by CJ Myerly, @mdippedinink
You sit at your desk, determined to hit a certain goal when that pesky to-do list distracts. You receive a message on Facebook from a friend. Then, your four-year-old bursts into your writing space to beg you to help with a puzzle. Then, and only then, does the beginning of a headache emerge, making writing nearly impossible.
No matter what your life is like, there are millions of distractions everywhere around you.
But I’ve found the key to keeping your focus: lifting your eyes to Christ.
When we focus on our to-do list, it doesn’t all get done. When we focus on the housework and our day job, often writing falls by the wayside.
Schedule your writing block and aim to keep Christ the focus. Here are four ways to do that.
Open with Prayer
Open your writing block with prayer. Ask God to use you to give the message of your story to potential readers. Ask Him to give you the words that sometimes evade us.
Eliminate Distractions
Choose a time of day that will allow for the least amount of distractions. For me, that is between 10 p.m. and midnight. I’m a night owl, and my kids and husband are often asleep. If the children wake (since motherhood is 24/7), my husband goes to them. We treat it like a job as if I had a two-hour shift that I can’t get away from.
Log out of Facebook. Don’t check your e-mails. Silence your phone. Keep a glass of water nearby so your writing block isn’t interrupted by thirst.
Make a Plan
At the end of my writing block, I take ten to fifteen minutes to analyze where my story is. Using The Story Equation, I’ve already plotted out my story. Now, I can get down to the nitty gritty and think about the goals my characters will have in the next scene. I keep a whiteboard at my desk and I jot down a few notes.
Then, the next day, the scene blooms in my mind while I do a reading lesson with my daughter or while I’m making lunch or taking the kids outside. The goal of planning is to simplify when I return. If I’ve mapped out the POV, setting, mood, characters, and events of the next scene, my mind can create throughout the day.
End with Praises to the Lord.
Whether you wrote 300 words or 3,000 words, praise the Lord for the time you’ve had. I like to end by listening to a praise song that means something to me.
The beauty of writing inspirational fiction is the moving of the Spirit through us. If we don’t keep Him at the center of our writing, how then can His message be shared?
CJ Myerly lives in Texas with her husband and two children. She balances her passions of teaching and writing by homeschooling during the day and writing contemporary romance while her family sleeps at night. She hates clutter, loves organization, and has a love-hate relationship with technology. CJ is an active member of the ACFW and My Book Therapy. She was a 2017 Genesis semi-finalist in the contemporary category and a 2017 First Impressions finalist in the romance category. She blogs about books, motherhood, and homeschooling at http://momentsdippedinink.com. To connect with her, find her on Facebook or Twitter.