Category: Uncategorized

 

Centuries of people on-the-go have resorted to holding hot, greasy meat and melting cheese with some sort of “edible napkin.” Sliced bread, bread bowls (known as “trenchers” in the Middle Ages,) and circular flat breads have helped people eat a wide variety of foods tucked inside. The bread holds everything together to makes it easier to eat and adds carbohydrates to the meal thereby filling tummies much quicker.

John Montague, 4^th Earl of Sandwich (England), was supposedly a notorious gambler who often refused to leave the gaming table to eat. One late night he ordered his valet to bring him meat between two slices of bread to eat while playing cards. The legend goes that others around the table ordered, “…the same as Sandwich!” Even though there is extensive record of people holding meat and cheese between bread before the illustrious Earl, the name sandwich stuck to our stand-by luncheon menu. 

Flatbread is an international phenomenon: Mexican tortillas, Chinese wontons, Mediterranean focaccia, Greek pita bread. Americans have the hotdog bun from the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair by way of the German sausage in a bun. Flatbread is typically quick to make and handy to eat as well as low in fat. From corn to wheat, most are a decent source of B vitamins and economical on the wallet. For a quick, filling meal, “wraps” are a great way to end a day at the studio. Add soup and yogurt for dessert to make cooking, eating, and clean up a snap (or a wrap!)

The wrap is the quick and easy answer to pangs of hunger and finances. Try these recipes some evening and make up some of your own favorites to carry cold for lunch. If you ever worry about calories from bread, try wraps for an efficient substitute. It’s worth it to buy tortilla shells and flatbread wraps instead of bread. You and your stomach will NOT miss the bloated feeling! 

Vegetarian Wrap 

Fantastic Feta Fill-up with Grilled Red Onion

                4 flour tortilla shells

                2 cups of fresh spinach

                ½ cup red onion, thin sliced

                ¾ cup crumbled feta cheese

½ cup roasted red peppers or 8 teaspoons of roasted red pepper relish*

                cooking spray

Spray the bottom of a non-stick frying pan with cooking spray. On medium-high heat, put the onion for one wrap in the pan and cover with one tortilla shell. Spoon 2 tablespoons of feta cheese on top of the shell then the red peppers. When the onions are soft with a little brown on them, fold the tortilla out of the way and spoon the onion into the shell with the cheese and peppers. Add fresh spinach and close the wrap. Turn once or twice to get a light brown color on both sides of the folded wrap. Repeat three more times. Makes four wraps.

*Roasted red peppers and red pepper relish are found on the grocery store shelf with the pickles. You’ll be pleasantly surprised with how low in fat they are!

Protein Wrap 

Terrific Turkey Turn-over

                4 flour tortilla shells

                2 cups of thin turkey strips cut from pre-cooked turkey breast

                1 cup lean, sliced deli ham or turkey ham

                ¾ cup red onion, sliced

                8 slices of Colby cheese

                1 cup shredded romaine lettuce

                Italian dressing

                Cooking spray 

Spray the bottom of a non-stick frying pan lightly with cooking spray. Saute red onions for 1-2 minutes. Add turkey and ham. While meat and onions are heating, spread two slices of Colby cheese on each tortilla shell. Evenly divide the meat-onion mixture on top of the cheese. Sprinkle with romaine lettuce and Italian dressing. Fold and serve.

Meanwhile, remember to look for a digital or print copy of Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity at Who Dares Wins Publishing, http://whodareswinspublishing.com. 

And check out these great blogs for ideas to keep your writing and publishing healthy and prosperous. 

http://writeitforward.wordpress.com/ Bob Mayer

http://jenniholbrooktalty.wordpress.com/ Jenni Holbrook

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/ Kristen Lamb

http://inspiration4writers.blogspot.com/ Inspiration for Writers, Inc. 

Be well, write well.

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

Look around. Is your work…well, is it ‘work’ and not one exciting, innovative creation after another? Could your material be so predictable that you are in what dancer/choreographer Twyla Tharp calls “a false start?” Tharp defines a “false start,” or a creative rut as different from being blocked and most definitely different from being in a good groove. “A rut is the part of the journey where you’re spinning your wheels, spitting out mud behind you, splattering other people, and not going anywhere. You know you’re in a rut when you annoy other people, bore your collaborators and supporters, fail to challenge yourself, and get the feeling that the world is moving on while you’re standing still. You may also feel that you’ve been here before; déjà vu, with some flop sweat on the side, is a sure sign of a rut. Perhaps the surest sign is a feeling of frustration and relief when you’re done (“Boy, I’m glad that’s over!”) rather than anticipatory pleasure (“I can’t wait to get back here tomorrow.”) Call it consistency, following a syllabus, or teaching a “graded system,” you know when your work is dry and uninspired. It happens to everyone. Don’t worry. There are some simple ideas to help refresh your artistry and renew the feeling of, “I love being me!” that every creative person knows.

If the inspiration inclination has temporarily slipped away and writing another page feels like pulling teeth (your own,) it could be a simple matter of needing to “fill the well” as writer Julia Cameron refers to in her book “The Artist’s Way.” Cameron says that the artist’s brain relies on images and that creativity is sometimes blocked or stymied by a lack of artistic brain food. Cameron recommends regular “artist dates” with yourself to “restock the pond” of artful ideas you seem to be lacking.

For an artist date, you simply schedule yourself to attend a thought provoking artistic event like a gallery opening or orchestra concert and ingest the sensations all around to help replenish your own source of creative energy. Cameron suggests a habitual practice of artist dates until you understand the ebb and flow of your creativity and how to use the work of other inspired creators to support your own creations.

When I first tried the regular artist date, it annoyed me because I felt like I was being taken away from my own work. Cameron and Tharp both claim that resistance is a sure sign that a respite is most assuredly the best medicine. After a year of consistently attending art shows, poetry readings, and independent film showings, I noticed a rush of recurrent creativity to the point where I can hardly keep up with myself today!

I heard a lecture by children’s author Phyllis Reynolds Naylor who summed up how I feel. Someone asked her what she did for writer’s block. “I don’t have writer’s block,” she said. “I have so many ideas floating around in my head all the time that I have writer’s diarrhea!” I now have a habit of enjoying the work of other artists and I’m positive it contributes to my never-ending flow of creativity and ideas.

Inspiration is always available to the artist who understands that creativity is a process dependent on many details. Here are some ideas to consider.

Low budget

1) Read books and magazines on creativity.

2) Start a journal. You will be amazed at the creative freedom you can experience from a regular habit of journaling.

3) Find an online community of artists and communicate.

4) Attend free art events like gallery showings, outdoor concerts, and crafts fairs.

Medium budget

1) Take classes from another local teacher. Online classes are getting better and better. Try one of the online workshops at Who Dares Wins Publishing www.whodareswinspublishing.com. Learning rejuvenates the creative spirit.

2) Analyze the work of other artists. Take pencil and paper and write down what you see or read in videos and books and dissect the creativity of others. Explain to yourself why they did what they did, and then how you would have done it differently and why.

3) Attend poetry readings, art shows, etc. at the local gallery or coffee shop.

4) Cruise through a history museum or see a local theatre production. 

High budget

1) Travel to an artist’s retreat or big city where art is revered and the process is respected. Take part in performances, conferences, workshops, and activities that allow you to deeply experience the art.

2) Take college courses at home or far away that will expand your appreciation of creativity.

Meanwhile, remember to look for a digital or print copy of Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity at Who Dares Wins Publishing, http://whodareswinspublishing.com.

And check out these great blogs for ideas to keep your writing and publishing healthy and prosperous. 

http://writeitforward.wordpress.com/ Bob Mayer

http://jenniholbrooktalty.wordpress.com/ Jenni Holbrook

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/ Kristen Lamb

http://inspiration4writers.blogspot.com/ Inspiration for Writers, Inc.

 Be well, write well.

 

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

Hopefully, you know by now that sit-ups are soooo yesterday. They only irritate the hip flexors and don’t do anything whatsoever for the rectus abdominis or the transversus abdominis which are where the real abdominal work needs to be done. Enter hatha yoga poses to save the day (again.) When the grunt-and-sweat method produces nothing but smelly gym clothes, people look around to see who has accomplished what they want to be and look like and copy them. Usually without giving the successful programs and people any credit. Fitness gurus are promoting an ancient yoga pose to build deep abdominal strength instead of multiples of useless sit-ups and crunches.

It’s called the plank pose (Utthita Chaturanga Dandasana, Sanskrit for utthita=extended; chaturanga=four limbs; danda=staff or stick.) Yogis never do crunches. In twenty-five years of practicing hatha yoga, I have never done a sit-up in yoga class, yet I can hold plank pose and all it’s variations a plenty long time. And it burns the twenty-two year-old college athletes in my classes who have lifted weights and chugged protein sludge daily for five years and they can’t hold plank the first time they try it for more than 15 seconds.

When they drop to the mat with a thump and a loud grunt, they remember I’m old enough to be their mother and I’m still holding plank and talking about its benefits and beauties and they get irritated. Sixty seconds later, I SLOWLY lower  to my stomach, sit up, smile and begin my brief explanation of the abdominal muscle system and how, while they may have a six-pack in their refrigerators, they will never have a true one on their bellies without working diligently on the transversus abdominis muscle hiding behind their flabby rectus abdominis out front. Once I say “core”, the lights go on and they listen.

What’s so great about forward inclined plank pose? It’s practically the all-around exercise. The only thing it doesn’t offer is a twist for internal organ cleanse. Wait, yes it does. The extremely advanced variation where you wrap one arm around your back, bend your leg, and grab your toes behind your back is a twisting variation of plank. It’s probably out of your range at present, but never stop reaching! Plank pose develops the abdominals by calling them into action because when you are balancing on your arms as required in forward plank, the spine’s natural orientation to gravity is negated.

Gravity pulls the front of the body and the spine to the earth and our work in plank is to pull those elements up and away from the gravitational pull. The muscular effort required to do this, simple as it sounds, builds strength and stamina in the whole abdominal area. The other reason it works is because the spine is kept straight and this frees the abdominal muscle group to do its job which is to hold you up. Just suck your belly and chest up to your spine and wait. It’ll happen.

Need a milder version that still works the abs? Balance on your forearms instead of your hands. Either way, don’t let your chest or belly sag toward the mat and work up to holding the pose for 60 seconds. What’s fun is trying the exciting variations of plank pose we do in hatha yoga all the time.

Reversed inclined plank and side plank have even more options. That’s the neat thing about yoga. There is always a way for anybody of any condition to try any part of it.

Plank a yogi, I mean, thank a yogi for an amazingly simple and challenging pose that produces results.

Meanwhile, remember to look for a digital or print copy of Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity at Who Dares Wins Publishing, http://whodareswinspublishing.com.

And check out these great blogs for ideas to keep your writing and publishing healthy and prosperous.

http://jenniholbrooktalty.wordpress.com/ Jenni Holbrook

http://writeitforward.wordpress.com/ Bob Mayer

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/ Kristen Lamb

http://inspiration4writers.blogspot.com/ Inspiration for Writers, Inc.

Be well, write well.

Tuesday Tickle 

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

 

Creative people need brain power. Brain power brings the good ideas out in the open so we can shape and form them into novels, paintings, or whatever medium it is we work with. Besides inspiration and the right foods, our mental faculties need regular workouts to stay sharp and focused so we can recognize a good idea when we see it. Puzzles are a quick and easy way to keep our thinking powerful. 

How and why do puzzles help our brains stay alert and focused? The brain’s mini-computer runs on “software” much like our laptops and other digital thinking tools. Our brains require attention, processing, cognitive flexibility, the ability to retrieve stored information, and reasoning skills to get us through our basic day. These functions need regular challenge and are strengthened and more readily available to us if we remember to weave brain exercises into our lives.

Schedule creative play and work puzzles on a regular basis and your brain skills will remain sharp and intact for much longer. We all have so much on our plates these days that working a puzzle for brain training rarely crosses our fuzzy minds. Keep it simple and play games on your cell phone, carry around a small word puzzle book, and keep puzzles readily available in the house where it will allow you take just a few minutes on a regular basis and work it out.

Here’s an interactive word search puzzle using words from the Writer Wellness plan to get you started. It’s fun. Try it and then look for other puzzling ways to keep your brain humming.

Writer Wellness Interactive Word Search Puzzle

 http://www.wordsearchmaker.net/wordsearchplayer.aspx?puzzleid=42e906f1-39ae-431c-ba09-3847845e5b61

**

Meanwhile, remember to look for a digital or print copy of Writer Wellness, A Writer’s Path to Health and Creativity at Who Dares Wins Publishing, http://whodareswinspublishing.com.

And check out these great blogs for ideas to keep your writing and publishing healthy and prosperous.

 http://writeitforward.wordpress.com/ Write It Forward by Bob Mayer

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/ Warrior Writer by Kristen Lamb

http://jenniholbrooktalty.wordpress.com/ Jenni Holbrook Talty

Be well, write well.

 

Monday Meditation

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

I’ve got bad news. Meditation is not the “quick and easy” idea several teachers and websites claim it to be. It’s so simple, it is REALLY, REALLY difficult. During my teacher education courses in college, I was admonished about forewarning students that “the following information or activity may be difficult, but do your best.” As a student, I would have appreciated knowing in advance that I was about to be trying to tame extremely hungry lions, but the prevailing teacher education message of the day was, “Don’t tell students in advance that the lesson is difficult. You are setting them up for failure.” Poo (and I don’t mean Tigger’s friend the chubby, blond bear.) If something is going to take work, I want to know up front.

Meditation takes work.

“How is that possible?” you ask. “All you do is sit there with your eyes closed. I do that every night once the wine kicks in.” Meditation is not sleeping. Snoring is a sign that your brain is bored and has fallen asleep. This is not meditation. Meditation is CONSCIOUS RELAXATION where thoughts are guided, not controlled or followed, but guided. Huh? We all have this state of thinking that is fondly referred to in meditation circles as “monkey mind.” Meditation is taming your monkey mind to keep it from jumping from thought to thought, image to image, and idea to idea. Taming monkey mind is not as easy as cracking a whip or stabbing at the air with a wooden stool. This may cause hungry lions to back down, but it does not scare monkey mind. Monkey mind responds better to kindness and compassion. Monkey mind ceases to chatter and screech, and finds a still place to rest if it is fed a steady diet of calmness, reassurance, and love.

I’ve recently explained how a simple set of words repeated over and over in your mind will calm your brain, breath, and body. http://writerwellness.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/monday-meditation-breath-in-breath-out/ It’s called a mantra, which literally means “mind tool” in the ancient Sanskrit language which is the mother tongue of meditation and yoga. It is always a very simple phrase like “Breath in. Breath out,” that is repeated rhythmically with the movement of the breath and sometimes the body.  A mantra is not quite a chant because chanting is a call to order, a statement of purpose, or a dedication. Mantras are always really, really simplistic and tend to feel musical as they are repeated over and over. They aim to produce a hypnotic state of stillness and peace by repeating the chosen phrase over and over until it doesn’t want to be repeated any longer. Yes, I said until the mantra decides it has been said enough. This is one point where the difficulty arises.

It reads like a simple exercise to mentally repeat a phrase until your mind is at rest, but the actual practice is challenging because monkey mind is typically very immature and difficult to appease. With time and practice, just like any normal toddler, monkey mind will learn to quiet down sooner and sooner when it hears the mantra, but it requires practice, practice, practice. One thing toddlers and monkey mind do NOT respond well to is punishment. No spanking, yelling, or time-outs in the corner for monkey mind. It will only mature and become quiet with patience, practice, and love.

So here’s the plan. Sit comfortably with your spine supported and your eyes closed. Yes, you can recline slightly as long as you PROMISE not to fall asleep. Better to sit upright. Begin by allowing monkey mind to chatter away about everything it can possibly think of. When you think the time is right, begin repeating the mantra you have chosen. (See list below.) Anytime monkey mind interrupts your mantra, kindly and gently IGNORE it and return to repeating the mantra. Set a timer so you don’t get frustrated. Start with three minutes once a day and gradually add a minute as you notice the time seems to “fly by.” That’s a signal you’re ready to increase your meditation time.

Simple? Let me know. Be kind to monkey mind and it will be kind to you.

Be well, write well.

Mantra suggestions:

Breath in, breath out

I breathe in, I breathe out

Peace in, negative out

I am

 

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

Food is our major source of energy. Long time ago our grandparents raised almost everything they ate but you know it isn’t that way any longer. Technology has set a pace for the human race that is exactly that: a race from sun up to sun down and beyond to be, do, get, fix, and plan lives that are dependent on the mass production of the food we eat. In exchange for technological progress, we have placed our trust in complete strangers to grow, prepare, and serve most of what we eat. Granted, the opposite choice is a little daunting. Who has the time, money, energy, or space to cultivate a garden or raise chickens? When my sister-in-law got my father-in-law a full grown rooster for his birthday, the city made him get rid of it because ordinances did not allow for the harboring of any animals other than cats, dogs, and reptiles. And the neighbors got pretty pi$$ed off when the rooster when off every morning in the middle of town at 4:00 a.m. So we’ve had to set aside our trust issues and rely on professionals for all our food.

Hmmm. Not yum, but hmmm.

Recently author Kristen Lamb blogged rcently on how one simple diet change changed her life for the better. She discovered a wheat and diary intolerance and now eats plenty of food I imagine but without excessive amounts of wheat because of the gluten and dairy because of the casein. Both are diet troublemakers for a lot more people than you would think.

http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/writer-wellness-one-simple-change-for-more-energy-focus/

I discovered the very same situation with my diet in 1998 when I was introduced to “The Blood Type Diet” popular among yoga practitioners at the time. I bought the book Eat Right For Your Type, The Individualized Diet Solution to Staying Healthy, Living Longer & Achieving Your Ideal Weight by Dr. Peter J. D’Adamo with Catherine Whitney and once I realized how much better I felt I have never looked back.

http://dadamo.com/

D’Adamo is a homeopathic physician and so was his father. D’Adamo the younger has carried the work of his father into the 21^st century with strong, reliable results. There is proven scientific support for the program. It’s based on a simple fact: not everybody can eat everything, nor should everybody eat the same things. The science is based on a thing called lectins that causes blood to get sticky and then causes all sorts of trouble from there. Read the book.

There are four blood types among humans and four food programs to follow according to D’Adamo. I don’t call it a diet. Ever since I heard Richard Simmons say, “The first three letters of the word ‘diet’ spell ‘die,’” I stopped using the word. I’m on a specific food program with an enormous list of foods acceptable to my blood type which is O. For half of my life, like Kristen, I would eat pasta and need a cot standing nearby to catch me. Wheat caused me to swell, retain fluids, and have headaches but I didn’t know it until I removed it from my diet and discovered a whole new way of being. And wheat is the number one offensive food for blood type O people. Go figure. Dairy ranks up there as tough on O-people but it’s do-able in moderation. Anytime I go beyond the moderate level of dairy, indigestion is the result.

Blood type “food program” isn’t without its critics, but I’m not one of them. How do I get around wheat in my diet when everybody we trust to make our food is filling it with the stuff because it’s cheap? I’ll explain that in a future Friday Feast, but don’t worry, I’m not hungry or asleep after eating like I used to be.

Be well, write well.

 

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

“Women with clean houses do not have finished books.” ~Me

There is a wonderful chapter in the classic writing text by Brenda Ueland titled “Why Women Who Do Too Much Housework Should Neglect It for Their Writing.” The title is enough to liberate me from the toils of the home but others may need a bit more convincing. Before I encourage you, male or female, to reduce the amount of housework you do so you have more writing time, I will qualify my remarks with saying that complete abandonment of the necessary tasks to keep a dwelling sanitary is not what I’m advocating. It’s a matter of accepting other people’s help.

Ueland’s chapter is in her inspirational book If You Want To Write, A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit first published in 1938. The copy I never let get too far away is a 1987 edition, and even though she was a turn-of-the-century woman, her advice is applicable to anyone who wants to write today. Her ideas have influenced my belief that everyone is a writer to some degree. Some take it farther than others. In this clever chapter, Ueland presents the work of former writing students from her classes and shows how as women they are quite talented writers but the demands of being mothers and wives seems to prohibit them from knowing the satisfaction of publication.

Online chats and luncheon table conversations at writing conferences never fail to spend some time bemoaning the fact that women have too many household responsibilities and civic chores to get any writing done. Whooey seems to be my word of choice this week, and I repeat it here. I homeschooled my two daughters for 18 years and published a non-fiction book, finished a historical romance novel, wrote weekly columns for three regional newspapers, published many poems, published book reviews online, and wrote 1-4 articles monthly for a trade magazine all while they were sitting at their desks beside me doing social studies and English. When it was time to focus on work where I couldn’t be interrupted, I made sure they were safely ensconced and closed the office door. The sign read “Do not disturb unless it’s bleeding, broken, or on fire. Love, Mommy.”

Ueland’s advice is similar: “If you would shut your door against the children for an hour a day and say: ‘Mother is working on her five-act tragedy in blank verse!’ you would be surprised how they would respect you. They would probably all become playwrights.”

What strikes me the most honestly about her comment is that my daughters reacted this very way to this very practice. My oldest called me this week to tell me she has arranged for me to speak to the undergraduate playwriting group in her college theatre department to talk about Writer Wellness and how it applies to their future careers as writers. I didn’t intentionally set out to raise more writers. Both daughters write really well. I set out to respect myself and model what a woman with a passion for something looks like so that when they find their passions they’ll know it.

If they grow up to be writers, I won’t be disappointed. I just hope I still have their rooms relatively “clean”. It’s a feast or famine career but one that even a mother can be proud of doing.

Of course, there’s the story where one day I heard the youngest child saying, “I don’t think Mommy likes matches,” and I flung the office door open pretty quickly.

Be well, write well.

 There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

I once read in a pop icon’s autobiography that none of his work was his own. He considered himself a vessel or a conduit for some unseen, powerful creative spirit and it was his duty to deliver these songs and dances to the world for this artistic deity. What if he was right? What if there is a master puppeteer pulling on our strings and sending us the ideas? For the sake of argument, shouldn’t we be in good condition to accept these wonderful creations? Would we fail the great artist if we were full of nicotine, fat, caffeine, drugs, and booze and didn’t have room to take in the art? Yes, there are scores of unhealthy artistic people who have left their marks on society but think of how much more valuable work we might have known from them if they were in better physical shape.

Except for those who have just landed on our fair planet, the rest of us are aware of the positive benefits of physical exercise. Weight loss, muscle tone, cardiovascular conditioning, longevity, improved mood, and better sex can all be the results of regular activity such as walking, yoga, and lifting weights. Granted, I’m simplifying things because I want to get to my point: what is the point of exercising? We know about the results, but what is the point? If we are going to be artistic chalices full of great ideas and inspiration, there has to be room for all that stuff. The main point of physical exercise is to remove toxins from the inside out to improve and regulate our bodily functions. Sluggishness creates more writer’s block and missed deadlines than lack of inspiration. When our bodies are full of crap, we can’t create as well. We have to exercise to help move all the crap out of our systems literally and figuratively.

“I will tell you what I have learned myself. For me, a long five or six mile walk helps. And one must go alone and every day.”

                ~Brenda Ueland, author If You Want To Write, A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit

Let’s cut to the chase. If you exercise physically on a regular and consistent basis, your writing will show marked improvement over time and it will be ENJOYABLE. Writing is downright painful and exhausting when writers are already bogged down with sweat, free radicals, evil thoughts and whatever else is built up in the body and mind from lack of trying to wring it from their very souls. But who has the time?

“I don’t have time” is the lazy person’s excuse. And it also means they have set unrealistic expectations for exercise. These ideals are crafted to set the person up for failure. So rather than schedule yourself to run the Boston marathon in the spring, design an exercise schedule that is manageable and practical for your individual needs.  Here are three quick ideas.

1. Keep two soft stress balls on your desk. Every hour stand up and squeeze the balls with your hands for one minute. Increase cardiovascular benefits by raising and lowering your arms as you squeeze.
2. Get a wooden foot roller thingy and keep it on the floor under your desk. Every hour, take off your shoes and massage the bottoms of your feet with the roller.
3. Take a walk every day. Inside on the treadmill or outside on the sidewalk. Start with five minutes and work up a thirty-minute walk several times a week.

Be well, write well.

 

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

“So you see, imagination needs moodling—long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering.”

                ~Brenda Ueland, author If You Want to Write, A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit

Creative people are dependent on their imaginations. The perpetual answer to, “What if?” fuels the work of artists, choreographers, teachers, writers, and anybody who relies on ideas for sustenance. Ideas are generally responses to sensory input from the world we experience day in and day out. If all it takes is the world to stimulate creative ideas, where did the idea of “writer’s block” come from? How is it possible NOT to have something to write about if all we need is experience? Writers become too comfortable in their surroundings and what feels like consistency becomes boredom. Boredom becomes complacency. When the brain is bored it shuts down. When we stop feeding our brains a variety of sensory impulses, we go on autopilot for a while, then the ideas dry up.

In Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way, she describes a process called “filling the well” as the work creative people require on a regular, ongoing basis in order to maintain “focused attention,” or what I call awareness. Many people think they are aware, but most people are secure in their situations because they have created and repeated them over and over until the sensory organs shut down and they think they are experiencing writer’s block. While it’s popular to say you have or have had writer’s block, I think it’s a bunch of whooey. Because if we journal often enough, read plenty, exercise regularly, avoid foods that cause us problems, and engage the world in new ways then writer’s block is a myth. A writer may not have the whole story plotted out or be writing on the work-in-progress every single day, but as long as that writer keeps the keyboard tapping or the pushing the pen or the body and the mind thinking and moving, they are not blocked. Ever. How does it work?

I was in the audience at a book fair several years ago and young adult bestselling author Phyllis Reynolds Naylor was answering questions. A  young man asked what she did when she had writer’s block. Ms. Naylor responded, “I never have writer’s block. I have writer’s diarrhea. I don’t have time to write all the stories I can think of.” A very prolific writer, Naylor knew that the more she wrote the more she had to write, but everyone gets tired. That’s when the brain needs entertaining and the chance to feed itself with sights, sounds, motions, smells, and feelings it hasn’t experienced recently to shake up the creative juices and get them spilling onto the page again. This is what I refer to as creative play. It’s when a writer takes a leap out into the world and thoughtfully fills her mind with the ideas, arts, and images of other creative people.

It’s more than reading a good book or going to the movies. It’s going to museums, taking walks, taking pictures, doodling in a journal, taking a class in ceramics or ballroom dance, and attending concerts and lectures that open your awareness to the possibilities out there. The practice of creative play or “filling the well” is the opposite of what most writers do all day in their jobs. That’s primarily why it’s such a challenge. Our writing is about us and just us. We manipulate fictional lives and imaginary settings, but creative play demands we go out in the world and gain a new awareness by appreciating the work of other artists. It’s that simple. Appreciate someone else’s work in a deep, thoughtful manner on a regular basis and you will never run out of anything to write.

Be well, write well.

There are five primary areas of practice to the Writer Wellness plan. Every other week I will post an idea for relaxation (Monday Meditation,) creative play (Tuesday Tickle,) fitness and exercise (Wednesday Workout,) journaling and misc. (Thursday Thought,) and nutrition (Friday Feast.)

“When I stop, I pass out,” said one of my college hatha yoga students. That means you are out of balance. It means you have neglected the quiet, still moments in life and your energy levels are at an all time low, so your body seizes the moment (when you stop) to knock you out cold so it can recharge. I call this backwards living because when we are going and doing constantly, it takes a punch in the belly to dump us a$$-over-tea-kettle so the body, mind, and spirit can get some rest. This is the hard way to achieve balance. In this zippy age of “just DO it,” 99% of the students I meet in yoga are looking for something to slow them down, but when they meet it head-on they resist. What we resist is what we need the most.

To look up the definition of “balance” in the dictionary would cause most people to slam the book shut and think, “How can one word have 27 different meanings? Forget it.” If you’ll spend a breath on the Latin (don’t freak) derivation, you’ll see that “balance” is Latin for “two scales”. Take your thoughts a bit farther and the image of the scales of justice should roll across your mind’s eye and you might take the leap to understand that “balance” is another word for “equality.” Hopefully, you think equality means giving both sides the same amount of time. It means striving to equalize your “doing” with your “being.”

We call ourselves human beings, but we are so much more human doings. Aren’t you always doing, going, getting, asking, etc. almost all the time? “Doing” is everything you’re responsible for and everyone you answer to. “Being” is much simpler. It is calming your mind until the only “doing” is breathing. Strangely, the human body, mind, and spirit react positively to an inequality of “doing” versus “being.” We can be much more active than inactive and our human carriages will show positive signs of health, but we must offer our bodies organized sessions of peace and quiet at regular intervals. In other words, it takes only a few minutes of “being” per day to balance many minutes of “doing” and we can achieve equilibrium.

The “being” is simply sitting or lying in a quiet, meditative state that is conscious relaxation when we are not talking, moving, thinking without obsessing (more on that later,) and simply appreciating the moment in which the only requirement of us is to breathe. It is not sleeping. It is conscious relaxation when our minds are focused on the breath and only the breath.

“Breath in, breath out,” is all we need to think and when something interrupts or tries to supersede that simple mantra, we do not follow its lead but continue the easy words in harmony with our natural breathing. As you breathe in, repeat to yourself, “Breath in.” As you breathe out, repeat to yourself, “Breath out.” Try it for five minutes, then ten minutes, then fifteen, and twenty minutes gradually increasing the time as you feel ready. It sounds easy, but let me know how easy it is or isn’t for you. If you’re human like the rest of us, it will present a lifelong challenge that will change your life forever and for the good.

Be well, write well.