Month: June 2019

9 Tips to Manage Writers RSI

~ Libby Sommer ~ 8 Comments

yoga pose at sunrise

Repetitive strain injury often starts gradually but can soon become severely debilitating. But there are ways to nip it in the bud – and alleviate the worst symptoms.

1. Take Frequent Breaks

Take short, frequent breaks from repetitive tasks such as typing. A 10-minute break every hour. Use the computer only as much as you have to. Small hand movements, like scrolling on a screen, seem to set off RSI.

2. Type using both hands

It’s like playing the piano; correct fingering is essential. We tend to overuse one side of the body.

Become ambidextrous, e.g. use the mouse in your other hand, lift the kettle with the other hand.

3. Move

Get up from your desk every 30 minutes and move your neck and shoulders to release tension.

4. Use a Fountain Pen

When writing by hand, use a thick grip fountain pen that flows really well, rather than a ballpoint pen. Needing to push down on the pen, even lightly, makes the inflammation of RSI worse.

5. Check the ergonomics of your work station

Keep wrists straight and flat when typing. Sit with thighs level, feet flat on floor (or on footrest), sit up straight, shoulders relaxed, upper arms at sides, not splayed out, forearms horizontal or tilted slightly downwards, so knees and elbows are at a right angle. Keep the top of your screen at eye level and adjust the position of your keyboard, so it’s easy to reach without stretching or hunching. Don’t slouch. Use good posture. To keep wrists straight and flat use a gel wrist rest for the keyboard and the mouse.

6. Keep wrist straight when sleeping

Don’t curl your hands into a fist when sleeping. Some people wear a brace to keep their sore wrist straight.

7. Strengthen the supporting muscles

A physio will give you exercises to do to strengthen the arms. e.g. bicep curls

8. Stretch

Stretch neck, shoulders, arms, wrists. I find yoga is excellent for a full body stretch. The downward facing dog pose can cause discomfit in the hands, but I try to remember to flatten the knuckles to reduce pressure on the wrists.

9. Massage

Like yoga, a regular massage helps keep the body aligned and pain free.

 

Hope you find these tips useful. Good luck.

 

How to Find Something New to Write About

~ Libby Sommer ~ 7 Comments

girl learning person studying

Every once in a while, when I’m scratching around for something new to write, I make a list of the things I obsess about.  Thankfully, some of them change over time, but there are always new ones to fill the gap.

It’s true that writers write about what they think about most of the time.  Things they can’t let go: things that plague them; stories they carry around in their heads waiting to be heard.

Sometimes I used to get my creative writing groups to make a list of the topics they obsess about so they can see what occupies their thoughts during their waking hours.  After you write them down, you can use them for spontaneous writing before crafting them into stories.  They have much power.  This is where the juice is for writing.  They are probably driving your life, whether you realise it or not, so you may as well use them rather than waste your energy trying to push them away.  And you can come back to them repeatedly.

One of the things I’m always obsessing about is relationships:  relationships in families, relationships with friends, relationships with lovers.  That’s what I tend to write about.  I think to myself, Why not?  Rather than repress my obsessions, explore them, go with the flow.  And life is always changing, so new material keeps presenting  itself.

We are driven by our passions.  Am I the only one who thinks this?  For me these compulsions contain the life force energy.  We can exploit that energy.  The same with writing itself.  I’m always thinking and worrying about my writing, even when I’m on holidays.

But not all compulsions are a bad thing.  Get involved with your passions, read about them, talk to other people about them and then they will naturally become ‘grist for the mill’.

What about you?  Do you find yourself writing about the same things over and over again? 

How to Write Story Beginnings

~ Libby Sommer ~ 11 Comments

adult book book store bookcase

I’m trying to write a good solid beginning for my new book. I don’t know yet if I’ll be able to maintain the narrative momentum necessary to complete another book length marathon because what I do best is the short form: short stories, flash fiction, prose poems. I’m a sprinter rather than a long distance runner. However, I do have an idea for the setting of the story, the main character and the situation. But that’s all.

Here are the first few paragraphs of my work in progress. My fingers are crossed that I will make it to the end of the story.

“From the window all she could see was a thick expanse of white. She imagined that beyond the bleached park, bereft of native flora, but sprouting feral Norfolk Island pines, lay the immense Pacific Ocean, its agitated waves unravelling along the distant sand of the beach. A few metres beyond that she pictured the white tower and lantern of the Harbour Light, as pictured on the hotel’s website, silently but steadily showing the way.

It was early winter. The tourists had left, the rates were cheaper, and there wasn’t much to look forward to in this sleepy seaside town. Its residents – mostly retirees – were tucked up at home or on holidays in warmer climates. The thick fog that hung low for days on end and the bitter wind from the sea would disappear in its own time to uncover a totally different scene: seagulls skimming the shore, pelicans at the pier, an outdoor craft market, the intermittent feisty spurt of water from the blowhole, formed from basalt lava 260 million years ago, named “kiarama” by Aboriginals, place where the sea makes a noise.

On the jaunty semi-rural valley to the south were dark red cows, producers of butter fat and protein milk. This was a land of dairy-farming plenty, the place where the mountains touched the sea, leaving only the weather frustratingly beyond restraint.

Kirsten Craig, a writer of crime fiction under a more testosterone-fuelled name, kept standing by the window, as if by sheer force of will she could penetrate the confusing mist. She yearned for clarity, an uncomplicated, black or white, answer. She’d find what she needed: peaceful hotel, good food, long walks by the sea, lack of stress, early nights. She would resurrect her conscientious and work-focused persona and put out of her mind the foolishness that had led to her being in this small town, at this slowly darkening time of the year, when she should have been at home.”

According to ‘How to Write a Good Hook & Start Your Novel with a Bang!’ by BookBub:

  1. Startle readers with the first line. …
  2. Begin at a life-changing moment. …
  3. Create intrigue about the characters. …
  4. Use a setting as the inciting incident. …
  5. Up the stakes within the first few pages. …
  6. Introduce something ominous right away. …
  7. Set the mood. …
  8. Make your characters sympathetic — and relatable — immediately.
  9. Draw in the reader with a strong voice
  10. Start at a moment of confusion
  11. Don’t get bogged down with exposition
  12. End the first chapter with a killer cliffhanger

Author Jerome Stern writes in ‘Making Shapely Fiction’:

‘In the first draft of a story, no rules apply. You write and write, ideas come, characters change, situations grow, dialogues take off, speeches become scenes, and surprises occur. … After this first draft exists, then you can bring to bear some of your critical faculties and see what you can see about your creation.’

‘The Art of Fiction’ author David Lodge asks:

‘When does a novel begin? The question is almost as difficult to answer as the question, when does the human embryo become a person? Certainly the creation of a novel rarely begins with the penning or typing of its first words. Most writers do some preliminary work, if it is only in their heads. Many prepare the ground carefully over weeks or months, making diagrams of the plot, compiling c.v.s for their characters, filling a notebook with ideas, settings, situations, jokes, to be drawn on in the process of composition. Every writer has his or her own way of working.

Hope you find this post useful. Let me know in the comments if there’s something you’d like to add about your own experience of writing a story beginning.

How to Turn Towards Your Inner Critic

~ Libby Sommer ~ 4 Comments

man wearing brown suit jacket mocking on white telephone

It is essential to separate the creator and the editor, or inner critic when you practice writing, so that the creator has plenty of room to breathe, experiment, and tell it like it really is.  If the inner critic is being too much of a problem and you can’t distinguish it from your authentic writing voice, sit down whenever you find it necessary to have some distance from it and put down on paper what the critic is saying, put a spotlight on the words—“You have nothing original to say, what made you think you could write anything anyone would want to read, your writing is crap, you’re a loser, I’m humiliated, you write a load of rubbish, your work is pathetic, and your grammar stinks …”  On and on it goes!

Say to yourself, It’s OK to feel this.  It’s OK to be open to this.

You can learn to cultivate compassion for yourself  during this internal process by practicing Mindfulness Meditation.  Sit up straight, close your eyes, bring your awareness to your inner experience.  Now,  redirect your attention to the physical sensations of the breath in the abdomen … expanding as the breath comes in … and falling back as the breath goes out.  Use each breath to anchor yourself in the present.   Continue, concentrating on the breath for several minutes.  Now, expand your field of awareness to include the words of the inner critic.  Turn your attention to where in your body you feel the unpleasant thoughts, so you can attend, moment by moment, to the physical reactions to your thoughts.

 “Stay with the bodily sensations, accepting them, letting them be, exploring them without judgment as best you can.”—Mindfulness, Mark Williams and Danny Penman.

Every time you realise that you’re judging yourself, that realisation in itself is an indicator that you’re becoming more aware.

The thing is, the more clearly you know yourself, the more you can accept the critic in you and use it.  If the voice says, “You have nothing interesting to say,” hear the words as white noise, like the churning of a washing machine.  It will change to another cycle and eventually end, just like your thoughts that come and go like aeroplanes in the sky.  But, in the meantime, you return to your notebook and practice your writing.  You put the fear and the resistance down on the page.

Every Type of Feedback and Criticism Writers Will Face (and How to Deal With Them)

~ Libby Sommer ~ 2 Comments

Check out this post from the Novelty Revisions blog on ‘Every Type of Feedback and Criticism Writers Will Face (and how to deal with them).

Meg Dowell Writes

Most writers cringe at the idea of criticism. Yet they desperately crave feedback.

Some feel they need to hear they are doing something right. Others want to know everything they are doing wrong, so they can go off and figure out how to do better.

It’s a tough part of the process to navigate. But if you know the different types of feedback you are likely to receive once you start putting yourself out there, you’ll be much more equipped to deal with it. So here’s your not-so-quick guide to handling feedback and criticism in publishing.

Helpful, gentle, constructive feedback

This is the kind of criticism everyone hopes for but doesn’t get from everyone (or anyone). It generally involves a healthy balance of helpful feedback that is presented in a kind and teachable manner, both in its positive and negative aspects.

In one of my writing internships in college, we…

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