Writing on Deadline When You Feel Sad

by A.C. Williams @ACW_Author

The Christmas season is upon us with all its tinsel and lights and general chaos. I love Christmas. It’s my favorite time of year. But the pure joy of the season has changed a bit from when I was younger. Sometimes this whole adulting thing really stinks.

It’s a natural part of life that what brought us joy as children will change as we age, and it’s not even bad that it happens. It’s part of growing up, where your perspective matures and your relationships change. But along with that change often comes sadness. 

Grief and sorrow hit harder during the holiday season. Sometimes it’s missing a person who isn’t with you anymore. Sometimes it’s memories of how things used to be, how you wish they still were. Sometimes it’s just being around other people who are celebrating when you don’t feel like celebrating. 

First of all, please let me say that if you don’t feel like celebrating in this season of your life, don’t fake it. Don’t pretend that you’re okay if you aren’t. True friends won’t expect you to put on an act to make them feel better. 

Grief is weird. It rarely does what you think it will do, and it always shows up when you aren’t expecting it. And, honestly, grief rarely looks like debilitating sobs or the dramatic flinging of yourself across a bed to wail in abject sorrow. I mean, if that’s what it looks like for you, that’s fine, I suppose. But in my experience grief looks more like anxiety or insomnia or procrastination or short tempers. Sometimes tears happen but not always. And you never know what will trigger it either. Sometimes it’s the most innocuous things. 

Recognizing grief is an essential step in managing it, because we all grieve differently. But let’s stop ignoring the elephant in the room, shall we? 

How do you write when you’re grieving? How do you focus your creative brain enough to put words on a page when all you want to do is cry?

Grief is the most upsetting, distracting ball of emotions I’ve ever had to deal with, and I’ve had to learn how to write all over again in this season of my life dealing with it. 

As a professional author, you don’t have the luxury of saying you don’t feel like writing. If you are on deadline, you often don’t have the time to take a day off. You have to hit your deadlines. Its not a matter of pride, it’s a matter of practicality. If the people paying you to write can’t count on content from you, they won’t keep asking you to write for them.

So how do you stay on deadline when you can’t focus? How can you hit your word count goals when your emotions are like a flood? How can you get words on the page when all you can feel is feelings? 

Here are three things I’ve learned in my personal season of grief that are helping me hit my deadlines consistently.

1. Keep a journal

Whether this is a spare notebook or an intentional journal where you put down your specific thoughts on a topic, give yourself permission to write something no one else will ever see. I like to be efficient in how I write, so writing something that serves no practical purpose in adding to my published works feels counterintuitive. But in my journal, I am free to write what I feel whether it’s true or not, whether it’s encouraging to someone else or not, whether it’s grammatically correct or not. My journal is my safe place to dump my feelings without analyzing them, without worrying that my expression of grief will mislead someone else. 

It’s messy. It’s ugly. It’s usually smeared because I can’t get through an entry without crying. And something amazing happens when I’m done: I feel better. I feel calmer. I feel more focused and intentional and able to think about doing something instead of just feeling things.

2. Have multiple projects

This may be a controversial suggestion, but I’m going to make it anyway because it’s helped me. Work on more than one project at one time. Granted, I don’t think it’s a good idea to divide your attention too much, and if you try this and find that it stresses you out more, stop. You need to do what works for you. But I find that having a fiction project and a non-fiction project going at the same time helps keep my brain engaged with writing even when I don’t feel like writing. 

When I’m having a particularly emotional day, fiction usually eludes me. There’s something about the level of creativity fiction requires from me that makes it a struggle when I’m experiencing stronger than normal sadness. So on very sad days, I focus on my non-fiction. I have been writing daily devotions since 2011, and that’s where I go to keep up my word count when my fiction brain isn’t functioning. 

It doesn’t have to be devotions, though. Write a memoir. Write a blog post. Work on your marketing content. Just keep writing so when you’re feeling clearer you can go back to your fiction without any atrophy of your writing muscle.

3. Make intentional space

Finally, I don’t want to tell you to plan to grieve, but—plan to grieve. Expect that you will face sorrow and sadness at some point in your life. If you haven’t gone through a season of struggle that affects your concentration yet, you will. Like I said at the start, it’s a normal part of life. So build in some buffer around your deadlines. This isn’t something you always can control, especially if you are traditionally published, but in those instances, be sure to communicate. Most people will be willing to work with you if you are able to express where you’re at in your journey. Grief will slow you down, even if you are processing in a healthy way. Do yourself a favor and expect it. 

All of that to say, be gentle with yourself. Grief is a process, no matter what or who you’ve lost. It’s also normal and natural (and even biblical, my Christian friends).

Value your deadlines and your career as a professional author, but don’t neglect to also value your grief. It’s not fun or easy, but as you learn to manage it in a healthy way, you’ll gain insights you don’t expect. Who knows? Maybe one day later in your life, you’ll find yourself writing a blog post about it in hopes of encouraging others who are walking the same road as you.

Nothing is ever wasted, my friends. Not even grief.

TWEETABLE

Writing on Deadline When You Feel Sad from @ACW_Author on @EdieMelson (Click to Tweet)

A.C. Williams, also known as Amy C. Williams, is a coffee-drinking, sushi-eating, story-telling nerd who loves cats, country living, and all things Japanese. Author of more than 20 books, she keeps her fiction readers laughing with wildly imaginative adventures about samurai superheroes, clumsy church secretaries, and goofy malfunctioning androids; her non-fiction readers just laugh at her and the hysterical life experiences she’s survived. If that’s your cup of tea (or coffee), join the fun at www.amycwilliams.com.