5 Tips to Cope with a Stressful Writing Season

by Beth K. Vogt @BethVogt

I’m one stressed writer as I prep this blog post. Juggling a lot of competing demands.

That’s my reality. Both my real life and my writing life are busy, busy, busy. 

Maybe you know exactly what I mean.

What’s a writer to do besides put her head down, be stressed, and do all she’s got to do?

There must be a better way than writing while wading through stress.

There is.

And I have an action plan to get through this overwhelming season.

5 Coping Tips for a Stressful Writing Season

1. Enlist my prayer partners. I’m honest with my friends who pray for me daily. About how busy I am. The stress. Everything I need to do. Leaning into their prayers keeps me grounded and gives me hope. 

2. Accept the season with grace. Avoiding all I must do adds to my stress as commitments pile up and time runs out. If I’m overcommitted, I need to admit it. This is also the time to let my yes be yes, and then buckle down and get things done. This busy, busy, busy time will pass, and I’ll catch my breath again, but for now, I need to be gracious with myself. 

3. Don’t wash the elephants that aren’t going to be in the parade. It’s okay if I let the non-essentials go. This is not the time to daydream about that new novel. Not the time to go shopping, no matter how good that escape makes me feel. No cleaning closets, either. But I should keep exercising, even if it’s going for a walk or riding my exercise bike while reading through my manuscript.

4. Tackle the small stuff first. Sometimes I’ve got so much to do, it’s easy to spin my wheels and get nothing done. This is when I pick something simple from my To Do list. Staring down a book deadline and multiple guest blog posts? I tackle a 300-to-500-word blog post first. Even getting a rough draft of a blog post down is great because I can always come back and edit it later. (And yes, that’s exactly how this post got written.)

5. Break down the bigger stuff into smaller increments. I recommend doing your writer math. I look at how many days I have to accomplish my rough draft. Divide the word count by the days I have before I need to submit the manuscript. Now I know the daily word count and have a measurable goal for each day. I alternate between my book word count and my blog posts or between my writing goal and my real life tasks.

Stress happens, but with some planning and some grace, stress is manageable. Do any of these tips appeal to you where you are in your writing life?

TWEETABLE

5 Tips to Cope with a Stressful Writing Season from author @BethVogt on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

Beth K. Vogt believes God’s best often waits behind the doors marked “Never.” She’s authored 14 novels and novellas, both romance and women’s fiction. Beth is a Christy Award winner, an ACFW Carol Award winner, and a  RITA® finalist. Her novel Things I Never Told You, book one in her Thatcher Sisters Series by Tyndale House Publishers, won the 2109 AWSA Golden Scroll Award for Contemporary Novel of the Year. An established magazine writer and former editor of the leadership magazine for MOPS International, Beth blogs for Learn How to Write a Novel and The Write Conversation and also enjoys speaking to writers group and mentoring other writers. She lives in Colorado with her husband Rob, who has adjusted to discussing the lives of imaginary people. Connect with Beth at bethvogt.com.

Featured Image: Photo by Elisa Ventur on Unsplash