The same is true for me when I’m\u00a0writing. It doesn’t matter if I’m writing ad copy or fiction, my words end up sounding different when\u00a0I’m feeling depressed or pressured.<\/p>\n
Back in the mid 2000’s (I think 2006?) a University of New South Wales Psychology Professor named Joe Forgas did a study proving that unhappy writers were more effective. According to his findings, unhappy people are more detail-oriented.\u00a0I suppose that could be true, but for me, the challenge of paying attention to details is easier to overcome than the far more subtle challenge of tone.<\/p>\n
Staying happy isn’t just about tone, though, it’s also about sanity. Writing a novel is a marathon that requires sacrifice and focus. To succeed, you have\u00a0to spend\u00a0a lot of time alone with a keyboard.\u00a0Don’t have those long hours also be spent in misery.<\/p>\n
That’s why I say “Write Happy!”<\/p>\n
Here are some tips that help me:<\/p>\n
- \n
- The cookie stack.<\/strong> Stack a pile of your favorite cookies next to your keyboard, and establish milestones\u00a0that allow you to eat\u00a0a cookie. Written five good pages? Eat a cookie. Fixed that chapter that has been driving you crazy? Cookie for you!<\/li>\n
- Read out loud.<\/strong>\u00a0This is a good idea for a lot of other reasons, too. I’m listing it here because there’s nothing like hearing the sound of your own writing when it’s going well. It’s an instant\u00a0pick-me-up. Also, spending eight hours a day in total silence isn’t healthy.\u00a0You may be talking to yourself, but at least you’re talking to someone!<\/li>\n
- Get up.<\/strong> Every once in a while, get up and stretch. Do some pushups or jumping jacks or something. The human body wasn’t built to sit on a chair all day. You need to get your blood pumping and activate your physical self.<\/li>\n
- Toys!<\/strong> I remember a member\u00a0of my critique group saying that\u00a0she could picture me using toy airplanes to work out the details of one of my dragon fights. She meant it as a joke, but she was absolutely correct. I do use toy airplanes. I also use my old foil from my fencing\u00a0days, toy dinosaurs,\u00a0little metal figurines, toy castles, building blocks, and even a \u00a0plastic meditating Rafiki. He’s who I turn to when everything seems to be going wrong.<\/li>\n
- Be silly:<\/strong>\u00a0So what if you’re all alone? That doesn’t mean you have to be boring.\u00a0Silly hats are a simple non-interrupting way to take away the oppressiveness of a long writing session.<\/li>\n
- Enjoy your writing!<\/strong> Hopefully, I didn’t have to add this one. If you’re\u00a0not enjoying the actual act of writing, you need to\u00a0do some serious soul-searching. Yes, there are times when you want to throw your keyboard out the window, but if you’re not having fun writing, you need to find a way to change that.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
What do you think? How do you help yourself write happy?<\/p>\n
![\"Writing](\"http:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/WritingHat.jpg\")
\nOne of my favorite writing hats!<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Are you writing happy? I am. Here are some tips how.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":378,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[8,20,35,51,96],"class_list":["post-275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-writing","tag-attitude","tag-craft","tag-fiction","tag-how-to","tag-writing-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/WritingHat-150x148.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6DpYi-4r","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":392,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275\/revisions\/392"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pat-matthews.com\/stories\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- Read out loud.<\/strong>\u00a0This is a good idea for a lot of other reasons, too. I’m listing it here because there’s nothing like hearing the sound of your own writing when it’s going well. It’s an instant\u00a0pick-me-up. Also, spending eight hours a day in total silence isn’t healthy.\u00a0You may be talking to yourself, but at least you’re talking to someone!<\/li>\n