In a post on DIY MFA, Julie Slaughter shares her experiences with anxiety and offers tips for how to manage through it. “What’s so dangerous about writing? Everything it seems, from picking or not picking up the pen, writing too much or too little, not writing in the right genre, not knowing which genre it is, knowing that what you’ve written could be done so much better, and all that other anxiety crap,” she says.
But that’s not the fault of writing, but rather our amygdala. If you deal with anxiety of any kind but particularly around your writing, Slaughter suggests some ways to deal with it:
- Be a Tree. Anxiety unbalances our senses, so rooting yourself in the physical world can help you feel more grounded. Make contact with physical objects – even something as simple as the floor or your chair – and let yourself be aware of texture, pressure, and other sensations.
- Breathe through Your Anxiety. Take deep breaths that fill your lungs and expand your stomach. “You can follow through with this exercise, which is really good to control physical anxiety symptoms, like dizziness and feeling like you can’t breathe,” Slaughter writes. “It can also bring you out of the messy thoughts.”
- Get Some Perspective. Anxiety will have us worrying about the smallest matters and help us blow them completely out of proportion. Things like missed deadlines and negative feedback on a manuscript can leave us doubting ourselves, if not destined to die alone in an alley where we live with 37 stray cats in our cardboard box. Chances are pretty good the world will not end if you don’t write today or if your workshop doesn’t love your latest chapter.
- Make a Plan. Tasks are easier to manage when they are organized. Putting it all in writing can help you get a handle on even complex projects and goals. A list of discrete tasks is much easier to manage and can feel less overwhelming. Once you have your list, flag your priorities and work those first. Delegate and delete what you can.
- Make Friends. Writers tend to have similar hangups, Slaughter says. Find an online or in-person writer’s group. Yes, meeting new people might also cause new anxiety, but it helps. We promise.
