A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

Writer’s block means the child doesn’t have access to the words inside. When words are hidden behind anxiety, fear of failure, or a vague sense of the topic, give oodles of empathy and hugs, offer a snack, and talk about how to make writing less painful. Remind yourself of the goal – a free, brave writer who is at ease when writing.

Don’t do it!

Don’t yell at your child to write or to just get three sentences on the page.

We’ve all done it (even me). Sometimes it’s exasperating to watch your child simply not put the pencil to the page. You think to yourself: If this kid would just scrawl a few words onto the page so you could MOVE ON with the day…! Grrrr. And so, you lose your cool on your child. Sigh. It happens.

When the Writing Won’t Come

When a child experiences “writer’s block,” it means there’s something in the way. At that point, the lesson shifts. Your task now is to understand what’s in the way, to provide support and a context that might ease the pressure to allow the words to bubble up.

Remember: even writing “I’m stuck, I’m stuck, I’m stuck” counts! That’s the transcription of the ticker tape in the mind. Start there: notice it and write it.

Sharing a story of your own experience of writing blocks helps too. When I was seventeen, I was in a competition for an award that required writing an essay under timed pressure. I froze for 50 whole minutes. Nothing came! The more I panicked, the fewer words I had available to write. Finally the bell rang and I was released from my misery.  I lost the competition and learned a big lesson: pressure to write makes writing more challenging.

I’ve shared that story with my kids. Dig up the time when writing was hard for you. Talk about it over cookies. Give permission to not write today, or to write poorly—to in fact welcome their truth.

Trust.

Today may not be a good writing day. Another day may present differently once you make room for the hard days too.

This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebravewriter is my account there so come follow along for more conversations like this one!

Every subject in the universe has magic in it. It’s up to us to find it.

Magic. Enchantment. Delight.

Pick the word you like best.

• I know the delight of puns, the music of alliteration when terms trip off the tongue, the value of vivacious verbs, the goodness of the precise word, the emphatic power of an exclamation point.
• I know the intimacy of a character as best friend, the window into another world I’ve never known, the lingering over a book after it’s finished savoring the end.
• I know the shock of card tricks, the satisfaction of getting the right answer, the seduction of writing in code, the maddening nature of fractions, and the joy of their precision and practicality in quilting.
• I know the anticipation of our backyard nuthatch descending the tree trunk head first, the startling volcanic overflow of baking soda and vinegar, the graphing of leaves falling off our front yard maple.
• I know the surprise of familiar yearnings and dreams in people who lived long ago and far away, the abject terror of war, the digging up of fossils in a creek bed so old we can’t count the years, the tantalizing invitation to revisit old documents to ask them our new questions.

I know these experiences because I learned with my kids. They got up close and put their bodies in the way of learning. They pushed me to find the connective tissue between “academic objective” and “personal value.”

That intersection is boldly marked: “Magic.”

When I talk about magic, I’m saying that children relate better to surprise and mystery, risk and adventure than they do to rote memorization or testing. The joy and amazement that drive their participation in sports, games, and play CAN and SHOULD animate their school subjects.

This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebravewriter is my account there so come follow along for more conversations like this one!

The number one way to improve your experience is to do the thing!” and “If you do ONE thing each day, you will make progress and pacify the guilt gremlins.

I know I know. But seriously.

It’s impossible to do All. The. Things. I know you want to do all the things. But here’s what else I know.

That ONE thing that would change your life? That’s the one to do. Make it number one. Rather than focusing on all the stuff that you can do first, or that you think would make your main thing more likely or possible… go straight to the MAIN thing—the top priority.

Let me give you an example.

You say you want to homeschool. So you put all your energy into curriculum shopping, organizing materials, discussing teaching methods, arranging a school room… and yet you feel like you never get around to the actual doing of the home educating.

Flip it. Dive into education first.

• Grab a book and start reading it aloud in the middle of the mess.
• Go ahead and write times tables on the window with window markers.
• Call out the sounds of the letters while you roll them into play-doh shapes.
• Talk about why the leaves change color in the fall.
• Walk outside and look at, touch, hold, and examine leaves.

Let the activity of the main thing lead the way (rather than endlessly preparing to do it).

Same goes if, say, you want to be a writer. Open the laptop, open a word doc, and type. You don’t need a better office, candles, wall hangings, plants, or an agent. What you need is words. Get them out! I conducted my entire writing career on a laptop on a kitchen counter for twenty years. You can too!

If the Main Thing is organizing your house for a move, start tossing stuff and don’t worry about homeschooling while doing it. This is a short-lived season. Go all in and get it done.

The point is: whatever the main thing is, you will feel better when you do the substance of it rather than the preparation for it. Cook the food, go for the run, hang the painting, repot the plant, buy the plane ticket, do the science experiment, start the math book. Do whatever the thing is.

Make progress. Feel better.

What’s your one thing today?

This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebravewriter is my account there so come follow along for more conversations like this one!