or relying on other people’s appreciation for our sense of self-worth.  Being misinterpreted is something that I’m already beginning to get used to – which is useful, as it’s sure to happen more and more the further along this writing journey that I get :-)

True encouragement isn’t about sycophantic praise, but giving people courage to press on.  That’s the best explanation I’ve ever heard on encouragement in this sermon from my much missed church leader, Arnold Bell.  It was definitely one of those mornings when you feel like the speaker is talking solely and directly to you!

Although I stand by my comment about encouragement being a predominantly female attribute, it would be wrong not to acknowledge that some of the most powerful sources of encouragement for me on this writing journey have been male. While I do have a few male friends who make the effort to encourage me (thank you guys!), most of that male encouragement comes in more general and public ways, rather than personally.

Someone I find constantly encouraging, via Twitter, is Nicky Gumbel. What a wise, inspiring and godly guy - I wish he was my dad!  He has that amazing gift of so often having the right words at the right time for me.  I could give you pages of examples from his tweets but here’s my current Top 5:

Your talent is God's gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.

Be generous with encouragement. It is verbal sunshine. It costs nothing, it warms hearts and enriches lives.

'To avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.'

Humility is not a denial of ability; it is a recognition of where it comes from and for whom it must be used.

If you think you are too small to make a difference, you haven't spent the night with a mosquito - African Proverb

 (And one for luck - If the grass looks greener on the other side, it's probably astroturf.)

Another key encouragement and inspiration recently has been a musician called Michael Gungor.  He’s written an amazing book called “The Crowd, The Critic and The Muse: A Book For Creators”, and it’s what he talks about in relation to the title that really resonated with me.  Whatever you create – art, writing, poetry, craft, photography, cookery, anything - it’s important to consider where our creativity flows from and what influences it.  This extract sums up issues that I’ve already started to face and will do even more so, if any of my work is ever published.

“For the creator there will always be the voices.

Voices of critique.  Voices of affirmation.  The voices of the ego and the audience.  The marketers, the fans, the bloggers, or the executives.  The more exposure that an artist has to the outside world, the louder the voices will become.  The more successful the work, the more people will step in to try to influence and manipulate the work for their own benefit.

The creator has a decision to make.

What voice will I listen to?

This decision must be made daily.  Hourly.  Moment to moment.  As the voices swell and pitch, demanding that she go this way or that, the creator must decide which voice to listen to.

The crowd, the critic or the muse?

This decision will give her creation its form.”

The critic – real or imagined – can be very useful and enable us to see and take action on flaws and weaknesses in our work.  But it can also be crippling or make us change our work into something it shouldn’t be, just to keep them happy.

The problem with always listening to the crowd is, again, the temptation to create something that they want, rather than creating what I truly want to create. There’s no harm in keeping in mind what might be commercially viable – and I do – but if I write a story that I think will satisfy the crowd mentality, rather than express what is within me, then I won’t be writing fully with my voice.  It could become a commercial product, a churning out of the same old, same old, instead of something that is deeply unique and personal.

The muse should be the primary source of our creativity:

“Creative work should not come out of who the external voices want you to be, or who you wish you were, but from who you are.

You are not a mere cog in a machine.  You are a human being, unique and miraculous.  The whirls and lines in the skin of your fingertips are unique to you.  Only you have your particular set of relationships, beliefs, passions and circumstances, and only you have the ability to create what you ought to create.

As an artist, the voices you listen to ought to align with that inner Voice who knows who you are.”

As a Christian, that Voice for me is God.  He is my Encourager, and seeing as He told me to be a writer in the first place, His encouragement alone can keep me writing ;-)  He is also my Inspiration and the Source of my creativity.  I’m not writing Christian books, but they will naturally contain my worldview as it’s part of who I am and I am their author.  Being a Christian writer could undoubtedly be a cause for criticism from some people in the future, even though few other writers will have their beliefs delved into and criticised in the same way.  However, if I try to write and create anything other than my stories, then I may as well not write at all.  If you want different stories then fair play - but someone else will write those for you.

My stories – whether I’m conscious of it in the writing process or not – spring from my unique set of “relationships, beliefs, passions and circumstances”, as do everyone else’s.  I’m only just beginning to discover how those emerge and merge in my writing, but it’s a fascinating process.  And if you ever want to give me courage to press on with that (aka encouragement) – whether you’re male or female! – then please feel free!  I will endeavour to the same for you :-)

An Encouraging Rant!

I like to think I’m a bit of an encourager.  And unfortunately, because I naturally look for ways to encourage people, I have noticed that there really isn't as much encouragement going around as there jolly well should be! 

Encouragement also seems to be a predominantly female trait.  Take one of my recent Facebook statuses as an example.  I shared my excitement that I’d finally finished the third edit of my book, which is a flipping big deal to me!  29 people liked that status - 28 women and 1 MAN (thanks Nick!)!  I have lots of male "friends" on Facebook, so do I assume they’re not good at encouraging, don’t realise how encouraging the “Like” function is or just don't care about me and my life? 

This is tongue-in-cheek, just in case you were wondering...

I came across a fantastic blog post a few weeks ago and its suggestion blew me away with its simplicity and power.  Rachel, aka Hands Free Mama, talks about the amazing change that came about in her kids and her relationship with them, by simply sharing her pleasure in what they did, rather than always analysing their performance and suggesting room for improvement (which I also find far too easy to do). So, instead of suggesting ways her daughter could perfect her swimming technique, she just said "I love to watch you swim", because it was true.  The response from her daughter was beautiful.  

I decided to try it out and was amazed by the results. I would add at this point that it needs to be genuine and sincere, not an attempt at manipulation!  Tempting though it is, I haven't yet said to my kids "I love watching you unload the dishwasher" or "I love watching you vacuuming" :-D  But I have said (among other things) "I love watching you guys chatting together and enjoying each other’s' company", coz it really does warm my heart to see that.  They beamed at that comment and harmonious sibling relations were enjoyed for the rest of the day!

Encouragement has to be genuine though!  But it's really not hard.  It might involve opening your eyes a bit more to what's going on around you, or intentionally taking the time to vocalise what you're feeling.

I could tell one friend that I love watching them take photos, coz not only are they great photos, but I'm fascinated by how they see the world.  I could tell another friend that I love to see how they welcome and care for people.  I could tell many friends that I love seeing how much passion they are pouring into projects that will bring freedom and change to the lives of people facing really dire situations.

There are an overwhelming number of negative and discouraging comments floating around in the world already.  We can see, hear and read them all the time.  Why not play a small part in bringing in a greater tide of encouragement today and in future todays?!

One piece of encouragement can make a huge difference in someone's life.  It could be the difference between them doing something or not, or how confidently or enthusiastically they go about doing it.  A little encouragement goes a long way, but it doesn’t last a lifetime though.  We need to do it more regularly, in all sorts of ways and about all sorts of things.  Why?  Because it’s so easy to get discouraged and end up thinking "why bother....?".  That can leave us feeling hurt or disillusioned, withdrawing from people and situations, and not giving out as much encouragement to others.

It's well understood amongst writers that we swing so easily (within the same 5 minute period sometimes) between thinking our work is brilliant and then complete rubbish, with very little middle ground!  I am plagued by regular doubts about what I'm doing:

"I'm deluding myself that I’m even a half-decent writer" OR

"I’m wasting my time coz I probably won’t get published and if I do then no one will like or buy my books anyway”

These insipid voices tell us that no one cares and what we’re doing is pointless, unimportant and unappreciated.  But, when we encourage one another, our voices drown out these crushing demoralising voices and people are released to do whatever it is they’re supposed to do.

Why am I so passionate about encouragement? It's not just coz I would like more of it, although naturally I would ;-)  Writing is a solitary business and it’s too easy for me to hear the discouraging thoughts/voices when I’m on my own.  I’ve learnt a lot about how to manage this issue recently - I’ll tell you more in a future post – which is why I’m able to write this post now without so much of a personal agenda (honest!).

I’m passionate about this issue, because I genuinely believe that if people were more encouraging and encouraged then we would all excel more at what we do.  It could make the world a better place in so many different ways…

Leftovers - How Life Mirrors Cooking!

As a writer I’m fascinated by that old conundrum – “does life mirror art or does art mirror life?”  Recently though, I’ve been pondering “does life mirror cooking or does cooking mirror life?” ;-)

I’ve always hated using up leftovers.  Perhaps it’s because I’m continually ready to move onto the next thing.  Leftovers mean that I’m eating what I ate yesterday or the day before that, all over again.  It’s like Groundhog Day when actually it’s a whole new day and I should be eating something different!

Fortunately my husband loves leftovers, so I’m not quite as wasteful as I could be!  He can happily eat the same thing for days on end (well, 5 days max apparently!).  

For years I’ve thrown leftovers away – not just the remains of last night’s dinner, but a quarter of a pot of cream that was used for something else last week but is now going off, or the excess square of pastry that wasn’t needed for the top of the pie.  It’s a regular source of irritation that recipes hardly ever use the amounts of an ingredient that it has to be purchased in.  Butter comes in 250g pats, so why do SO many recipes want 225g?!  

Recently though, I’ve started to be more adventurous and see these things as a challenge – my very own Masterchef “what on earth can I do with that?” moments :-)

So, there’s the well-known adage that if life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  I’ve brought my own interpretation to this recently:

If life gives you leftover puff pastry, make quick and easy Apple Tart.

If life gives you half a pot of sour cream, make Mocha Sour Cream Cake.

Now, this brilliant use of leftovers may be thanks to my recent acquired passion for Masterchef Australia and the cooking inspiration that it’s re-ignited in me.  But possibly it’s also due to what I’ve been learning over the last couple of years and have already mentioned in this blog – that it’s important to try to make the best of what life throws at you and turn it into something good and productive whenever possible!

This might be getting repetitive for you – and if so, then I apologise! – but repetition is a key way we learn.  In most things I’m a fast learner, but in life lessons I can be so slow sometimes :-)

My life/writing “leftovers” (or things that I’d rather get rid of and not have to deal with!) are things like this.  Recently I was overwhelmed by some unhelpful emotions that made me feel like a tsunami had smashed me off my feet, spinning me round and round so that I couldn’t think straight and didn’t know which way was up.  Before I finished dealing with those thoughts and that situation, I wrote down exactly how I felt.  I’ve just read it back and its power surprised me, because today I’m feeling happy and peaceful.  If I hadn’t captured the intensity and depth of those emotions by writing them down, then I would have forgotten how it felt (I am incredibly forgetful!) and not gained any benefit from the pain.  I hope not to end up in the same situation again, but I can redeem it somewhat by using it to give depth and authenticity to the experience of the protagonist in my YA novel.

A few weeks ago I had a dream/nightmare which began with a grey cloud coming closer and engulfing things, a bit like a CBRN incident.  As it developed I lost contact with my family.  When I woke up I recorded the fear, uncertainty, frustration and helplessness I felt in that situation.  I’d already been planning to include a scenario like this in my YA novel, so again an unpleasant experience will be turned into something more positive.

Both of the “leftover” bakes were fabulous (there are other examples I could have shared as well) and the Mocha Cake has actually become my new favouritest cake. Consequently, I have to admit to being very happy with my newfound talent of embracing, rather than chucking, annoying leftovers!  I’m even more pleased though that my writing means I can take difficult, distressing, irritating and nasty situations, grab the essence of them and utilise them to improve my writing, rather than just suffering them.

There will be good stuff in my books too!!  Those feelings seem easier to remember and articulate though as, thankfully, they’re more common that the crappy stuff in my life :-)